Effects of Incentive Policy on Maritime Stakeholders in Japanese Local Ports

Abstract

This study simulates the effects of “incentive policy” on maritime stakeholders in Japanese local ports. In incentive policy,local government (owner of the port) provides monetary support for shippers and/or shipping company in order to obtain more containers. We employ a multi-agent simulation model to express interactions among stakeholders, such as port manager, shipping company, and shipper. The model is applied to the case study for local ports in Kyushu region, Japan where three local ports (i.e. Miike, Kumamoto, and Yatsushiro ports) plus one major port (i.e. Hakata port) are available. We find that incentive policy for shipper is not effective in terms of total surplus in spite of slight increase in container volume are observed. On the other hand, incentives for shipping company is able to increase both container volume and total surplus only if shipping company could increase their port of calls (i.e. frequency) by the monetary support given by local government.