Empty container movements beyond the effect of trade imbalance: Turkish terminals

The research objective of this study is to reveal the facts and magnitude of empty container movements (ECM) other than trade imbalances, which is called additional empty container movements (AECM) herein. According to the research, objectives have been extended to reveal the reasons for this, to form an opinion about the root causes, and to submit implications and recommendations on how to reduce this. We must distinguish trade imbalance and AECM to find a reasonable solution for effective container transportation and to eradicate avoidable ECM. We have categorised the reasons for ECM and proposed a model and mathematical formula to quantify the magnitude of AECM. The unique formula derived from the proposed model has been implemented to analyse ECM in Turkish terminals for the throughput between 2013 and 2015. The results of the empirical study indicate significant magnitude of AECM.