The future position of small and medium sized ports in Europe and a framework for re-engineering their basic processes.

This paper is based on the work that the authors are doing as project manager and deputy project manager correspondingly of the SPHERE project (DGVII Transport Research Programme). At first, a concise picture of the current situation and future prospects for the small and medium sized ports in Europe is given. This is based on a comprehensive survey of 56 ports and 83 port users from13 European countries, conducted during the course of the project. Then the paper discusses the methodology of re-engineering current port processes and introduces the Value System concept which is suggested as the most suitable for fulfilling the identified requirements of the port system. (A)