Port Market Segmentation Based on Wilson Model

Port is an important component of the transportation system, faulty port planning will lead to giant resource waste and irretrievable economic loss. Before port's construction, it should definite the port market scale which is the foundation for a port in its development and survival from drastic competition. The analysis of port market scale is essential prerequisite and special requirement to a port planning. It is directly related to the success of a port plan on how to make quantitative analysis on port market with scientific theory, model and method and how to determine the reasonable scale of port market in the process of port planning and construction. This paper is an attempt study of these issues, in order to improve the scientific and rationality of the present port maket segmentation. The definition of port market is described and main influencing factors of port market segmentation include market factor, port factor and the connection fact are listed at first in this paper. We make comparison among the common methods of present port market segmentation such as administrative division method, pivot and ligament method, membership degree method, location quotient method, Wilson Model and so on. On this basis, Wilson Model is mainly applied. Then empirically we make analysis on market segmentation methods according to actual situation of the adjacent Tianjin port and Qingdao port. Based on the analysis and study, the Wilson Model can reflect more approximate to the practical market segmentation, which makes the planning of port development more objective and more scientific.