<p>As coastal production costs in many countries, producers are moving inland to remain competitive with other<br />countries. Also, container transport volumes continue to grow, the sea flow generates almost proportional inland<br />flow; the links with hinterland will become critical factors for the seaports functionality. Development of dry<br />ports is an important part of intermodal transport which play an important role in improving hinterlands.<br />Successful implementation dry port depends on identification and description of required capabilities to develop<br />advanced intermediate terminal, discover existing deficiency in these capabilities and their effects of each other.<br />This article fill the gaps of implementation of dry ports by offering a conceptual model. To do so, this current<br />study is done in a complicated process in five stages of: review of literature, Delphi, Gap analysis, fuzzy<br />Dematel and Structural equation modeling (SEM). 17 indexes of Delphi model were extracted and classified in 8<br />groups. The identified gap and causal relations enabled presentation of a model which was tested and verified by<br />Partial Least Squares (PLS).</p>
Optimal location of dry ports in the Pan-Pearl River Delta
