Abstract
East Asia is the most blooming area among global container shipping services. Most of the oceangoing lines select major ports such as Busan, Shanghai, Yantian, Hongkong, etc. as the transshipment and hub points. Since the deployment of trunk routes operated by main liners in this region is getting complicated and diversified, it is worth while to comprehend the operations of shipping liner, and the influential factors of hub ports choice in this area. This paper starts with an overall analysis of the performance of hub ports and change of trunk routes deployment based on statistical data of port operations, slots supply and operating routes of main shipping lines etc., collected from various sources. Secondly, the influential factors of selecting hub ports by shipping lines are investigated by conducting a questionnaire survey. Finally, the Gray decision model would be used to rank the relative competitiveness of these major ports from the viewpoints of container liners.
