Introduction to global container shipping market

International audienceThis chapter recalls and demonstrates deep changes in the way maritime transport had been reorganised with the ongoing advent of containerisation in the past decades up to the present time. This multifaceted approach to containerisation is not so common as often, specific aspects are well covered and analysed by scholars and professionals but without offering an all-encompassing view. A review of the complex and changing relationships between containerisation (technological change) and economic development, port and shipping line operations, and related impacts on former ways of doing things is necessary before widening the approach to other segments of the global value and supply chain, such as hinterlands and shipping networks, as described in the other chapters