Forecasting containerized traffic for the port of Montreal (1981–1995)

This paper presents an approach to making long-term forecasts of overseas container traffic in the port of Montreal. The paper discusses, first, why performance models explaining traffic variations in ports when postulating a fixed hinterland may not be appropriate for the port of Montreal. Then, the forecasting approach itself is presented. Using 1981 as the base year, projections of container traffic through the port of Montreal until 1995 are developed by considering separately the traffic flows associated with the Canadian and the United States hinterlands. Our approach takes account of anticipated changes in Canadian and U.S. international trade volume, containerization rates and regional growth within Canada. It yields detailed forecasts of containerized traffic, by origin and destination, for 78 commodity groups, 7 world regions and 11 North American regions (i.e. the 10 Canadian provinces plus the United States). Two forecasting scenarios are considered and the aggregate results for 1995 are reported. Finally, a comparison of forecasts with recent data available for 1984 is made, suggesting that the internation trade projections used to generate our forecasts may be too conservative.