Port of Santos: Prospection on the causes of access difficulties

Abstract

The port of Santos - the biggest in Latin America - is the main inbound and outbound gateway to the movement of merchandise in Brazil. Nowadays, due to the Brazilian economic growth, the port of Santos is expanding its capacity, with plans until 2024. In 2012 and 2013, the difficulties of access to the port of Santos were amply highlighted by the press. A holistic view of this scenario and the various causes of the difficulties of access to the port can contribute to a better understanding of the problem and its possible solutions. This paper investigates the causes of the problems related to the accesses to the port of Santos; the ongoing actions; and the foresight projects to adequate these accesses to the expansion of flow capacity. To this end, secondary data obtained from CODESP - the port management office, on-site observations, and interviews with business managers of some of the port main companies were used. The data collected allowed the identification of four groups of problems arising not only from structural causes, but also from the lack of efficiency in the port processes. The classification presented contributes to facilitate the understanding of the problem by the managers of these processes and represents the initial basis for building a theoretical model for the development of new research on the subject.