Identifying Factors for Selecting Land over Maritime in Inter-Regional Cross-Border Transport

Abstract

Several cross-border land corridor projects have been implemented worldwide, because land transport is a vital alternative to international maritime transport in inter-regional transport. Maritime transport generally costs less than land transport, but it is much slower. Nonetheless, land transport can be more appropriate than maritime under certain situations. This study aims to identify factors that can help select between these two modes in long-distance inter-regional cross-border transport; to this end, a Tobit model is employed to estimate the dependent variable, i.e., the land ratio of origin–destination pairs between countries and/or areas. Eight variables are identified as significant: distance, export of manufacturing commodity, landlocked country/area, neighboring country/area, country risk, infrastructure level, port-access time, and maritime transport frequency. We also find that geographical conditions, country relationship, and regulations are barriers for selecting land transport. However, cross-border land corridors contribute to the increase of land ratio.