Comparing carbon dioxide emissions of trucking and intermodal container transport in Taiwan

This paper examines carbon dioxide emissions of truck-only transportation using activity-based emission modelling and compares those with intermodal coastal shipping and truck movements. The results reveal that replacing long-haul truck transport with the intermodal can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emission significantly because of the efficiency of maritime fuel.     

长江干线集装箱吞吐量分析预测

港口集装箱吞吐量是进行港口规划和加强港口建设的依据,预测长江干线主要港口企业集装箱吞吐量对促进长江干线水域经济发展发挥了重要作用。以长江干线主要港口企业集装箱吞吐量为基础,分析二次指数平滑法、灰色模型预测法和BP-GA算法的原理,分别建立三种相应的预测模型并比较预测结果及精度。结果表明BP-GA模型能更加准确预测集装箱吞吐量在时间序列上的变化趋势,预测拟合度最佳。最后以该模型预测分析2021年1月至12月的长江干线主要港口企业集装箱吞吐量,为未来长江航运发展提供参考。     

Centralized versus distributed feeder ship service: The case of the Maasvlakte harbour area of Rotterdam

Coastal and inland feeder shipping is a critical factor for intercontinental container transport. The question is whether each intercontinental terminal should be equipped with its own service stations for feeder shipping, or whether pooling of the facilities would be more effective. For this paper, the service station examined for the service of feeder ships is equipped with two quay cranes operating in parallel supported by a small active quay stack. The centre for this feeder service consists of several of these stations. Simulation shows that a crane productivity of 96% is feasible with an average vehicle waiting time of 1 min, that a central service requires fewer service stations than a distributed service and that the quay transport for central and distributed transport requires the same number of terminal vehicles. The analysis shows that a centralized service is preferable, attracting 70% of the market potential.     

Does a carbon tax affect the feasibility of Arctic shipping?

The Arctic route has huge potential for shipping between Europe and Northeast Asia with significant savings in transit time and distance. However, GHG emissions from shipping would harm the environment of Arctic area. Potential Market Based Measures of GHG emission reduction (such as carbon tax) are under consideration but they may affect the economic viability of Northern Sea Route (NSR) for containerships. This paper investigates the economic viability of NSR against Suez Canal Route (SCR) under 2 proposed carbon tax schemes (fixed vs. progressive). Three different fuel oil types (Heavy Fuel Oil, Light Fuel Oil, Liquified Natural Gas) are used as main bunker fuel for the calculation of economic feasibility. Our result reveals that when there is no carbon tax on NSR nor SCR, or both routes are under a carbon tax scheme, no matter fixed or progressive, NSR is more economically viable, regardless of fuel type choice. When only NSR is under a carbon tax scheme, the viability depends on specific carbon tax scheme and fuel choice, but for the majority of containership sizes, NSR has lower unit cost. The result also suggests that for a given route, a progressive scheme in preferable than a fixed one and LNG would be an appealing fuel with lower unit cost.     

Effect of a speed reduction of containerships in response to higher energy costs in Sulphur Emission Control Areas

The objective of this paper is to explore the possible consequences of the future low-sulphur fuel requirements in Sulphur Emission Control Areas (SECA) on vessel speed, from the standpoint of the container shipping industry. Rational energy use, speed reduction, and revenues are closely related in the container shipping sector because speed reductions may provide substantial energy and cost savings. The operators could consider reducing their speed in SECA in order to save on fuel that will become relatively expensive. However, to maintain a weekly frequency without adding new ships, such a behaviour implies that the required speed at sea outside the SECA area increases. This paper aims to investigate if such a difference in speed is cost-effective, and if the increase in speed outside SECA may result in an increase in CO₂ emissions of the total cycle. We propose a cost model that estimates the cost-minimising combination of speeds inside and outside SECA, and the resulting CO₂ emissions of the liner service. Applying this model to representative liner services serving North Europe, we find that differentiating speed accordingly slightly decreases total costs and increases CO₂ emissions in a similar way. The results are sensitive to the price of low-sulphur fuels, the part of the cycle in SECA and the number of ships deployed in the service.     

An operational activity-based method to estimate CO2 emissions from container shipping considering empty container repositioning

This paper develops an operational activity-based method to estimate CO₂ emissions from container shipping in contrasts to the traditional aggregated activity-based method. Two case studies investigate the impacts of empty container repositioning policies and port handling capacity on CO₂ emission index. The results show that the aggregated method could well overestimate CO₂ emissions and the operational activity-based method is more appropriate. The paper also demonstrates that high port-handling capacity and efficient empty container repositioning could reduce CO₂ emissions in seaborne container transportation.     

Centralized resource allocation with emission resistance in a two-stage production system: Evidence from a Taiwan’s container shipping company

This paper proposes a centralized network data envelopment analysis model that combines the centralized data envelopment analysis model and network data envelopment analysis to allocate resources among sub-units. In the proposed model, this paper also considers the situations in which undesirable outputs are jointly produced with desirable outputs, the reduction of undesirable outputs is associated with the reduction of energy inputs, and some inputs are dedicated to the specific sub-unit while some inputs are shared among sub-units. To comprehensively investigate this issue, two cases are discussed. One case explores the situation in which common inputs are shared among the first process of sub-units, while the other case explores the situation in which common inputs are also shared among two processes of sub-units. The proposed model is illustrated in an empirical example of 14 Asian shipping routes operated by a Taiwanese container shipping company. In order to avoid organizational resistance, minor and major adjustment policies are demonstrated. The minor adjustment policy transfers inputs among routes but maintains the original levels of input resources, whereas the major adjustment policy reduces the total amount of input resources. The results provide valuable information for the centralized decision-maker on how to reallocate resources among the sub-units.     

How can the maritime industry meet Sustainable Development Goals? An analysis of sustainability reports from the social entrepreneurship perspective

Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) are a comprehensive agenda agreed upon globally that aims to stimulate actions towards economic, environmental and social sustainability. Being one of the key stakeholders, the international maritime industry plays an important role in contributing to global sustainability. By applying the concept of social entrepreneurship (SE), this study aims to examine (1) the basic and extended responsibilities (SDG 1–SDG 16) and (2) the potential collaborations within the value chain (SDG 17) concerning SDG implementation in maritime industry. To achieve these, we conduct a content analysis of sustainability reports published by container shipping liners and terminal operators from 2016 to 2019. More specifically, manual text classification is adopted to categorise the text content of sustainability reports based on 17 SDGs, and automatic text mining is employed to further identify the key roles of maritime industry related to each SDG. A unified framework is proposed, which points to varied motives and levels of comprehensiveness of the sustainability efforts by the maritime industry. This framework reveals the theoretic process of maritime industry's transitional involvement in sustainability from the SE perspective. It also creates managerial implications regarding the resource allocation strategies by maritime industry in meeting SDGs.