Review of Maritime Shipping Networks Research in the Context of the Belt and Road Initiative

Since the initiation of the “Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road” (B&R) by the Chinese government in 2013, the interconnection among different transport modes (e.g. rail transport, road transport, and maritime transport) has become closer. As a core component of the global cargo transportation system, the maritime shipping industry has ushered in a new round of opportunity of development. The increasing importance of maritime transport has attracted attention from scholars worldwide. In this study, a science mapping approach consisting of three steps including bibliometric literature search, scientometric analysis, and qualitative discussion is applied to evaluate the maritime transport research in the context of the B&R Initiative in recent years. This study mainly focuses on the maritime transport research from a shipping network perspective and identified the most important topics in this field such as the topological characteristics of maritime shipping networks, the hierarchy of maritime shipping networks, and the optimal layout of maritime shipping network system. This study aims to provide an overall picture of the latest research of maritime transport networks in the context of the B&R Initiative. The research results will help practitioners and researchers to better understand the influence of the B&R Initiative on the global marmite shipping industry, and also serve as a guide for them to link current research areas into future trends.