Abstract
The authors proposed an international container shipping model in Eastern Asia, based on a comprehensive network analysis. In this model, the scale economy of vessel size, transshipment of containers, congestion effect on ports, various factors pertaining to port performance and the global alliances of shipping companies are considered. Three hypotheses in traffic assignment based on the situation of the container market were tested, and it was concluded that the per-group system optimum hypothesis provided the best fitness to reality. Characteristics of Asian ports were analyzed and it was shown how the function of ports changes in future. It was also found that port improvement causes changes of wide range container flow-patterns.
