The main function of a port is to act as interface between terrestrial and aquatic transport, promoting the shipment
and the discharge of the ships. However, the ports are leaving of being a simple point of temporary storage and embarkment/landing, to become integrated logistic centers in the global distribution chain. They are being developed operations and services that join some elements of the logistic chain, in counterpoint to the isolated and broken up activities. The ports are implementing control towers, as of the airports. Computers in net, information systems and electronic data exchange that today are part of the activities of manufacture will arrive until the port operations, integrating the load agents, the dispatchers and Customs. Some trends for the world-wide ports were detected at 90's and gradually have being observed in the current Brazilian port environment:
Competition of market - the mechanisms of protection of the State, subsidies and exclusiveness in the supply of the workmanship hand will be substituted by the free competition. The possibility of competition between terminals of one exactly port involves the freedom of offers for the attendance of the demand, concepts of profits, risks and losses, economies of scale, productivity, managemental autonomy, reduction of exit and entrance barriers, treatments and dissolutions of an agreement with the customers, and the question of bankruptcies. Vision of the set - the customer's commercial necessities and the social necessities of the dock workers will not be detached from the commercial objectives of the port operators. Remuneration e benefits - The profit of the dock workers will also be joined to the interests of the customers of the port and the port terminals, and not only to the corporative interests of the unions. Productivity and Quality - the inefficiency will be substituted by the search of a bigger productivity and quality, based in collective agreements and practical of work that costs reduce and provide to greaters profits. Protection of the marine environment - the disputes on obligations and responsibilities involving prevention, collects, cleanness and destination of debris will be decided harmoniously between the parts. Private companies specialized in the services of collection and treatment of oils, diverse residues will appear, material inservíveis and other harmful substances to the environment. The paper of the public sector will tend to be of planner, facilitador and regulator, while the private sector will act in the operation, rendering of services and development of logistic solutions. However, the diversification of the services offered for the port, is of the traditional limits of the wharf, patios and warehouses, demands the estruturação of a port community with the nip of its bonds with the city and its users, of such luck to transform it into a logistic platform of commerce. The transformation from the traditional paper to the new paper involves changes that become the port known as of first, of second, or third generation, as services of “aggregate value” are added to the gamma of traditionally offered services. These port services of added value, can be dividedin three categories: general logistic services, logistic services of integration of the chain, and services of support (or of easinesses). 1. General logistic services - The traditional activities of load , discharge of ships, stuffing and withdrawal of products from containers involve conventional general load storage, frigorific load, solid grains in silos, or bulk liquid in tanks; 2. Logistic services of integration of the chain - Beyond the manuscript of the product, control service of quality, inspections, procedures of reverse speed-packing, repairs, standardization, supervision technique of operations , logistic reutilação of materials are incorporated and reverse logistics; 3. Logistic services of support/easinesses - They are known as backward-area services, with integration to the city. They involve parking areas, scales, dispatchers, maintenance of vehicles, containers, derricks and other equipment, cleanness, location of vehicles and tows, services of information technology, communications, personal and patrimonial security, offices, administrative support, store and hotels. The pass from second for the third generation demands a proportionally bigger evolution jump, compared with the pass from the first one to the second generation. In the third generation, a bigger degree of change, based on technological, organizacionais factors, cultural politicians occurs and. The port is changedded then into a community of logistic, industrial services, of support, and systems of information, all integrated to the city and the environment. The great majority of the ports if finds in first and the second generation. The most modern ports generally offer attractive places for the implantation of industries and companies of distribution. As examples, industrial polar regions in the ports of Roterdã, Yokohama had been in recent years developed, Antuérpia, Hamburg, Marseilles and Houston. For the time being, still we observe a relation city-port where the conviviality is a tenuous line between the indifference and the conflict, arriving many times the impasses, resultants of lack of integration and not the perception of the common objectives. But, happily, the situation have gradually been improving.