Transformations in European Union seaports at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries

The subject of this article is to present, in a synthetic manner, the WORKPORT model, which divides seaports into three generations. This division of seaports into generations results from their evolution, which was particularly visible in the last decades of the 20th century. This model distinguishes the level of development of seaports up to 1960, after 1960, and after 1980. The identification of individual seaport generations was based on several fundamental criteria, which are presented in this study. One can, of course, argue with the selection of criteria, as they were adopted subjectively based on observations of seaport behavior in the evolutionary process. The article concludes with an attempt to answer in what direction the further evolution of seaports located in the European Union may proceed.INTRODUCTION
The socio-economic transformations taking place at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries have led to significant changes in the functioning of seaports. Seaports are evolving and developing their core business activities. The permanent changes that have occurred in recent decades have led to the creation of a model describing transformations in the area of seaports. The model characterized seaports according to the following criteria: main cargo, attitude and development strategies of the seaport, scope of activities, characteristics of the organization and product, and decision-making factors, see Table 1.
1. THREE GENERATIONS OF SEAPORTS IN THE UNCTAD MODEL
Three generations of seaports have been defined based on their characteristics corresponding to the periods, i.e., before 1960, between 1960 – 1980, and after 1980 [1]. The main characteristics of each seaport generation are presented in Table 2. They will be discussed synthetically due to the limitations of the article. (…)

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