ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a brief literature review for liner shipping network analysis, followed by a general description of Portuguese ports and of a database of liner services that serve these ports. The database results are then used to identify the major types of liner services that call at Portuguese ports. The chapter discusses the number of services, type of services, regions served, frequency and capacity. A comparison is made with the typical container trades that pass near the Portuguese coast. The matter is then analyzed from the perspective of which ports are most often connected to Portugal, how numerous the services are and what their geographical dispersion is. The chapter demonstrates how other sources of information apart from AIS ship movement databases may be used to characterize the profiles of ports with regard to the number and type of liner services.
