Energy efficiency and time charter rates: Energy efficiency savings recovered by ship owners in the Panamax market

This paper presents the first analysis on how financial savings arising from energy efficient ships are allocated between owners and those hiring the ships. This as an important undertaking as allocation of financial savings is expected to have an impact on the incentives faced by ship owners to invest in more energy efficient vessels. We focus on the dry bulk Panamax segment as it contributes to around 50 Mt (5%) of total CO₂ emissions from shipping in 2007 and therefore its importance in terms of environmental impact should not be neglected. The time charter market represents a classical example of the principal–agent problem similar to the tenant–landlord problem in the buildings sector. We discovered that on average only 40% of the financial savings delivered by energy efficiency accrue to ship owner for the period 2008–2012. The finding that only part of the savings are recouped by shipowners affecting their incentives towards energy efficiency could consequently have implications on the type of emission reduction policies opted at both, global and regional levels.     

Port-city exhaust emission model: An application to cruise and ferry operations in Las Palmas Port

Exhaust emissions cause air pollution and climate change. The exhausts of shipboard fuel combustion are equally damaging particularly, so close to the environmentally sensitive mainland and island coasts, as well as at ports due to their urbanized character. This paper estimates, for the first time, exhaust pollutants related to cruise and ferry operations in Las Palmas Port and, in an island context. Emission assessment is based on a full bottom-up model and messages transmitted by the Automatic Identification System during 2011. Results are described as a breakdown of NOx, SOx, PM_2.5, CO and CO₂, according to ship classes, operative type and time, providing valuable information to environmental policy makers in port-city areas and islands under similar conditions. It is generally concluded that vessel traffic and passenger shipping in particular are a source of air pollution in Las Palmas Port. Emission maps confirm location of hot spots in quays assigned for cruise and ferry operations. Policy recommendations encourage regular monitoring of exhaust emissions and market-based incentives supported by details on polluting and operative profiles. On the other hand, feasibility studies are suggested for automated mooring, LNG bunkering facilities and also shore-side energy services, prioritizing berthing of shipping sectors (or sub-sectors) with the highest share of exhaust emissions once their local effects have been confirmed by a dispersion, exposure and impact assessment.     

The multi-port berth allocation problem with speed optimization and emission considerations

The container shipping industry faces many interrelated challenges and opportunities, as its role in the global trading system has become increasingly important over the last decades. On the one side, collaboration between port terminals and shipping liners can lead to costs savings and help achieve a sustainable supply chain, and on the other side, the optimization of operations and sailing times leads to reductions in bunker consumption and, thus, to fuel cost and air emissions reductions. To that effect, there is an increasing need to address the integration opportunities and environmental issues related to container shipping through optimization. This paper focuses on the well known Berth Allocation Problem (BAP), an optimization problem assigning berthing times and positions to vessels in container terminals. We introduce a novel mathematical formulation that extends the classical BAP to cover multiple ports in a shipping network under the assumption of strong cooperation between shipping lines and terminals. Speed is optimized on all sailing legs between ports, demonstrating the effect of speed optimization in reducing the total time of the operation, as well as total fuel consumption and emissions. Furthermore, the model implementation shows that an accurate speed discretization can result in far better economic and environmental results.     

Evaluating the competitiveness of container ports in Korea and China

Changes in world trade and the shipping environment have created ever-increasing competition between ports in North-east Asia, especially Korea and China. Following intensive state investment in port developments through large-scale projects, Chinese ports now threaten to oust Busan in Korea as the regional hub. To identify and evaluate the competitiveness of major ports in the region, this paper identifies the components influencing their competitiveness and presents a structure for evaluating them. Based on the literature related to port selection and competition, a regional survey of shipping companies and owners employed factor analysis to reveal that port service, hinterland condition, availability, convenience, logistics cost, regional centre and connectivity are the determining factors in these regions.     

Efficiency evaluation and PM emission reallocation of China ports based on improved DEA models

The emission of particulate matter (PM) and other atmospheric pollutants in port operations and shipping have caused a huge negative impact on the environment. Consequently, how to evaluate the environmental efficiency of ports and put forward corresponding countermeasures on this basis is becoming a more important issue than ever before from the perspectives of the government, academia, and society. We construct three data envelopment analysis (DEA) models to evaluate the environmental efficiency of ports under the circumstances of environmental control, non-environmental control and PM emission through inter-ports cooperation. The innovation of the DEA models constructed in this paper lies in: (1) Setting environmental control parameters to uniformly manipulate the situations of environmental control and non-environmental control, etc.; (2) Allowing non-equal proportional change of input index, expected output and non-expected output index; (3) Setting preference coefficients for ports to admit favorable decisions; (4) Providing a distance formula of expected output for PM emission reallocation. Further, data from 11 major ports in China are collected to compare the expected output under different PM emission standards assuming the situation of environmental control and non-environmental control, port cooperation, and non-cooperative sewage discharge. The empirical results show that: (1) Ports in the eastern China (Shanghai, Ningbo, and Nanjing) have higher port efficiency; (2) Port cooperation can improve the overall expected output but it will lose its edge with the improvement of PM emission standards. (3) Ports follow the same trend of output loss regardless of favorable decisions. In the end, the author makes a summary, puts forward relevant policy suggestions and makes the recommendation for future research.     

Segment-based alteration for container liner shipping network design

Container liner shipping companies only partially alter their shipping networks to cope with the changing demand, rather than entirely redesign and change the network. In view of the practice, this paper proposes an optimal container liner shipping network alteration problem based on an interesting idea of segment, which is a sequence of legs from a head port to a tail port that are visited by the same type of ship more than once in the existing shipping network. In segment-based network alteration, the segments are intact and each port is visited by the same type of ship and from the same previous ports. As a result, the designed network needs minimum modification before implementation. A mixed-integer linear programming model with a polynomial number of variables is developed for the proposed segmented-based liner shipping network alternation problem. The developed model is applied to an Asia–Europe–Oceania liner shipping network with a total of 46 ports and 11 ship routes. Results demonstrate that the problem could be solved efficiently and the optimized network reduces the total cost of the initial network considerably.     

Estimating emissions reductions from accelerated vehicle retirement programs

Accelerated vehicle retirement programs offer owners of older vehicles incentives to scrap those vehicles earlier than might otherwise occur. Since older vehicles generally pollute more than newer vehicles, public agencies adopt such programs to reduce air pollutant emissions. Current methods of estimating the emissions reduction benefits of the programs are based on several assumptions and limited empirical evidence. This paper uses data from two large-scale programs in California to demonstrate that changing assumptions can significantly alter the assumed benefits of the program. The results show that vehicle retirement programs are likely to reduce emissions, but probably not as much as expected, particularly for nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide emissions. The differences in estimates stem from several factors: scrapped vehicles are generally driven fewer miles than other vehicles of the same model year; some of the vehicles would have been scrapped without the program or not have lasted as long as expected; emissions for some pollutants may not be as high as predicted; and replacement vehicles are usually older than the fleet average.     

Carbon dioxide emissions from port container distribution: Spatial characteristics and driving factors

Port carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in China have become an ever-increasing public concern due to their significant impacts on human health and the environment. However, existing studies focus mainly on CO₂ emissions from vessels calling at the ports and cargo handling within the ports, paying little attention to the inland distribution networks. To fill this gap, this paper proposes an easily implemented method for calculating CO₂ emissions from port container distribution (PCD) and investigates their spatial characteristics and driving factors. By analyzing 30 container ports in China, the main findings are as follows. First, road transportation is the major contributor of CO₂ emissions from PCD due to the lack of rail and inland water transportation. Second, PCD carbon emissions exhibit significant local spatial clustering. That is, ports with similar geographical locations tend to present a similar pattern of PCD carbon emissions. Third, as suggested by the spatial Durbin model, PCD carbon emissions are negatively determined by local gross domestic product, number of port berths, but are positively determined by local tertiary industry value and highway freight volume, and waterway freight volume in both local and neighboring ports. These results provide empirical insights into cross-port collaboration in reducing PCD carbon emissions.     

Canada’s voluntary agreement on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions: When the details matter

The 2005 voluntary agreement between the automobile industry and Canadian government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles is evaluated. We analyze the likely effect of the agreement on emissions, and on use of biofuels and advanced vehicle technologies. We conclude that the impact on emissions could be far less than suggested, possibly even zero, even if automobile companies fully comply. The pros and cons of the Canadian agreement are assessed and compared with other voluntary and mandatory greenhouse gas reduction programs. Some lessons learned include the importance of specific performance metrics to evaluate progress, use of precise baseline measurements and methods, and an appreciation of the asymmetry in information between most governments and the affected industries.     

External costs from vessel emissions at port: a review of the methodological and empirical state of the art†

The accurate calculation of external costs from vessel emissions and shipping (as it happens with transport) strongly depends on parameters such as location, the time of the day and vessel operative. Thus, the use of a full bottom-up approach and granular traffic details is suggested. The latter may represent a substantial improvement in the resolution of shipping activity, energy demand, emissions and cost data being the latter essential for better regulations. The revised work identifies the Impact Pathway Approach (IPA) as the best-practice bottom-up methodology for calculating site-specific external costs derived from shipping air emissions. It has been widely adopted, among others, over major European studies (CAFE, BeTa, NEEDS and HEATCO). Also, it shows that due to costly and complex requirements of creating a shipping and harbour-specific bottom-up approach, external cost calculation based on tonne per euro factors obtained from European Studies (top-down approach) has been widely accepted. Moreover, methodological improvements and the possible achievement of refined estimations (IPA) dedicated to ports and shipping are strongly suggested, as these may improve information quality used for environmental policy and measures that contribute to the internalisation of externality costs.     

Optimal distribution of financial incentives to foster off-hour deliveries in urban areas

The main objective of this paper is to develop mathematical formulations to gain insight into the best way to distribute financial incentives to receivers of urban deliveries to maximize participation in off-hour deliveries. The paper considers two different types of incentive budgets: exogenous, and endogenous. The exogenous case represents the condition in which an external decision maker determines the incentive budget that is to be distributed among potential participants in off-hour deliveries. In the case of an endogenous incentive budget, the entity distributing the incentives must raise the necessary funds using revenue generation mechanisms such as tolls and fines. The optimal incentives are obtained from the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions of a mathematical program that maximizes the number of truck trips shifted to the off-hours as a function of the incentives. The mathematical models developed in this paper provide guidelines about how to optimally distribute financial incentives to foster off-hour deliveries.     

Have Emission Control Areas (ECAs) harmed port efficiency in Europe?

Ports in the European Union and North America have enforced environmental regulations on controlling SO_x and NOx emissions from ships in their coastal areas known as Emission Control Areas (ECAs). This study uses two-stage approaches to examine whether ECA regulations impact the efficiency of ports operating in such areas. First, port efficiencies are estimated using non-radial slacks-based measure (SBM) Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models. The efficiency scores estimated by the SBM DEA models are then regressed on explanatory variables, including the ECA factor, and macroeconomic indicators using bootstrapped truncated regression (BTR) models. Panel data is collected on countries in EU ECAs and non-ECAs regarding such input variables as capital and labor, with cargo as an output variable. The results indicate that ECA regulations can harm port efficiency, reflecting concerns of policy-makers and industrial managers: the average efficiency loss from an ECA designation amounts to 0.058–0.066 on a scale of 0–1, accounting for a 15–18% loss from ECA ports’ average efficiency scores.     

International emission regulation in sea transport: Economic feasibility and impact

Emissions from shipping due to the burning of the sulphur content of marine fuels conduce to air pollution in the form of sulphur dioxide and particulate matter. Various international organisations and institutions impose environmental standards on their member states to limit the emission of greenhouse gases. This paper examines both the potential effects of the emerging international maritime emission regulations on the competition between seaports and the potential underlying economic motivations fostering the discussion of introducing Emission Control Areas. It focuses on deepsea shipping. Another novelty is that the environmental issues are addressed from a policy, an economic and a legislative viewpoint. For the policy-related part, it is found that the political theory of public choice suggests that not the green lobby but rather the petrochemical lobby is the major driving factor behind the very strict emission caps. A potential port shift from Northern Europe to Mediterranean ports seems unlikely due to logistics disadvantages and service problems in Southern European ports. Finally, no convincing proof was found that the main liner companies would be unprepared for this legislation and should be persuaded to change their routes in favour of Mediterranean ports solely on account of the various emission regulations. The legal analysis, however, showed that the current enforcement regime of MARPOL Annex VI should be improved in order to rule out the possibility of a low degree of compliance and to protect the competiveness of complying ships.     

The desulphurisation of shipping: Past,present and the future under a global cap

As from January 2020, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is implementing a global 0.5% limit on the sulphur content of fuel, commonly known as the global sulphur cap. This limit is the latest policy in the efforts to reduce sulphur emissions from shipping, following the designation of emission control areas (ECAs) and other regional regulations. In this paper, a literature review is conducted of academic studies that have dealt with issues relating to the reduction of maritime sulphur emissions. Various recurring research themes are identified, spanning the areas of operations research, maritime economics and transport policy. The effects and implications of available compliance options are then analyzed from the perspectives of ship operators, shippers and consumers. Using lessons learned from the enforcement of ECA regulations, this is followed by an appraisal of various potential issues related to the enforcement of these new global regulations. It is found that a homogeneous enforcement regime is required to ensure a level playing field amongst ship operators and that the global sulphur cap may lead to serious market distortion, due to the potential short term rise of fuel prices. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for future research on sulphur emissions from shipping in the aftermath of the global cap and, looking forward, to its relationship to the IMO strategy on the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) shipping emissions.     

The influence of employer ridesharing programs on employee mode choice

Employer ridesharing programs and employee mode choice were analyzed using Southern California data. Problems in estimating the costs and benefits of employer ridesharing programs were identified. Surveyed firms used a wide variety of information to estimate employee mode split internally. Virtually all surveyed firms offered free or subsidized parking to some or all of their employees. Few responding firms estimated the cost of providing employee parking accurately, if at all. Despite these significant data limitations, factors influencing firm choice of employer ridesharing program components were identified. The influence of employer ridesharing programs on employee mode choice was modeled using weighted least squares logit regression analysis. Firm size was foung to be the single most important variable identified in the analysis. Larger firms were more likely to offer ridesharing incentives to their empolyees, and to report direct employer benefits from ridesharing. Alternative work hours hindered the formation of ridesharing arrangements in some cases. Relatively few firms promoted ridesharing on a purely voluntary basis. A private market for employer ridesharing services was found to exist, however. Personalized matching assistance may be a critical factor in developing more effective employer ridesharing programs. Parking pricing and supply control measures probably would have a larger impact on employee mode split overall. Parking management faces severe obstacles in implementation, some of which might be overcome through the more extensive provision of ridesharing services, such as personalized matching assistance. to employees at specific employment sites by their employers.     

Effects of regulation-driven green innovations on short sea shipping's environmental and economic performance

Despite its pivotal role in European trade, today’s short sea shipping (SSS) industry faces the dual challenge of lessening its environmental footprint while improving its economic performance. To reduce the pollution caused by their operations, SSS companies are required to comply with increasingly stringent environmental regulations enacted by global and regional authorities such as the European Union and the International Maritime Organization. However, the companies tend to regard those regulations as imposing an additional burden of cost that compromises their capacity to enhance their economic performance. This paper examines the impact of external institutional driver namely regulatory pressure on the adoption of green innovations in SSS and in turn, the impact of those innovations on the environmental and economic performance of SSS companies. To investigate the hypothesised relationships of those constructs, a structural equation model was developed and tested with data from a survey conducted amongst 101 short sea shipping companies headquartered in Europe. As detailed in the paper, the analysis revealed that regulatory pressure has generated green innovations that have enhanced the environmental and economic performance of European SSS companies and, as a result, led to a win–win situation for all parties involved. The paper discusses what those findings imply for SSS firm managers and policymakers who seek to improve the environmental or economic performance of Europe’s SSS industry.     

Evaluating Key Resources and Capabilities for Liner Shipping Services

Abstract

This paper empirically evaluates key resources and capabilities in the liner shipping context. Based on a factor analysis, three resource dimensions are identified: marine equipment, information equipment, and corporate image; whereas seven capability dimensions are identified: purchasing, operation, human resource management, customer service, information integration, pricing, and financial management. The findings suggest that operation capability is perceived as the most important dimension, followed by customer service, human resource management, information integration, pricing purchasing, and financial management. Results indicate that four dimensions are found that significantly differ between shipping companies and agencies: marine equipment, information equipment, operation, and information integration. The theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings are discussed.     

Atmospheric impact of ship traffic in four Adriatic-Ionian port-cities: Comparison and harmonization of different approaches

Shipping is a growing transport sector representing a relevant share of atmospheric pollutant emissions at global scale. In the Mediterranean Sea, shipping affects air quality of coastal urban areas with potential hazardous effects on both human health and climate. The high number of different approaches for investigating this aspect limits the comparability of results. Furthermore, limited information regarding the inter-annual trends of shipping impacts is available. In this work, an approach integrating emission inventory, numerical modelling (WRF-CAMx modelling system), and experimental measurements at high and low temporal resolution is used to investigate air quality shipping impact in the Adriatic/Ionian area focusing on four port-cities: Brindisi and Venice (Italy), Patras (Greece), and Rijeka (Croatia). Results showed shipping emissions of particulate matter (PM) and NOx comparable to road traffic emissions at all port-cities, with larger contributions to local SO₂ emissions. Contributions to PM_2.5 ranged between 0.5% (Rijeka) and 7.4% (Brindisi), those to PM₁₀ were between 0.3% (Rijeka) and 5.8% (Brindisi). Contributions to particle number concentration (PNC) showed an impact 2–4 times larger with respect to that on mass concentrations. Shipping impact on gaseous pollutants are larger than those to PM. The contribution to total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) concentrations was 82% in Venice and 56% in Brindisi, with a different partition gas-particle because of different meteorological conditions. The inter-annual trends analysis showed the primary contribution to PM concentrations decreasing, due to the implementation of the European legislation on the use of low-sulphur content fuels. This effect was not present on other pollutants like PAHs.     

Liner shipping network design with emission control areas: A genetic algorithm-based approach

To curb emissions, containerized shipping lines face the traditional trade-off between cost and emissions (CO₂ and SO_x) reduction. This paper considers this element in the context of liner service design and proposes a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model based on a multi-commodity pickup and delivery arc-flow formulation. The objective is to maximize the profit by selecting the ports to be visited, the sequence of port visit, the cargo flows between ports, as well as the number/operating speeds of vessels on each arc of the selected route. The problem also considers that Emission Control Areas (ECAs) exist in the liner network and accounts for the vessel carrying capacity. In addition to using the MILP solver of CPLEX, we develop in the paper a specific genetic algorithm (GA) based heuristic and show that it gives the possibility to reach an optimal solution when solving large size instances.     

Greenhouse gas emissions from ships in ports – Case studies in four continents

Emissions of GHG from the transport sector and how to reduce them are major challenges for policy makers. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships while in port based on annual data from Port of Gothenburg, Port of Long Beach, Port of Osaka and Sydney Ports. Port call statistics including IMO number, ship name, berth number and time spent at berth for each ship call, were provided by each participating port. The IMO numbers were used to match each port call to ship specifications from the IHS database Sea-web. All data were analysed with a model developed by the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute for the purpose of quantifying GHG emissions (as CO₂-equivalent) from ships in the port area. Emissions from five operational modes are summed in order to account for ship operations in the different traffic areas. The model estimates total GHG emissions of 150,000, 240,000, 97,000, and 95,000 tonnes CO₂ equivalents per year for Gothenburg, Long Beach, Osaka, and Sydney, respectively. Four important emission-reduction measures are discussed: reduced speed in fairway channels, on-shore power supply, reduced turnaround time at berth and alternative fuels. It is argued that the potential to reduce emissions in a port area depends on how often a ship revisits a port: there it in general is easier to implement measures for high-frequent liners. Ships that call 10 times or less contribute significantly to emissions in all ports.