Vulnerability analysis of global container shipping liner network based on main channel disruption

The Malacca Strait, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal play an important role in the global container shipping. To study the impact of main channel interruption on the container shipping, we analysed statistical data on all routes operated by the top 100 global container liner companies and constructed a network model. We selected four topological metrics to measure the network’s connectivity and used the network weekly total shipping capacity and average shortest shipping time to measure the network’s transportation capacity and transportation time. The interruption of the main channel is simulated, and the changes in the metrics are analysed. The results indicated that the network’s vulnerability is sensitive to main channel interruption. If the Malacca Strait is interrupted, the network’s prosperity degree fall by almost half and the network’s transportation time increase by more than a quarter if the Suez Canal is interrupted. In addition, East Asian and European container liner shipping have more than 50% dependence on the Malacca Strait and the Suez Canal. Moreover, the container transport time between ports in East Asia, Europe, and North America and the rest of the world increases by an average of 4–9 days in the main channel interruption.     

Optimal container ship size: a global cost minimization approach

ABSTRACT

Currently, the best container ship size in a service is determined mainly by the liner operator, considering only the economies of scale of ships. Its external diseconomies to the ports and shippers are usually not considered in the decision-making process, which may reduce the overall efficiency and lead to global nonoptimality. This study incorporates the cost to the shipping companies at the main lines, ports, and feeder services, as well as the external costs to shippers and ports in a hub-and-spoke network, and determines the best ship size and the number of weekly services to minimize the overall costs. The external cost to the shippers in the feeder ports is assumed to be proportional to the feeder cost, and a sensitivity analysis is provided. The maximum container ship size is estimated according to different levels of freight demand. A numerical analysis shows that the optimal size should be smaller than the current biggest container ships in service.     

Development of port service network in OBOR via capacity sharing: an idea from Zhejiang province in China

The ‘Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road’ (One Belt One Road, OBOR) strategy initiated by the Chinese government has a significant impact on the business and logistics modes which involves Asia, Europe, Africa, and their adjacent seas. Many countries and ports are developing new strategies that are suitable for this economic environment. Compared with many ports in the world, the ports in Zhejiang province of China have a novel property. In addition to Ningbo-Zhoushan port, there are several other sea ports and river ports in that province. In this paper, we propose a concept of port service network that consists of a huge hub and multiple ports. Ports of small and medium sizes can share their capacities of different types of port service with the hub when the service capacities are integrated into the network. We develop a mixed integer nonlinear programming model to determine the optimal decisions in such a network with constraints on the budget to conduct integration. An optimization algorithm incorporated with a genetic algorithm is developed to solve large size problems. We provide managerial insights on the policies of government, including expanding port capacity, reducing fixed integration cost, and providing better financial condition.     

采用沿岸动力概念以减少埃及红海海域高速船燃料消耗与降低排放(英文)

The progress of economic globalization,the rapid growth of international trade,and the maritime transportation has played an increasingly significant role in the international supply chain.As a result,worldwide seaports have suffered from a central problem,which appears in the form of massive amounts of fuel consumed and exhaust gas fumes emitted from the ships while berthed.Many ports have taken the necessary precautions to overcome this problem,while others still suffer due to the presence of technical and financial constraints.In this paper,the barriers,interconnection standards,rules,regulations,power sources,and economic and environmental analysis related to ships,shore-side power were studied in efforts to find a solution to overcome his problem.As a case study,this paper investigates the practicability,costs and benefits of switching from onboard ship auxiliary engines to shore-side power connection for high-speed crafts called Alkahera while berthed at the port of Safaga,Egypt.The results provide the national electricity grid concept as the best economical selection with 49.03 percent of annual cost saving.Moreover,environmentally,it could achieve an annual reduction in exhaust gas emissions of CO2,CO,NOx,P.M,and SO2by 276,2.32,18.87,0.825 and 3.84 tons,respectively.     

绿色港湾建设

结合国内外10大著名港口实例,从规划设计、结构选型、使用年限确定、旧有建筑物的改造和再利用、提高环保理念和健全法规等方面,论述了＂绿色港湾＂建设的必要性和可行性,以探研绿色港湾建设及其相关概念,并提出建议。可供规划设计人员参考。     

Empty container reposition planning for intra-Asia liner shipping

This paper addresses empty container reposition planning by plainly considering safety stock management and geographical regions. This plan could avoid drawback in practice which collects mass empty containers at a port then repositions most empty containers at a time. Empty containers occupy slots on vessel and the liner shipping company loses chance to yield freight revenue. The problem is drawn up as a two-stage problem. The upper problem is identified to estimate the empty container stock at each port and the lower problem models the empty container reposition planning with shipping service network as the Transportation Problem by Liner Problem. We looked at case studies of the Taiwan Liner Shipping Company to show the application of the proposed model. The results show the model provides optimization techniques to minimize cost of empty container reposition and to provide an evidence to adjust strategy of restructuring the shipping service network.     

The impact of ship size on ports’ nautical costs

ABSTRACT

Much is known about transport costs at sea and costs made at terminals in ports. About costs, made by ports to provide nautical facilities (incl. infrastructure) and services, not much research is done yet. This paper estimates the impact of increasing ship sizes on costs made by the Port Authority of Amsterdam when providing nautical facilities and services by using hedonic pricing techniques. We have rather unique data on ship’s sizes and harbour dues paid per ship for over 25 years for ships that visited the Port of Amsterdam. Harbour dues paid are used as a proxy for the costs of nautical facilities and services. We have found nearly constant returns to scale, when volume is used as a measure of a ships’ size. An increase in average ship size with 1,000 tonnes deadweight will result in approximately €2 million additional yearly costs (an increase of the average ship size of six percent results in an increase of nautical costs with nearly the same percentage). Our results can be used by Port Authorities and port operators (in case of landlord ports) to estimate costs to be made for providing nautical facilities and services in the near future.     

A genetic algorithm for the hub-and-spoke problem applied to containerized cargo transport

A genetic algorithm for the hub-and-spoke problem (GAHP) is proposed in this work. The GAHP configures a hub-and-spoke network with shuttle services for containerized cargo transport. For a fixed number of hubs, it determines the best network configuration of hub locations and spoke allocations that minimizes the total costs of the system. The GAHP has a simple individual structure with integer number representation, where spokes, their allocations, and hub locations are easily recognized. Due to the characteristics of the problem, which has fixed number of hubs, rearrangements should be performed after every process. The GAHP rearrangement process includes improvements of individual structures, resulting in an improved population. Before applying the GAHP to the container transport network problem, the algorithm is validated using the Civil Aeronautics Board data set, which is extensively used in the literature to benchmark heuristics of hub location problems. To illustrate an example of a hub-and-spoke network with shuttle services, a study case with 18 ports is analyzed.     

Improving maritime inventory routing: application to a Brazilian petroleum case

The crude oil offloading and supply problem (COSP) is a type of operation maritime inventory routing (MIR) problem encountered by petroleum companies. In COSP, the company not only is responsible for the ship scheduling to carry the crude oil from production sites to discharge ports but also must maintain inventory levels at both ports (production and consumption) between safety operational bounds to avoid disruptions in its crude oil production and/or refining processes. We show how to improve significantly the decision-making process in a Brazilian petroleum company using a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model to represent COSP. Comparison tests with a current ship-scheduling method adopted in the company indicated that the use of the MILP model increased the transportation efficiency and reduced costs by 20% on average. In addition to the quantitative gains, the use of a MILP model to solve COSP has succeeded when encountering real-life events, such as variation in production or consumption rates, berth unavailability, and changes in the storage capacities at ports.     

Association rule learning to improve deficiency inspection in port state control

ABSTRACT

The inspection of foreign ships in national ports is a critical measure in port state control (PSC), preventing substandard ships from entering national ports. Multifarious inspection items, limited inspection time and inspector manpower are challenging PSC inspection. This research applies data mining to analyze historical PSC inspection records in Taiwan’s major ports to extract potential valuable information for PSC onboard inspections. Using the Apriori Algorithm, the analysis identifies many useful association rules among PSC deficiencies in terms of specific ship characteristics, such as ship types, societies, and flags. The general rules identified show that the items ‘Water/Weathertight conditions’ and ‘Fire safety’ are significantly related. Besides, in the analysis of the various ship types, several different rules are found. After comparing the analysis of ship types and ship societies, it can be observed that the association rules for specific ship types, such as oil tankers, have a better effect than those for individual ship societies do. These identified rules can not only help inspectors effectively spot the associated deficiencies, but also improve the efficiency of PSC inspection. The ports other than Taiwan’s ports can apply a similar analysis method to identify corresponding association rules suitable for their own inspections.     

A break-even model for evaluating the cost of container ships waiting times and berth unproductive times in automated quayside operations

The planning, design and development of a container terminal with optimum size and capacity and with a minimum capital cost is fundamentally dependent upon the loading and discharging operations at the quayside. The quayside function of container terminals is dependent basically on the number of berths available to service the incoming container ships. The objective of the container terminals dealing and admitting the ongoing ship calls is to provide immediate berth and loading and discharging services to the container ships with a minimum costly waiting time and a maximum efficiency. Previously terminal planners used to build extra berths to provide service. During the last two decades the terminal operators have adopted automation technologies in loading and discharging operation of the container ships as an alternative to designing extra berths. Ship owners naturally expect least waiting times for their container ships. On the other hand, it is also natural for port operators in a container terminal with costly facilities to see a high berth occupancy and productivity at the quayside. This study uses queuing theory to find a break-even point as a way of evaluating the cost of container ship waiting times and the cost of berth unproductive service times for container terminals aiming to automate their quayside operation. The analysis illustrates that automation devices installed on conventional Quayside Cranes (QSCs) significantly reduce the turnaround time of the container ships calling at the ports. It argues, however, that there should be a balance between the cost of berth unproductive service times and the cost of vessel waiting times. The study introduces a break-even point to be considered as a benchmark for calculating such a balance. The analysis in this study can be used as a decision tool for the operators of container terminals in the medium to small ports to appraise the feasibility of an investment in automation or expansion of the quayside facilities.     

Assessing a maritime service website prototype in a ship bridge simulator: navigators’ experiences and perceptions of novel e-Navigation solutions

The aim of this study was to assess proof of concept and usability of a maritime service website prototype in a full-mission ship bridge simulator through Swedish mariners’ experiences and perceptions. This test was part of the European Commission’s EfficienSea2 project for e-navigation. The prototype was intended as an aid to existing standard systems and methodologies for planning, executing and monitoring voyages. The study began with 5 days of simulator trials focused on today’s standard practices. This served as a baseline to compare to subsequent 4 days of simulator trials testing the prototype. For data collection, observations, video footage, interviews, and eye tracking were used. Data analysis included breaking apart the qualitative data to capture the perceptions of the participants, and a preliminary analysis of eye-tracking data as a complement. The results suggested that the prototype could be more suitable for a route planning stage, that the participants were familiar with similar existing solutions from other manufacturers, and that the contents of the tool would be most beneficial if integrated within the Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS). There is a pressing need for the novel solutions to be user needs-driven, integrated with the existing technologies, and standardized across the domain, and these processes must go hand-in-hand with accounting for all involved stakeholders, procedures, regulations, and training, as this will alter the course of shipping.     

A dynamic model for marginal cost pricing of port infrastructures

ABSTRACT

A dynamic model for marginal cost pricing of port infrastructures links costs to system performance by combining a power-law function with time-dependent queueing analysis. Additionally, the model incorporates the marginal cost of capacity, including the effects of economies of scale. This allows the calculation of the marginal cost price under a dynamic framework. The model accounts for nonlinear behaviour of port demand, which is sensitive to price and service levels. The effects over time of cost and service levels on the port’s operational performance are quantified. The proposed model allows determining the optimal timing for capacity investment. The model is a starting point for the application of marginal cost pricing to ports. However, for practical application of such pricing method it is necessary to apply a system’s approach, as productivity and costs must be assessed at the terminal’s component level. This should allow the derivation of a marginal cost function at the terminal’s component level.     

Forecasting container throughput based on wavelet transforms within a decomposition-ensemble methodology: a case study of China

To improve predictive accuracy, new hybrid models are proposed for container throughput forecasting based on wavelet transforms and data characteristic analysis (DCA) within a decomposition-ensemble methodology. Because of the complexity and nonlinearity of the time series of container throughputs at ports, the methodology decomposes the original time series into several components, which are rather simpler sub-sequences. Consequently, difficult forecasting tasks are simplified into a number of relatively easier subtasks. In this way, the proposed hybrid models can improve the accuracy of forecasting significantly. In the methodology, four main steps are involved: data decomposition, component reconstruction based on the DCA, individual prediction for each reconstructed component, and ensemble prediction as the final output. An empirical analysis was conducted for illustration and verification purposes by using time series of container throughputs at three main ports in Bohai Rim, China. The results suggest that the proposed hybrid models are able to forecast better than do other benchmark models. Forecasting may facilitate effective real-time decision making for strategic management and policy drafting. Predictions of container throughput can help port managers make tactical and operational decisions, such as operations planning in ports, the scheduling of port equipment, and route optimization.     

Fleet deployment optimization models. Part 1

The problem of minimum-cost operation of a fleet of ships that has to carry a specific amount of cargo between two ports in a given time period for a specific, fixed contract price is studied. Detailed and realistic operating cost functions are developed. Sensitivity analyses are performed to study the effects of small or large changes in one or more cost components on the total costs. A realistic model for the annual transport capacity as a function of speed is also used, in contrast with the linear relation most often used in the literature. The full load and ballast speeds for those ships of the fleet that we operate are selected to minimize the total fleet operating costs including lay-up costs for unused vessels, using nonlinear optimization algorithms.     

Multicommodity network flow model for Asia's container ports

This paper seeks to develop a multi-commodity network model to analyse the flow of containers within the Asia Pacific context. The model is used to evaluate the impact of container throughput in Asia's port by varying terminal handling charges and turnaround time. The three main regions analysed are north-east Asia, east Asia (Chinese port region) and south east Asia. Using the model, it could be shown that Busan port, which is an important transhipment hub in north-east Asia, could boost the container activities in the north-eastern part of China by improving its service quality. It is also found that the efficiency of the land link between Hong Kong and mainland China plays a crucial role for the future of Hong Kong port. While Singapore port maintains its position as a transhipment hub in south-east Asia, there would be expected competition from neighbouring low costs ports.     

‘Tool port’ to ‘landlord port’: a game theory approach to analyse gains from governance model transformation

This study investigates potential port users’ surplus and terminal operators’ profits due to transforming port governance from the ‘tool port’ model to the ‘landlord port’ model. Although the landlord port model is one of the most adopted and successful port governance models, many ports still operate under other models. Chittagong Port, the largest port in Bangladesh, currently operates under the tool port model, while the country’s second-largest port, Mongla Port, operates under the service port model. Chittagong Port is currently facing many challenges, including capacity expansion and renovation of port facilities. Therefore, we form four hypothetical situations for port governance model transformation, assuming that Chittagong Port will transform to the landlord port model but that Mongla Port will run under the existing governance model. Estimating a Bertrand game model, we present a cost-benefit analysis for port users and terminal operators (or port authorities) in hypothetical game situations. The results reveal that privatising one of the container terminals under a landlord setting is the most profitable scenario for Chittagong Port Authority, but privatising all terminals of Chittagong Port yields the highest users’ surplus. However, privatising two of the terminals while they cooperate yields the lowest users’ surplus.     

船体结构腐蚀模型对检测及维修规划的影响

提出了基于风险的船体结构腐蚀优化检测及维修的基本理论框架.最优的检测及维修,是在保证结构在设计工作寿命内的可靠指标大于最低可靠指标的基础上,使结构生命周期内总的期望费用最小.建立了检测、维修及失效事件的安全余量方程,推导了失效及维修概率的计算公式.在此基础上,以船体结构两种常用的腐蚀模型Paik模型和Guedes Soares模型为例,分析了两种模型对最优检测及维修策略的影响.其结果表明,腐蚀模型对最优的检测及维修次数和时间有明显的影响,但是对总的期望费用及失效概率影响不大,而且两种腐蚀模型得出的最优失效概率都是10-3.     

散货港区的智慧港口规划

本文结合某港散货港区智慧港口规划项目,介绍了该港南作业区智能化项目的核心在于构建一套适应现代散杂货港口发展趋势、突破传统散货港口作业模式的全新港口智能化系统。本次规划将物联网、大数据技术、AI人工智能、5G等新型基础设施与生产业务融合,创新生产作业流程及资源配置,显著提高港口的作业运营能力、物流协同能力、口岸支持能力、客户服务能力,助力某港打造全国领先的基于5G+数字中台+AI的智慧散货港区。     

Multicommodity network flow model for Asia's container ports

This paper seeks to develop a multi-commodity network model to analyse the flow of containers within the Asia Pacific context. The model is used to evaluate the impact of container throughput in Asia's port by varying terminal handling charges and turnaround time. The three main regions analysed are north-east Asia, east Asia (Chinese port region) and south east Asia. Using the model, it could be shown that Busan port, which is an important transhipment hub in north-east Asia, could boost the container activities in the north-eastern part of China by improving its service quality. It is also found that the efficiency of the land link between Hong Kong and mainland China plays a crucial role for the future of Hong Kong port. While Singapore port maintains its position as a transhipment hub in south-east Asia, there would be expected competition from neighbouring low costs ports.