A comparative study of the cargo hinterlands of the ports of Detroit, Cleveland, and Toledo

Includes bibliographical references (pages 78-80)It was the purpose of this master thesis to delineate\ud the general cargo hinterlands, both export and import,\ud for the ports of Detroit, Cleveland, and Toledo. Shipments\ud of goods from railroads by carload lots were used to determine the destination and origin of goods that each of these\ud three ports handled. Only those goods that were to be part\ud of foreign commerce, both export and import, were considered.\ud Upon determining places of origin and destination,\ud it was discovered that each port had only a small area of\ud dominance. Mainly, each port overlapped one another in\ud both its export and import hinterlands. This overlapping\ud was caused by comparative freight rates and the closeness\ud of each port to one another. Where each port did dominate\ud could be found in a hundred mile radius of the port-city.\ud What this has meant to each port is that it must attract traffic from outside of their hundred mile radius based on\ud factors other than price differential. Some of these\ud factors have been port promotion, railroad connections,\ud port organization, and port facilities. Even with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and port promotion and organization, each of these port\ud hinterlands was confined mainly to the Middle West. This\ud was the result of the inability of these ports to take\ud territory away from the East and Gulf Coast ports. Though\ud the future does look bright for all three ports, the only\ud area of possible expansion will be to the south