This study focuses on the basis by which deep-sea container operators select container ports and container terminals in the Hamburg - Le Havre region. The focus is not on the best location, the most efficient port, or other efficiency issues, but to try to understand and analyse the decision making process of deep-sea container carriers when selecting a container port and when selecting a container terminal to invest in or to buy handling capacity from. Three aspects have been analysed: buying decision characteristics (literature review), port choice strategy (interviews) and, terminal selection (interviews). The literature review showed that especially thenon-programmed decisions (port selection and to a lesser extent terminal investment) are more difficult than the more programmed decision of buyingterminal handling capacity. This is underlined by the buying decision. This shows that the port selection and terminal investment decisions are more complicated tasks than the purchase of terminal handling capacity. The interviews indicated that next to service and cost factors, a carriers portchoice behaviour might also be affected by the fit of the port in the trade, the requirements imposed by the alliance structure they operate in, byshippers/customers location and relations, by the strategic considerations of shipping lines (e.g. existing contracts, market entry and penetration) and by the arrangements between the shipping line and incumbent terminaloperators (e.g. dedicated terminal facilities). These strategic considerations (for port choice) are the most important as long as cost differencesbetween dedicated versus common terminals are acceptable. After this strategic level, the following three criteria are important for port choice: availability of hinterland connections, reasonable tariffs, and immediacy of consumers (large hinterland). In addition to these criteria, feeders, environment, and the total portfolio have been mentioned several times as extra (or missing) criteria. The decision-making results are different per container carrier, per trade, per port type, etc. It is important to have the best score on criteria and corresponding indicators. But, the importance per criterion is different per container carrier. In the end, it is important to offer a good total package to the proposed customers of a container port. Finally, most respondents indicated that port choice is far more important than terminal selection. For the terminal selection problem, speed, handling costs, reliability and hinterland connections are important criteria when capacity and availability of terminal handling capacity is sufficient. With regard to the exploitation and operation of container terminals, the preference of most deep-sea container carriers is to have (partly) owned dedicated container terminals. In case of a lack of terminal capacity (e.g. to serve ultra-large container vessels) strategic considerations affect the choice between investing in- or buying handling capacity. Container carriers will strive to secure handling capacity in a tight market and in the Hamburg - Le Havre region are currently doing so by investing in terminals. For further research, this means that a distinction must be made between port choice and container terminal selection. For the coveringabstract see ITRD E145999
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