ABSTRACT
Urban road capacity expansion, on the other hand, has different implications on container throughput. We find that own urban road capacity is positively correlated with the container throughput of the Port of NYNJ, the Port of LALB, and the Port of Miami while negatively correlated with the throughputs of the other ports in our sample. Furthermore, except the Port of Charleston and the Port of Jacksonville, the container throughput of a port tends to be negatively correlated with its rival’s road capacity. The relationship between road capacity and container throughput via the changes in road congestion delays is largely consistent with the predictions obtained from the quantitycompetition analytical model. That is, via the change of road congestion, an increase in road capacity implies an increase in the output by the port nearby but a decrease in the output by its rival port. Therefore, adding more roads might be an effective strategy to improve a port’s competitiveness, provided that road capacity expansion solely affects road congestion while having a little negative impact on the port through other channels. Local governments and port management should be cautious when deciding to provide more roads so as to reduce hinterland congestion and increase throughput, as adding road capacity might be harmful to the port’s throughput overall, although beneficial in terms of mitigating road congestion.
