In our daily lives, we are surrounded by many goods from all over the world. My shirt, for example, is from Vietnam, my trousers are made in China, and my jacket comes from Italy. My watch is Swiss made, and my glasses are imported from the United States. The coffee cup on my desk is produced in France, and the coffee in it is made from blended beans from Brazil and Guatemala. Perhaps my laptop is assembled in my own country, but its parts are imported. In the same way, many goods are produced in various regions, transported across locations, and finally consumed at other places. This complicated production-consumption system has been facilitated by the globalised logistics system wherein products are transported internationally, in addition to the international movements of people, currency, and information.
The establishment of the global logistics system is the result of three major factors: technological innovation, infrastructure investment, and evolution of the institutional system. Containerisation was an epoch-making event that transformed the logistics industry from a labour-intensive to a capital-intensive industry (Levinson, 2006) . Containerisation has facilitated complex cargo-handling tasks such as loading/discharging and trans-shipment of cargo to and from vessels at ports, upgraded safety standards, reduced damage to cargos, and also enabled an intermodal transport network connecting ships, railways, and trucks. Vessel design technology has also evolved, resulting in larger vessels over time (Rodrigue, 2017) . The upward trend in the sizes of containerships is mainly motivated by economies of scale, which has led to a significant reduction in average cargo transport costs. International cargo traffic flows are also supported by sophisticated transactions of commercial information and currency. Notably, recent revolutions in information and communication technology (ICT) have enhanced the efficiency and safety of global logistics operations. These developments include sophisticatedly digitalised operating systems such as electronic data interchange (EDI) processing, radio-frequency identification (RFID) processing, and optimisation of cargo handling at automated container terminals (Saragiotis, 2019; Al-Fuqaha et al., 2015; Steenken et al., 2004) . Regarding the institutional framework, trade obstacles due to traditional manual transactions at cross-border points have been gradually removed under the guidance of regional strategies. The liberalisation of international trade can be realised by trade facilitation and implementation of cross-border paperless trade, which includes simplifying required paperwork, modernising procedures, harmonising customs requirements, and introducing a single-window system (Tijan et al., 2019) . Reductions in time and costs of cross-border point transactions enable nations to seamlessly connect with others, which can facilitate the process of evolution into an integrated global production chain.
Rapid globalisation with reduced transport costs has motivated global firms to optimise their manufacturing clusters located in regions with the cheapest labour and material costs. This significantly diminishes production and operating costs. This trend is further accelerated by a business model of horizontal specialisation at a global scale (Bloch, 1995) . Firms that specialise horizontally identify a specific market to which it can offer a complete business solution, which may involve offering a wide range of components, products, and services to a narrow range of customer types (Williams and Aaron, 2018) . Additionally, this business model has promoted the rapid development of manufacturing industries located in the markets of emerging economies. To keep updated, major logistics industry players have adapted to rapid globalisation. Shipping liner companies have established a global hub-and-spoke shipping network (Farahani et al., 2013) . Tough competition amongst shipping companies has also encouraged mergers and acquisitions under horizontal integration since the 1990s (Notteboom et al., 2017) . This has led to the establishment of giant shipping liners and promoted global strategic alliances amongst shipping companies (Crotti et al., 2019) . Furthermore, the increased sizes of vessels require massive investment in port and/or canal facilities. Many governments have participated in the global competition to construct large-scale hub ports to lead the global supply chain and earn benefits from saved transport costs by facilitating the movement of direct shipping services to and from hub ports. An interregional intermodal transport network has been formulated (Reis et al., 2013) under the international development strategies of regional bodies. Such efforts to improve efficiency in the global logistics system have accelerated international business activities.
In summary, the globalisation of the supply chain, in line with innovation in logistics and institutional systems and massive investment in freight transport infrastructure, has enabled many firms to diversify their procurement sources, which has led to lower supply costs. End users now have more options in consumption goods, whilst prices have also significantly reduced. This has improved the quality of life for people whilst increasing tax revenues for governments through the revitalisation of economic activities. The above-mentioned causality is supported by much empirical evidence, particularly on the significant associations between international trade and global GDP growth (Alcalá and Ciccone, 2004; Frankel and Romer, 1999) and positive impacts of the liberalisation of international trade on economic efficiency (Pavcnik, 2002; Bloom et al., 2016) . Many studies have indicated that even in the least-developed countries, export growth could stimulate economic growth (e.g. Ghirmay et al., 2001) following two paths: increasing investments (capital accumulation) and enhancing efficiency. This has contributed to addressing poverty and other global issues, which are targeted by the sustainable development goals. The rapid development of the global logistics network has upgraded accessibility to and from landlocked regions where no seaport is available as well as remote areas located far from major markets (Faye et al., 2004) . These improvements in accessibility have encouraged global firms to invest in such landlocked and remote areas whilst also promoting exports from those areas that could create more jobs, generate better salaries, and improve the quality of life of the people in these places. Similarly, enhancement of regional connectivity amongst nations enables the development of an integrated economic market, fosters regional competitions, stimulates international trade and leads to better economic growth even in less-developed regions.
Nonetheless, the negative aspects of globalisation also exist. A commonly discussed issue is its damaging effect on local economies and domestic jobs. Developed countries that outsource manufacturing to other regions to exploit cheaper labour costs could suffer from employment insecurity; developing countries could also be affected in their domestic employment although the impacts are still inconclusive (Lee and Vivarelli, 2006) . This may lead to political movements favouring protectionism and isolationism (Stiglitz, 2017) . Another issue relating to globalisation is the income inequality compromised for the sake of countries' economic growth. This typically indicates a 'core-periphery' structure, wherein the core contains the major wealthy and powerful countries, with countries that cannot reap the benefits of global wealth located at the periphery (Hartmann et al., 2019) . Core countries settle on a diverse set of knowledge-intensive and value-added products, and peripheral developing countries specialise in exports of simple resources and labour-intensive products to higher blocks of the hierarchy (Kostoska et al., 2020) . This could be regarded as neocolonialism-the dark side of globalisation (Rao, 2000) . Additionally, the world system may be more vulnerable under globalisation, as supply chain disruptions could transfer to and significantly affect international trade. Such system disturbances may be caused by natural disasters, trade embargoes, or disruptive demand change (Sprecher et al., 2015) . Many researchers in recent years have highlighted the resilience and vulnerability of the supply chain (Elleuch et al., 2016) . The tremendous impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 are still ongoing.
This book attempts to provide a reference for discussions on the above-mentioned issues from a global logistics system perspective by presenting a technical tool to investigate the international freight transport network and its related policies. Part 1 contains four chapters which cover introductory topics regarding the container shipping market, hinterlands, cross-border logistics, and container demand forecast. Part 2 presents the model and data, which are complemented with quantitative simulations and later applied to case studies in many regions. A macroscopic network modelling technique is employed to analyse cargo flows in international freight networks. The practical modelling approach enables us to examine the expected impacts of the logistics system changes in a realistic manner. As explained earlier, these logistics changes include technological innovation, infrastructure investment, and evolution of the institutional system. The proposed simulation model can assist in evaluating the policies intended to change the logistics system in terms with their impacts on accessibility, traffic volume, trade patterns, or share of transport modes. Their expected influences on regional/local economic performance could also be discussed if the logistics network model is integrated with another international economic simulation model. The logistics transport network assumed in this book's model covers multiple transport modes, including maritime shipping, railway, trucks, and inland waterway transport, although maritime shipping should be highlighted since its role is dominant in international trade. Part 3 demonstrates a series of cases wherein the proposed model is customised and applied to seven regions across the world. They highlight the logistics network in developing countries since the major problems in logistics systems are observed in less-developed regions. These case studies are expected to contribute to the policy debates in each region.
The unique contribution of this book is in providing a useful tool and verifying its application in various regions for the decision-making of stakeholders in logistics industries, related government authorities, and international donors concerned with global issues. We hope that our modelling approach can assist various individuals, such as supply chain and logistics professionals, university students interested in logistics and freight transport, and experts in logistics and transport planning/policy in exploring novel directions in logistics research.