Maritime security in the European Union—empirical findings on financial implications for port facilities

To address the maritime security issue, the IMO Diplomatic Conference adopted in December 2002 the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code. The European Union fully agreed with its contents; Regulation (EC) No. 725/2004 transposes in Community Law the associated rules, which came into force on 1 July 2004. Interesting questions from an EU-policy point of view are then: What are the additional costs associated with the implementation of security regulations by port facilities (here in particular terminals) in EU-member states? Moreover, how are these additional costs being recovered by port facilities? Another inter-related question is: are there any subsidies involved in the cost recovery? The present paper addresses these questions with the presentation of the main results of an explorative empirical study on maritime security-related costs and their financing in EU-member states. Furthermore, a number of topics are recommended for further study on maritime security costs and financing and associated (EU) regulations.     

New security measures for the international shipping community

On 1 July 2004 the new maritime security regulatory regime set out in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974 as amended, namely the new chapter XI-2 on Special measures to enhance maritime security and the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code entered into force only 18 months after adoption by the SOLAS Conference in December 2002. Following the devastating terrorist acts of 11 September 2001 in the United States, the international community recognised the need to protect the international maritime transport sector against the threat of terrorism. IMO responded swiftly and firmly by developing these new requirements, which represent the culmination of co-operation between Governments, Government agencies, local administrations and shipping and port industries.     

The potential role of public–private partnerships in the upgrade of port infrastructure: normative and positive considerations

There is a broad consensus on the need for the major expansion of many ports. Traditionally, ports and related facilities have involved significant levels of direct or indirect government ownership or some degree of government financing. Most governments, however, are reluctant to either borrow money to fund the needed additional capital infrastructure or to fund it directly. Public–private partnerships (P3s) are thus an attractive potential option. But are they the answer? This article examines the normative rationales for P3s and presents a positive theory perspective that focuses on the conflicting goals of public and private partners. It argues that the major government impetus for P3s is likely to be for physical port infrastructure with moderate levels of market failure, such as small to medium sized ports, and not for intangible port activities. Furthermore, small to medium sized port P3s are likely to be successful in terms of having relatively low transaction costs and lower total social costs than alternative provision mechanisms. Nonetheless, even in this situation, the different goals of public and private partners may give rise to conflict. Drawing on the global empirical evidence on P3s, this article proposes some institutional design features that will help to ensure P3 success.     

A risk appraisal system regarding the implementation of maritime regulations by a ship operator

The shipping industry operates in a regulatory framework, where the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the leading regulatory body. The role of the IMO is to propose maritime regulations to its member states. The successful worldwide implementation of a maritime regulation depends on how many member states adopt it. However, many maritime regulations are not adequately implemented worldwide. As a result, ship operators have found themselves in an uncomfortable position in developing their business in an unstable regulatory regime. This paper proposes an extendable and applicable methodology involving a System of Hierarchical Scorecards (SHS) to measure the implementation costs and benefits of a newly introduced or existing maritime regulation by ship operators. The regulators may use the results in evaluating newly introduced and/or existing regulations through taking into account the economic burden that will be generated to ship operators. In this paper, SHS is extended to demonstrate its applicability on evaluating a ship operator’s organization with regard to his regulatory implementation performance by the means of a case study.     

Clustering and performance: the case of maritime clustering in The Netherlands

Over the last years, the concept of clustering has become a central concept for analysing the competitiveness of nations, industries and firms. The cluster concept can be usefully applied to study clustering of maritime activities. Maritime activities, such as shipping, shipbuilding and port and maritime services, are clearly geographically concentrated in a number of maritime clusters. Due to ongoing internationalization in these industries, the concentration of maritime activities in clusters is likely to increase. This observation leads to two important research questions: what are the advantages for firms to locate in clusters and what factors influence the development of maritime clusters? This study identifies four agglomeration economies that attract firms to cluster: a joint labour pool, a broad supplier and customer base, knowledge spillovers, and low transaction costs. Furthermore, it discusses the effects of aspects of the cluster structure, being the presence of internal competition, the heterogeneity of the cluster population, the entry and exit barriers, and the presence of (above mentioned) agglomeration effects. It also briefly discusses the important issue of cluster governance. This overview allows one to develop a theoretical framework to analyse clusters. In the empirical part, this framework is applied to the maritime cluster in The Netherlands. Based on empirical data, from surveys amongst firms in the maritime cluster, studies commissioned by the Dutch maritime Network and regional statistics, the presence of agglomeration economies in the cluster is shown. Secondly, it is shown that the cluster structure is beneficial for the performance. This paper finishes with conclusions and suggestions for further research.     

无人船在港口水域海事监管中的应用探讨

近年来,随着与船舶自主航行相关的信息技术、人工智能技术水平的提高,无人船舶行业取得了长足的发展,其在海上安保、环境监测等领域应用也越来越成熟。为推动无人船在海事管理方面的应用研究,破解港口水域海事监管手段不足的瓶颈问题,文中在分析港口水域海事监管特点和无人船系统建设条件的基础上,定量研究了无人船在港口水域海事监管应用面临的性能指标确定、船型平台选择、载荷设备搭配、运行管理体系建设等方面的具体问题,提出了一种港口水域海事监管无人船系统的应用解决方案。     

Impact of scale increase of container ships on the generalised chain cost

In recent years, an increase in the size of the container ships could be observed. The question is how these larger ships will influence the total generalised costs from a port of loading to a destination in the European hinterland. The second question is whether a scale increase of the container ships on other loops, such as a loop from the United States to Europe, has the same impact on the generalised chain costs as on the loop from Asia to Europe. A derived question is which element of the total chain has the highest importance, and whether this balance varies as the ship size changes. In this article, a model is developed that allows answering the above research questions. The model is designed to simulate the cost of a complete loop of a container ship and of a chain that uses that same loop. For the chain cost simulation, the maritime part is determined by the loop. From the ports of loading and unloading, the port container handling and the hinterland transportation costs are also integrated. The model also allows calculating the total chain cost from a point of origin (either a hinterland region or a port) to a destination point (also a port or a hinterland region). An actual container loop of a container shipping company can be introduced in the model. An application is made to two existing container loops, namely from Asia respectively the United States to Europe. It turns out that changing ship does indeed lead to economies of scale, but also that the impact is larger on the Asia–Europe connection than on the US–Europe connection. Furthermore, the maritime component has the biggest share in the total chain cost, but as ship size increases, the shares start getting closer to each other. This research contributes to the existing literature in two ways. First of all, it quantifies the impact of the scale increase of container ships throughout the total chain. Second, this is done from a bottom-up engineering modelling approach.     

Factoring a real value of cargo in port investment and funding decisions

Ports are marine gateways to economic activities. Ports’ ability to perform services depends on their facilities, harbor conditions, and other factors. Generally, ports have control over their facilities but must compete for funding to improve them. As for waterways, in the U.S., a Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund was established to fund dredging, which levies a 0.125% cargo value tax on most shippers using U.S. coastal and Great Lakes harbors. Yet, commonly, a gross tonnage metric is used to allocate the fund’s resources, resulting in under-maintenance of some harbors. This, reportedly, deters additional port funding and hinders valuable commerce. Supplemental economic metrics, such as value of commerce or cargo, can improve port financing decisions, but such data is not readily available. Container ports collect cargo value data in nominal terms, but bulk ports do not. When making economic decisions, however, real values must be used. Further, when allocating resources, decision-makers must be able to assess ports over time and relative to each other. Conforming to these criteria, this paper develops three port financing indicators based on a real value of cargo and illustrates their calculations using the U.S. Port of Duluth-Superior as a case study.     

基于互联网的水上安全电视监控系统

根据SOLAS74公约第XI-2章的规定,《国际船舶和港口设施保安规则》(简称ISPS规则)已于2004年7月1日全面生效并被强制实施,这就要求船舶及港口设施必须按照ISPS规则的要求,制定相应的《保安计划》并取得相应证书,这对减少海上船舶保安事件的发生,提高船舶及港口对保安事件的防范能力具有积极的意义。     

Ship, port and supply chain security concepts interlinking maritime with hinterland transport chains

As maritime processes do no stop at sea ports, hinterland operations have to be considered and addressed as well. This becomes obviously on designing and managing seamless cargo and information flows from/to hinterland regions via sea ports from/to transcontinental markets. Nowadays, also security-related aspects need to be tackled in order to enable continuous flows corresponding to security legislations and technical requirements set up in the field of maritime and intermodal hinterland transport. Ensuring transport security within the European transport market requires both adequate security legislations and innovative concepts. While for the maritime sector, including sea ports, security regulations are already in force, hinterland operations (road, rail and Inland Waterway Transport) are only indirectly affected today, either on carrying out transports from/to sea ports or exporting commodities to overseas territories. This results in the need for innovative security strategies and concepts combining maritime with hinterland transport enabling seamless security processes.     

浅析对废电机运输船舶的分级监督管理

台州海门港区现已成为全国最大的废电机进口基地;废电机进口运输的增长,势必带来与之相关的一系列的问题,其中包括运输船舶安全的监管问题,海洋环境的防污染问题等等。建立运载废电机的方便旗船舶的分级管理,是创新海事监管模式的需要和尝试。     

Sustainable development in seaports: a multi-case study

Seaports are a vital part of the maritime transport industry and have a key role in integrated transport chains and regional economies. However, ports are also sites of environmental pollution originating from land-based activities, ship movements and ports’ own activities. It is, therefore, increasingly recognised that economic growth in ports must be balanced with environmental protection and social progress. This has led to enhanced appreciation of the need for sustainable development (SD) in ports. Whilst much has been written about port environmental practices in European and American ports, there is limited synthesis and comparison of sustainable port practices from different parts of the world. Furthermore, in-depth case analysis and critical examination of the practices and challenges of sustainable port development in a globalised era is limited. This paper presents findings from a qualitative multi-case study that aimed to compare sustainable policies and practices of ports in four different continents and to understand the dilemmas, challenges and opportunities they face in attaining SD. This paper reports findings pertaining to the following research questions: (1) What policy frameworks do ports adopt to attain sustainable development? (2) What specific sustainable practices do ports utilise to manage environmental aspects such as air pollution, water quality, ballast water, dredging and disposal of dredged materials, waste disposal, hazardous substances and land/resource use? (3) What are the driving and constraining forces in achieving sustainable development in ports? Port authorities were studied by reviewing documents and secondary data. The following ports were studied: Port of Long Beach (USA), Port of Rotterdam Authority (The Netherlands), Sydney Ports Corporation (Australia) and Transnet Limited that owns and manages South African ports. Findings of the study demonstrate that the SD paradigm has gained momentum, albeit to differing degrees, in the functioning, organisation and the very ethos of case study ports. An important theme from all case studies is that, whilst there is definite progress towards SD, several practices deemed to be sustainable can be controversial and must be critically examined from the perspectives of different stakeholders including shippers, port-related businesses and the local and global community. Lack of data to monitor environmental impacts, economic costs of implementing sustainable practices and complexities of international, regional and national regulations were other constraining factors. On the other hand, reconciling differences between stakeholders and capitalising on economic opportunities, operational efficiencies and cost savings offered by environmental friendliness can advance port SD. Public–private partnerships and policies negotiated by involving all stakeholders were found to foster port sustainability. Most importantly, this study found that, with globalisation, environmental impacts of ports are not always localised. ‘Sustainable’ practices can have unintended consequences in other parts of the world. Therefore, globalisation necessitates a more critical and global analysis of port operations and environment practices in order to be truly sustainable. Although the scope of the research findings is limited to case study ports, the lessons drawn can be constructively applied to any port operating within an institutional system of structured SD.     

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.     

灰色系统理论在海上交通事故预测中的应用

以某港口2001～2007年海上交通事故统计数据为依据,应用灰色系统预测理论,建立该港口海上交通事故的GM(1,1)模型和UGM(1,1)模型,进行定量计算,结合定性分析,从而预测出该港口2008年海上交通事故的数量,以及2008年各种海上交通事故的比例.     

Testing port choice models using physical and monetary data: a comparative case study for the Spanish container trades

ABSTRACT

Transport costs are useful explanatory variables in port choice research. Nevertheless, the availability of such information usually poses a problem. Thus, the formulation of an alternative approach, to be used as a proxy of these variables, would be desirable. The objective of this study is to improve the analysis of container port choice using logit models by adopting physical non-monetary indicators based on maritime distance and ship size. The statistical tests of logit models on port choice using these new variables are compared with the result of using cost variables for the same data set of choice positions. The statistical outcome is good and allows us to present this new approach as a contribution to the literature on port choice modeling.     

Investigating UAVs applications and intention to use in the maritime shipping in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

This study empirically evaluated the effects of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) applications and acceptable cost on intention to use UAVs in maritime shipping contexts. Factor analysis was employed to identify key UAVs applications (i.e. pollution forensics, supervision and service, search and rescue, humanitarian and emergency delivery, and safety and security), acceptable UAV cost, and intention to use UAVs. Survey data were collected from 201 respondents working for a maritime port corporation, shipping company, agency, and stevedoring company, and then hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to test research hypotheses and examine the effects of UAVs applications and acceptable cost dimensions on intention to use UAVs. The results suggested that the pollution forensics, supervision and service, search and rescue, humanitarian and emergency delivery, and safety and security dimensions positively affected intention to use UAVs. The study findings also revealed negative associations among seniority, turnover, and intention to use UAVs. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are proposed to assist maritime port bureaus, corporations, and operating practice design in remaining competitive and efficient.     

建造中船舶抵押权相关法律问题探析(续)

建造中船舶抵押权制度对解决现实中船舶建造企业融资贷款担保难的问题有着重要意义。要设置起完善的建造中船舶抵押权制度,必须明白建造中船舶的含义、所有权归属、建造中船舶抵押权的性质及其登记,而这些问题都是特殊而富有争议的问题,国内也少有学者对这一问题进行关注。由于缺少应有的理论成果支持以及现有法律规定的不尽完善,国内实践中也少有能够利用建造中船舶设置抵押来进行融资的。因而,对建造中船舶的含义、所有权归属问题以及抵押权的性质和登记问题进行研究是富有理论和现实意义的。     

建造中船舶抵押权相关法律问题探析

建造中船舶抵押权制度对解决现实中船舶建造企业融资贷款担保难的问题有着重要意义。要设置起完善的建造中船舶抵押权制度,必须明白建造中船舶的含义、所有权归属、建造中船舶抵押权的性质及其登记,而这些问题都是特殊而富有争议的问题,国内也少有学者对这一问题进行关注。由于缺少应有的理论成果支持以及现有法律规定的不尽完善,国内实践中也少有能够利用建造中船舶设置抵押来进行融资的。因而,对建造中船舶的含义、所有权归属问题以及抵押权的性质和登记问题进行研究是富有理论和现实意义的。     

从新《海上交通安全法》谈我国海洋安全权益维护

近年来,我国采取分散立法的方式制定了一些涉及海洋安全权益的法律条文,但仅仅停留在对海洋主权的宣示上,没有针对海上安全权益维护规定具体的措施与执行办法,新修订的《海上交通安全法》在某些程度上弥补了我国针对海洋安全权益维护相关法律条款的不足,顺应了国家海洋强国战略的整体要求.从新《海上交通安全法》的内容出发,通过对涉及海上...