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Big container terminals are using Terminal Operation Software (TOS) since many years to optimize their terminal traffic. Smaller container terminals are following at a much slower pace, while some terminal operators prefer to develop in-house solutions or use other forms of organization for the terminal operation. Some TOS suppliers are increasing the number of costumers and thus growing their market share. But how big is the market really? And do new companies with new TOS products even have a chance to participate in the market? This research will give general information and latest developments about the current state of the TOS market and about terminals. In a next step, the concept about product lifecycles will be explained to discuss the term “market saturation”, before the size of the market will be evaluated. In the following, the offered volume within the market will be investigated to get to conclusions about the market saturation. The conclusions will be supported by demonstrations of changes in the actual number of TOS providers over the last years.

With an increasing number of declared major disasters and the increasing funds the government spends on response and recovery, an increasing demand on the amounts spent on mitigation and preparation as well and the impact of that expenditure is being questioned. While research has been done on the interrelation between politics and decision making processes and on other fields within the emergency management cycle, research fails so far to point out the economic effects of pre-disaster spending on the amount of post-disaster spending and further on the number of declared major disasters. Nonetheless, it should be possible to perceive a relationship between the money spent before a disaster strikes and a positive outcome in the sense of a decrease in post-disaster expenses and/or a drop in the number of declared major disasters. This dissertation addresses this problem by investigating the relationship between the variables involved in pre-disaster and post-disaster expenditures. Federal published datasets are explored in terms of correlations and multiple regressions to find relationships and time gaps. As result, this research reveals that there is no strong correlation between the pre-disaster spending and the post-disaster spending as well as between the pre-disaster spending and the number of declared major disasters. This research outcome indicates thus, that money spent before a disaster does not have a robust impact on the money spent after a disaster, or on the number of declared major disasters.