In the last years the containerized maritime freight transport has significantly increased. The phenomenon had also interested Italy, through dominant roles assumed by Gioia Tauro and Genova harbours, but also through the revival of many other harbours. A rearrangement of the international system is in progress and seems to assign to national and Mediterranean portuality new opportunities of development. In this paper the attention is addressed to the analysis of the maritime transport costs faced by a transport operator (shipowner, charterer, liner). The transportation of containerized freights depends on the generalized cost, which results from the sum of monetary costs, taxes, travel times, waiting and intermodal exchange times, guarantees in terms of respect of the scheduled programs and service reliability. The model calibration presented is based upon data referred to single ships, which carry out a feeder service in the Mediterranean basin. They have been opportunely organized and elaborated in order to define the structure of a complete model, which can be an useful tool for scenario evaluations.

A general description of container traffic relationships, that involve the European area, constitutes a fundamental element for the evaluation of actual and potential traffic flows through Gioia Tauro hub port. According to many researchers, container traffic volumes via sea concerning the European continent have increased from 11.3 to 15.8 million of TEUs (around 40%) during the period 1991-'96. European traffic travels through two separate port systems: the first one corresponds to the coastal range from Le Havre to Hamburg, known as 'Northern Range'; while the second, denominated 'Southern Range', includes ail Mediterranean ports from Algerians to Piraeus. This paper firstly illustrates the traffic dynamics of container freights in the European context and secondly presents the container traffic flow through the port of Gioia Tauro. The spatial, temporal and modal split of arriving and departing containers to/from Gioia Tauro are considered. Finally, the development perspectives of traffic volumes are outlined, in relation to the forecasted growth of the European port system. Analyses have been conducted during a two-year research project, whose title is: ".Evaluation of the potentialities of the Gioia Tauro intermodal terminal for the development of the Calabrian economy and role of minor Calabrian ports". The research was supported by Calabrian Region Administration (RO.R European Program).

It is commonly accepted that there is a two-way relationship between land use and transport in urban areas. Land use affects transport, conditioning travel demand. Conversely, transport affects land use, conditioning spatial distribution of activities and land market. The problem of simulating mutual interactions between land use and transport has been tackled by socalled Land Use Transport Interaction (LUTI) models. Different modelling approaches are present in literature, which are generally grouped into three main categories: spatial micro-economic, spatial interaction and spatial accounting models. The paper presents a spatial accounting LUTI model, which relies on Multi-Regional-Input-Output (MRIO) framework. The model has two main interacting components: an activity model and a transport model, which allow to endogenously estimate activities generation and location, land prices, travel demand and transport accessibility. The proposed LUTI model has been specified and applied in an urban area, more particularly to the town of Reggio Calabria (Italy). The objective of the application is the estimation of long-term impacts on land use and passenger travel demand patterns when interventions on transport facilities and services are planned at a strategic scale. The results confirm that MRIO framework offers the potentialities to bring activity location, land use in line within travel demand modelling.