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In this paper, we undertake an overview of port migration throughout the world from two perspectives, qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative perspective discusses existing models, drivers and impediments of port migration, supported by concrete cases from around the world. . The quantitative approach measures port migration patterns using urban population and vessel traffic data of about 4,000 places from the 1950s to the present, calculating the volume and share of “outer” versus “inner” traffic and analysing/mapping its evolution/distribution. In conclusion, we discuss the universality of port migration and its readable effects on urban growth or decline.

The market environment of ports and terminals is continuously pushing terminal operators to achieve higher levels of dock labour performance. This paper proposes an original conceptual framework to identify, classify and evaluate innovative initiatives of terminal operators addressed to enhance dock labour performance. We link the innovation concept to a market-driven perspective on the organization of dock work in light of changing market requirements. The conceptual approach not only considers technological innovations, but also organisational and regulatory innovations. The framework is used to analyse a set of innovative initiatives of terminal operators in European seaports. The findings reveal that innovative initiatives can have very different characteristics and ramifications when looking at the type of innovation, the boundaries of innovation, the nature of the actors involved, the (expected) magnitude of impact and the impact of labour performance.

Inland waterway transport (IWT) in Ukraine is currently in its infancy stage in comparison with other land based transport modes (rail and road) and with other countries that possess navigable rivers. This paper is an extension of the research initiated by Grushevska and Notteboom (2015, 2016) where the concepts of intermediacy and centrality are introduced in order to assess the role of Ukraine in the global and regional transport networks. The list of key obstacles for Ukraines intermediacy function includes such IWT related barriers as: (i) deficient inland waterway infrastructure, (ii) high IWT costs (fees for bridges, locks etc. ) and (iii) pilotage charges. To date the transportation to/from ports is mainly fulfilled by road or by rail-based multimodal transport solutions. We have analysed the unutilized potential of Ukrainian IWT that needs to be efficiently exploited for the benefit of the national economy and national transport system. This study intends to enrich the limited academic research on IWT systems in a transition stage, as exemplified by the case of Ukraine.