The liner shipping network of the world has been changing in an insidious yet significant way over
the last twenty years. Though the amount of containerized trade has been growing and the number of
nations that engage in scheduled services has been growing marginally, the tendency of countries
that are directly linked by sea routes has been diluted...
The initial two figures offer the network map of the liner shipping system in the world at the
beginning of 2006 and that of 2026. The nodes are all countries, and the line indicates that there
is at least one direct container shipping route between two countries...
The shift is well depicted in the third figure, the histogram comparing degree distributions. In
2006, direct shipping partners went up to 28.1 on average. By 2026, this fell to 25.2...
At the international level, the median number of liner companies per bilateral is constant at four.
Nevertheless, the mean decreases from 8.32 to 9.76 from 2006 to 2026...
