Highlights ► Develop a port security economic model to evaluate the impacts of port security policies to container volumes. ► Identify the major factors influencing port security and economics. ► Analyze the interrelationship between the factors using primary data from port operators and shipping companies. ► Provide a transparent decision making tool for port operators to determine their security policies and container volumes. ► Predict the container volume of Korean ports in the next 10years at different security levels.

Abstract Policy variables, such as security levels at seaports, affect port efficiency in a non-linear way while other factors affecting efficiency at ports such as a number of berths, the area of port yard, and the number of port labors have linear structural relation. Ensuring a certain level of regulations can increase port efficiency, while an excess of the level may result in the reverse of these gains. Addressing seaport-related issues is not a simple undertaking because a seaport is regarded as a system-of-system, which is both difficult to understand and to model. Therefore, studies that adequately analyze the overall dynamic of a port complex in terms of security concerns have been seen insufficient, leaving a significant research gap to fill in. To analyze the relationship between seaport security levels and container volumes, this study adopts the method of System Dynamics (SD). Use of the SD can demonstrate the benefits of simulations, such as suggesting the visual causal loops among evaluation factors, representing the several sub-models, and enabling various forms of analysis, such as the base model, optimistic scenario model, and pessimistic scenario model. As a result of simulation, the impacts on handling container cargo volumes in Korea due to the increasing level of security is estimated at 2,770,000TEUs by the year 2015 and 3,050,000TEUs by 2020. Appropriate tailor of the proposed SD based methodology can stimulate security–economic quantitative analysis in a wider range of port context, thus promoting effective implementation of security measures.