Differentiation of access management services at seaport terminals: Facilitating potential improvements for road hauliers

Plagued by congestion and long turnaround times, road hauliers' access to seaport terminals suffers from inefficient seaport terminal and haulier operations, poor information flows between hauliers and seaport terminals and a lack of high-quality, real-time data. To address hauliers' poor access management at seaport terminals, five access management services provided by different seaport terminals worldwide were identified as part of an ongoing conversation about such services. This paper offers new insights to both scholars and practitioners by differentiating the services according to the elements of turnaround time, access reliability, access precision and access flexibility, characteristics of which were identified during a review of relevant literature. The potential impacts of the elements for each access management service were investigated during empirical studies involving six semi-structured interviews and two workshops with participants (i.e. two hauliers and a seaport terminal). The chief finding is that access management services able to exchange information in real time have greater potential to improve access management for road hauliers.