Maritime world cities: development of the global maritime management network

This research extends the current insights concerning maritime world cities. The analysis starts with the use of the Globalisation and World Cities (GaWC) methodology for identifying world cities. New calculations are made for the management of container flows in 2009 and 2012. Next, we calculate the maritime city network based on the management of bulk transport operations. Finally, we test the presumption of GaWC that there are regular contacts between all offices of a global company by using a new, more qualitative approach. This consists of interviews with the managing directors of the Antwerp branches of the 20 major global container lines trying to reveal the actual communication patterns between maritime offices. The results show that the GaWC methodology is based on plausible assumptions. Some caution is however advised, communication with nearby cities is underestimated, while contacts with increasing distance between cities are overestimated.