Instructions
With the aid of examples, critically examine the role of port related companies in the smooth operation of intermodal transportation through ports.
Information about this assessment
- You can choose an essay OR report format, but not a mixture of the two. See the attached formatting advice for information on how to lay out your answer.
- For your examples, choose ONE port and at least ONE but not more than THREE businesses that operate within the port. The businesses must be involved in intermodal transportation. They could include an ocean carrier, a stevedoring company, a freight forwarding company, a warehousing and storage company, a trucking company, a rail freight company, a port security company etc
- You need to examine the way your chosen business works with the port authority, with customs and security clearance, and with other businesses to facilitate efficient intermodal transportation through the port.
- Pay attention to port community organisations and communications between businesses and between the port and the customer.
- There are two broad approaches to this question that you can take. i) If you have access to a port or port business, you can focus on the actual processes taking place (but you still need some theory). ii) If you do not have access you can focus on the theoretical literature, and use information from secondary sources such as company websites to provide your examples.
- Using your work as evidence, draw conclusions about the role of port related companies in the smooth operation of intermodal transportation through ports. What is the most important element: port authority leadership, communications, a port community organisation, other organisational structures, the efficiency of individual businesses, government policy or something else?
- Provide a reference for all the ideas, facts, tables and illustrations in your work, using the Harvard system
- Write in comprehensible academic English with grammar and spelling checked by your word processing programme and corrected so far as possible
- Paraphrase your sources so that you write with your own structure and in your own words, or use quotation marks and full references for all quotations
* For this essay you need to use Hong Kong Ports