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This paper aims to investigate the location of regional and international hub ports in liner shipping by proposing a hierarchical hub location problem.

This paper develops a mixed-integer linear programming model for the authors’ proposed problem. Numerical experiments based on a realistic Asia-Europe-Oceania liner shipping network are carried out to account for the effectiveness of this model.

The results show that one international hub port (i.e. Rotterdam) and one regional hub port (i.e. Zeebrugge) are opened in Europe. Two international hub ports (i.e. Sokhna and Salalah) are located in Western Asia, where no regional hub port is established. One international hub port (i.e. Colombo) and one regional hub port (i.e. Cochin) are opened in Southern Asia. One international hub port (i.e. Singapore) and one regional hub port (i.e. Jakarta) are opened in Southeastern Asia and Australia. Three international hub ports (i.e. Hong Kong, Shanghai and Yokohama) and two regional hub ports (i.e. Qingdao and Kwangyang) are opened in Eastern Asia.

This paper proposes a hierarchical hub location problem, in which the authors distinguish between regional and international hub ports in liner shipping. Moreover, scale economies in ship size are considered. Furthermore, the proposed problem introduces the main ports.