Edinburgh Napier University

  Scotland's low accessibility is reflected in the limited share of Scottish unitised freight traffic coming through Scottish ports. This paper will consider 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 compared. The first concept involves using a dry port that provides direct access to the distant main ports. Secondly, inverse logistics, whereby a smaller port can use an inland terminal to compete for access to a market currently struggling with congested access to these main ports. Thirdly, an offshore RDC concept that uses maritime links to an optimised port-based RDC (port-centric logistics) rather than conventional road and rail links to land-accessible but sub-optimal RDCs. Each concept represents a different project that should be pursued differently, depending on how they fulfil various private or public sector aims.

This paper will contribute to the transport geography literature by building on previous conceptual work on inland terminal classification, dry ports, port-centric logistics and offshore hubs. Furthermore, the paper aims to show the relevance of developments in the maritime sector to the discipline of geography, as issues of peripherality and path dependence influence and are influenced by maritime trade flows. The recent trend towards utilising the tools of institutional analysis in maritime transport geography can reveal insights relating to governance reform across uneven spatial scales that will be of relevance to other areas of geography