Implementing Public-Private Partnerships: The Case of French Port Authorities

Shippers' frequent re-designs of their transportation networks directly impact the relative strength of the positions held by ports in these networks. Therefore, Port Authorities need to adjust their investment/cooperation strategies, often using public-private partnerships. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the analysis of the motivations, implementation and evaluation of such partnerships. The methodology is case-based and fully qualitative, both for data collection and for data processing. Three main motivations have been identified. Implementation features a standard activity split between partners, but proves to be rather context-specific on some other aspects. Evaluation is made through three main criteria.