A study on the evolution of competition pattern of inland container ports along the Yangtze River in China

With the continuous expansion of the number and scale of inland container ports, they will inevitably compete for goods traffic. Additionally, conflicts in port location, route layout, freight subsidy and regional economic cooperation coexist in the development process of inland container ports, which makes the co-opetition relations between inland container ports are more complex. Therefore, this paper proposes a research framework of inland port competition using port competition theory, spatial statistics, and two-regime spatial econometric model. The analysis includes the overall situation of inland container ports competition, the evolution of competition pattern and the quantification of competition intensity. Based on this analysis process, we select the Yangtze River basin for empirical analysis. The results show that the competition realtions of inland container ports along the Yangtze River has undergone fundamental changes in the past 20 years, the overall intensity of competition has continued to increase. Moreover, the competition not only exists between adjacent inland container ports, but also occurs between distant ports. Most importantly, the dominant inland container ports rarely drive the development of surrounding ports, but rather have a restraining effect. Last, the competition between inland container ports in underdeveloped areas is more intense, and the development of foreign trade and industry has the greatest impact on the competition.