Portal Red Investigadores de Economía

Scotland's low accessibility is reflected in the limited share of Scottish unitised freight traffic coming through Scottish ports. This paper will discuss site development strategies to overcome Scotland's double peripherality (i.e. both physically and institutionally) by restructuring transport chains of large shippers through new corridors. Three competing logistics concepts will be discussed, beginning with the existing load centre terminal that provides direct access to the distant main ports. Second, port-centric logistics based at Scottish ports, and finally, offshore port-centric logistics utilising maritime links to a port-based distribution centre in Zeebrugge. The paper has two interlinked aims. First, to provide a firm theoretical grounding for recent maritime transport geography concepts, which has been lacking in the literature. This will be achieved by examining peripherality and responses to this by states at different scales, thus exploring how the three concepts in this paper can be viewed as attempts at spatial fixes of mobile capital. The second aim develops out of the first, and will explore how the perspective of space is treated in maritime geography as compared with other areas of geography. As a result, the paper pursues a cross-disciplinary approach by utilising theory from economic geography and political geography.

Port-centric logistics, dry ports and offshore logistics hubs: strategies to overcome double peripherality?