The next step on the port generations ladder: Customer-centric and community ports

Ports play a crucial role in international shipping and inland transport sectors as nodes in supply chain systems . .As the world is being transformed into a globalised economy, ports have been incorporated into a huge, changing and competitive system, providing commercially-oriented as well as customer centric services. The concept of 'port generations' was first introduced in 1994 by UNCTAD (i.e. the third generation port). Since then it has been followed by several well-founded proposals for fourth generation ports. This paper suggests that a 'four port generations' framework is not enough to reflect the port functions required by the community and the needs of port users in the rapidly evolving globalised economic system. This paper crims to develop a conceptual framework on Fifth Generation Ports characterized by the emergence of world-class customer-centric and community port.