South Holland Inland Ports Cooperation
From Isolated Interests to Structural Cooperation
The inland ports of South Holland are economically important, but cooperation does not happen on its own. Ports differ in size, ownership, local interests, and development challenges. The province therefore wanted to investigate how a more structured form of cooperation between ports could be organized.
Aristoi supported the province of South Holland during the preparatory phase: from exploratory studies and discussions with stakeholders to a proposal for joint themes, governance, and a practical follow-up approach.
The central question was not whether cooperation was desirable, but how it could be structured in such a way that the parties would actually be willing to take responsibility for it.
OPDRACHTGEVER
Province of South Holland
PERIODE
2025–2026
ROL
Consultant / Project Initiator for the Preparatory Phase
FOCUS
Alignment · Governance · Collaboration · Program Design
The Challenge: Collaboration Without a Clear Owner
Inland ports face common challenges related to space, accessibility, sustainability, and economic development. At the same time, they are deeply rooted in their local communities, and their interests, capacities, and priorities vary greatly.
1. Common Interest
There were plenty of shared challenges, but that did not mean that every party felt the same sense of urgency or was willing to make the same contribution.
2. Different Roles
Municipalities, port authorities, and the province had different roles, responsibilities, and interests. A collaboration model had to take this into account without becoming unnecessarily cumbersome.
3. Ownership of “
” The province could spur cooperation, but structural cooperation could not remain dependent solely on the province. The question was who would bear which responsibilities.
4. From Consultation to Implementation
A network of discussions does not yet constitute a program. A path needed to be established toward joint decisions, an agenda, governance, and concrete next steps.
The design challenge, therefore, was not simply to bring the parties together, but to create conditions under which collaboration could continue even after the preparatory phase.
From Exploration to Collaborative Design
Aristoi brought together interests, expectations, and potential joint challenges and translated these into a proposal for the next phase. To this end, discussions, working visits, and joint sessions were used to refine both the substantive and administrative aspects.
1. Stakeholder Discussions & Site Visits
We explored interests, expectations, and challenges with ports, municipalities, and other public entities. Site visits helped illustrate differences in scale, function, and local context.
2. Joint Agenda
The outcomes were narrowed down to topics where collaboration could truly add value and where joint action was likely to be successful.
3. Governance
Work was done to establish a simple yet clear structure for decision-making, engagement, and ownership—including the idea of a core group that could take responsibility for further development.
4. Follow-up Architecture & Positioning
The preparatory phase culminated in a concrete proposal for the next phase, with further elaboration on governance, collaboration, and ownership. In addition, a letter was drafted in collaboration with the Dutch Association of Inland Ports to jointly highlight the importance of inland ports to the minister.
This transformed a broad vision for collaboration into a concrete foundation for the next phase as well as a unified external positioning.
Designing collaboration also means making choices explicit
Structural cooperation requires more than just enthusiasm during meetings. The parties involved must understand why they are participating, what they contribute, which decisions are made jointly, and what remains a local matter.
This calls for a balance: enough structure to facilitate progress and foster a sense of ownership, but not so much structure that collaboration itself becomes the goal.
The preparatory phase also showed that a single public initiator does not necessarily have to be the permanent owner of a network. That is precisely why it is important to consider from the outset the mandate, the division of roles, and how responsibility can gradually be shared more broadly.
A partnership becomes sustainable only when not only the agenda is shared, but also ownership of the next step.
What We Can Learn from the Inland Ports Collaboration
Collaboration often begins with shared content, but it only becomes feasible once interests, roles, and ownership are explicitly defined.
A shared ambition is not enough if it is unclear who makes decisions, who provides resources, and how the parties hold each other accountable for progress.
For Aristoi, this is precisely the intersection between Alignment and Strategic Design: first, identifying where interests and responsibilities diverge, and then designing a structure in which collaboration can actually function.
The assignment demonstrates how an initial exploration can be translated into a concrete governance and collaboration framework for the next phase.
Are you working on a regional collaboration where everyone recognizes its importance, but ownership and implementation haven’t yet taken shape on their own?