Central America: Small countries with active border-crossing transport on land

This chapter applied the intermodal container cargo flow simulation model to Central America. Because it consists of several small countries but has two coastlines with different characteristics in the maritime shipping network, many container flows across national borders can be observed. After confirming that the outputs estimated from the model agreed well with the observed data, three kinds of simulations were examined that focused on La Union port, a new container terminal in El Salvador. The first simulation showed that the model can reproduce well the observed annual container throughput in La Union port if a new service were to call at the port. Then, the future annual throughput for La Union port was forecast for each possible scenario of the liner service network calling at the port, under the condition of the annual throughput in Acajutla port being capped. The annual throughputs were estimated at more than 500,000 TEU in 2030 if La Union port functioned as a regional hub, achieved by maintaining an access channel sufficiently deep (− 13 m or deeper), whilst throughputs would be 250,000 TEU at most if the port remained a feeder and way-port service port. Furthermore, the simulation result indicates that if the cargo-handling tariff in La Union port was increased to almost three times the current level after concluding concession contracts under the private-public partnership scheme, the annual estimated throughputs would decrease by 50,000–100,000 TEU, in comparison with throughputs where an increase in the tariff has not taken place. These are not negligible differences, but the expected amount of increased income would be rather larger because the tariff is assumed to be increased three times its current rate. However, if any barriers to crossing the national borders are eliminated, a tariff increase would more severely affect the container throughput in La Union port.