What is Maritime Transportation?

Maritime Transportation is the activity of transporting passengers and goods from one place to another via ships. As a crucial element of international trade, it enables the safe and efficient transportation of large quantities and heavy loads. It facilitates both national and international trade. In maritime transportation, ports often intersect with air and land transportation hubs to facilitate easier shipment. Maritime transport, which has a significant advantage in international trade, is becoming increasingly competitive with other modes of transportation. Factors such as the weight and type of cargo, the ship’s carrying capacity, the experience of the ship’s personnel, and the type of vessel and voyage affect transportation costs.

What are the Advantages of Maritime Transportation?

Maritime transportation stands out with its advantages and provides superiority over other transportation methods in some aspects. For this very reason, maritime transportation is preferred in a significant portion of global trade due to the advantages it provides. So, what are the advantages of maritime transportation?

It is cheaper, more reliable, and more environmentally friendly compared to other types of transportation.
It generally provides great convenience in shipping heavy and bulky goods. As ships are high-capacity vehicles, transporting voluminous goods is more comfortable.
Products with different characteristics can be easily transported thanks to containers.
Maritime transportation is less affected by adverse weather conditions compared to road, rail, and air transportation.
As it is slower than other types of transportation, sensitive and fragile products can be delivered to the destination without damage.
It provides cost advantages to companies as it is a lower-cost transportation method compared to air and rail transportation. It offers price advantages compared to road and rail due to reasons such as large volume loading capacity and minimal weight restrictions.
Maritime transportation is a sustainable transportation method as ships cause less environmental damage compared to aircraft.
The use of containers in maritime transport allows for the adaptation to the transportation of all types of goods. This helps to achieve high efficiency in transportation activities.
As the management and security protocols related to transportation are more detailed for ships compared to other vehicles, it ensures secure delivery to the other party.
Maritime transportation is frequently preferred by companies as the risk of accidents is lower compared to other types of transportation.

Where Does Turkey Stand in Maritime Transportation?

Turkey’s prominence in maritime transportation is largely due to being a peninsula surrounded by seas on three sides. Additionally, Turkey’s long coastline is another factor that puts Turkey a step ahead in maritime transportation. The importance of maritime transportation in Turkey’s international trade is a well-known fact. What makes Turkey superior to other countries in this regard is its richness in terms of ports. The continuous increase in global trade volume causes the importance of ports to increase gradually. The high number of ports that serve as bridges between road and sea transportation positively affects Turkey’s competitiveness in international trade as well as mutual trade relations. In addition to the number of ports, the volume and density of ports are also among the factors affecting global trade. Moreover, Turkey’s geographical structure, which enables it to be a bridge between continents, can be counted as another advantage. Therefore, Turkey’s position in maritime transportation is of critical importance. All these advantages provide a great advantage for Turkey to develop its commercial relations with other countries. As a significant portion of Turkey’s exports are carried out through maritime transportation, ports are of great importance in foreign trade.

Turkey’s Ports in Maritime Transportation

Although container ports come to mind when ports are mentioned, there are other types of ports as well. These types include military ports, fishing ports, marinas, dry, bulk, liquid, fuel, and LNG ports. Although there are quite a number of ports in Turkey, not all of them have the same intensity in transportation. These places have different characteristics according to their busyness, size, whether they are commercial or not, and their intended use. Among Turkey’s largest ports are:

• Istanbul Ambarlı,
• Izmir,
• Mersin,
• Samsun,
• Haydarpaşa,
• Trabzon,
• Derince,
• Bandırma Ports.