EVALUATING THE IMPORTANCE OF BRAZILIAN PORTS USING GRAPH CENTRALITY MEASURES

ABSTRACT This study analyses the importance of Brazilian ports, based on the flow of non-containerized cargo in 2014, considering both national and foreign trades. For that, we study a non-traditional centrality, called layer centrality, which evaluates the importance of ports, based on how well they are connected to influential ports. This measurement was preliminarily proposed in 2011 and applied to a simple nonweighted network, though herein we extend it to weighted graphs. For comparison purposes, we also apply three traditional measures, namely degree, eigenvector, and flow betweenness centralities. Our findings show that the most impactful ports are private terminals Ponta da Madeira and Tubarão, although public ports, particularly Santos, are usually impactful for national trades. Moreover, we analysed the map for public ports and suggest a suitable location for a new public port.