An Exploratory Analysis and Visualization of U.S. Global Trade Patterns through Maritime Freight Movement between U.S. Ports and World Ports: 1997-2007

Using data mining, data integration, geographical information systems (GIS), Google Earth, and common transportation flow assignment methods (i.e., all-or-nothing, system optimal), this paper first reports a novel model of combining various databases (i.e., U.S. Maritime Administration, World Port Index, Oak Ridge National Lab) into a complete 1997-2007 time-series port-level maritime freight origin and destination database in a GIS environment (i.e., TransCAD). Important database issues in the model development and implementation are discussed as well. This paper then performs freight flow assignments between foreign ports and U.S. ports and investigates the total freight movement and commodity specific freight flows. The total flows from all ports of a country to and from all U.S. ports are considered as U.S. imports and exports, or international trade between this country and the U.S. Similar flow aggregations are done at the regional levels (i.e., Asia, Europe, or South America), by country (i.e., China), and by port (i.e., Hong Kong). The patterns of U.S. international trade are then explored and visualized by port, county, and region, in total or by commodity or commodity group for some years in 1997-2007. The results show that U.S. imports outpaced exports in the period. China, Canada, Mexico, Europe are the top countries shipping commodities to the U.S. during 1997-2007. Panama Canal was perhaps the most important canal in ocean freight movement to and from U.S. Asia, Europe, and South America were among the top in exchanging commodities with the U.S. At the port level, Long-Beach and Los Angeles ports were the most important, followed by New York City Port, Houston, New Orleans, San Francisco, etc. Top world ports, such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Pusan were the most interactive foreign ports with U.S. ports. Finally, it would be interesting to see future research through simulation results for alternative freight flow movements, hence altered U.S. international trade patterns, under scenarios such as zero imports and exports from a country with the U.S. (i.e., cutting diplomatic/economic ties), an extended shut-down of Panama Canal (i.e., due to political/military conflict), a major natural or man-made event (i.e., earth quake or port worker strike) in Long Beach/Los Angela, particularly if these results are highlighted in comparison with normal conditions and visualized in Google Earth™ 3D.