Maritime piracy in the Indo-Pacific region – ship vulnerability issues

This paper describes the current situation with piracy and armed robbery at sea in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly off the Horn of Africa and in Southeast Asia. This situation may be aggravated due to the downturn in international shipping following the global financial crisis. This has led to surplus shipping capacity, crews paid off, lower profits, and ship owners seeking to cut costs. Many ships are laid up in anchorages prone to sea robbery, and there is a risk that ships might be less well maintained and operated. This paper also explains how some ships are more vulnerable to attack than others. Sub-standard ships are more likely to be successfully attacked than quality vessels. Issues are identified that might be addressed by the shipping industry and ship owners, as well as by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). In addition to being a victim of piracy, the shipping industry could be adding to the problem by laying up ships in vulnerable areas, reducing wages and sizes of crew and employing sub-standard ships. This situation could be symptomatic of wider problems in international shipping that throw doubt on the effectiveness of current regimes for ship safety, security and marine environmental protection.     

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.     

The impact of port operations on efficient ship operation from both economic and environmental perspectives

Recently, shipping lines have focused on efficient ship operation, which relates to energy efficiency issues in shipping and, particularly, to operational issues such that the minimisation of fuel consumption and resulting greenhouse gas emissions. Efficient ship operation in container lines is closely related to the ship’s time at sea and ship’s time in port. Reduction in port time, thanks to high-quality port operations, allows improvement in the operational efficiency of a liner service by reducing the fuel consumption of a ship at sea and its resulting CO₂ emissions. The main goal of this article is to investigate how time in port affects efficient ship operation in terms of operating costs, CO₂ emissions and externalities. For this, as a methodology, a simulation based upon system dynamics is introduced. Major finding is that less time in port resulting from the improvement of port operations contributes to efficient ship operation in terms of operating costs, amount of CO₂ emissions and external effects in the liner shipping industry. In particular, a sensitivity analysis on efficient ship operation vis-à-vis the quality of port operation shows that bigger ships need to select highly productive calling ports that provide less time in port.     

江苏内河集装箱船标准船型设计分析

为提升江苏内河集装箱运输船舶标准化水平,实现船型与船闸、航道等通航基础设施发展相匹配,通过梳理内河标准船型主尺度标准和通航管理规定的修订情况,结合京杭运河江苏段集装箱营运船舶的调研,在船舶主尺度、舱室布置、船体结构和新能源动力的应用等方面分析江苏内河集装箱船标准船型的设计要点,完成48 TEU、64 TEU和96 TEU标准集装箱船设计。虽然受限于内河航运关注船舶成本的现状,标准集装箱船的设计更多采用传统基础船型设计思路,但研发运用先进技术、满足内河EEDI的绿色节能型船舶是标准船型的重要发展方向。     

船行波对系泊船的影响

国外对于临近进港航道建设的泊位,在进行系缆系统设计时,非常重视航道中航行船舶的船行波对系泊船的作用力及力矩,但我国的设计规范中尚缺少相关内容的规定。介绍一种计算船行波对系泊船的作用力及力矩的算法,并讨论作用力、力矩的基本特点以及该算法的适用性。     

Voyage-based statistical fuel consumption models of ocean-going container ships in Korea

ABSTRACT

Accurately estimating fuel consumption of ships is crucial for shipping companies, port authorities, and environmental protection agencies. The bottom-up approach is becoming increasingly popular because it can estimate ship fuel consumption by accounting for ship activity conditions, such as changes in voyage speed, time, and distance; however, its use is still limited when estimating ship fuel consumption. Ship-specific information, such as the daily fuel consumption rate for main and auxiliary engines for every vessel, is expensive to gather, and generally not collected from private shipping companies. To address this research gap, we develop simplified and composite ship fuel consumption models for ocean-going container ships by size using a regression model. To estimate the fuel consumption models for container ships, we rely on ship activity data, including average speed and sailing time, distance, and actual fuel consumption for main and auxiliary engines. This information is obtained from a major container shipping company in Korea. We estimate and validate the parameters associated with fuel consumption for five different container ship sizes, all of which are smaller than the Post-Panamax container ship (15,000 TEU and above).     

2010年世界船舶市场评述与展望

回顾了2010年世界船舶市场的发展,并对未来船舶市场进行了预测。随着世界经济的复苏,2010年航运市场出现反弹,虽然全年呈现震荡格局,但整体好于2009年,散货船、油船、集装箱船年平均运价均高于上年,特别是集装箱船年平均运价比上年高出一倍多。与此同时,三大船型建造市场出现轮动效应,上半年散货船引导造船市场,下半年行情有所下滑,油船订单则从第二季度开始增加,而沉寂许久的集装箱船建造市场在下半年也开始出现大量新订单。预计2011年的船舶市场将难以维持2010年的繁荣局面,但集装箱船建造市场和海工装备有望延续2010年下半年出现的良好市场行情。     

Designing optimal routes in a liner shipping problem

A real liner shipping problem of deciding optimal weekly routes for a given fleet of ships is considered and a solution method for solving the problem is proposed. First, all feasible routes for each ship are generated together with the cost and the duration for each route. The routes are given as input to an integer programming (IP) problem. By solving the IP problem, routes for each ship are selected such that total transportation costs are minimized and the demand at each port is satisfied. The total duration for the routes that are selected for a given ship must not exceed one week.

The real liner shipping problem is solved together with four randomly generated test problems. The computational results show that proposed solution method is suitable for designing optimal routes in several liner shipping problems.     

Duration analysis for recurrent ship accidents

About 63% of the world’s shipping accidents are recurrent—they occur to ships that have already experienced at least one prior accident. Therefore, reducing recurrent accidents can contribute significantly to maritime safety. We study the factors affecting both first and recurrent accidents, by focusing on the duration between two accidents. Cox proportional hazard models are applied to ship accident data from 1996 to 2015, and the results identify which ships have a high risk of recurrent accidents, based on ship attributes, ship supply and market conditions, shipbuilding country, previous accident type, and ship type. The recurrent rate is high when the ship involved in the accident is old, small, flies a flag of convenience, and has no detention record. In addition, the accident risk increases when the shipping market faces a high bunker price, overcapacity in supply, a high time charter rate, or low newbuilding price. On the other hand, ships built in China and Japan have lower recurrent accident rates than those built elsewhere, although ships built in China have earlier first accidents than do others. General cargo ships have the highest recurrent accident rate, followed by dry bulkers, container ships, and tankers, in that order.     

2013年世界船舶市场评述与未来展望

文章对2013年的世界经济发展作了概述,回顾和总结这一年的船舶市场,并对未来的发展方向进行预测。2013年的世界经济复苏缓慢,经济上行动力仍然不足。航运市场上,干散货船呈现“先抑后扬”的走势,BDI指数创下三年来的新高,油船和集装箱船走势低迷。船舶市场上已释放出一些积极的信号,新船订单量大幅攀升,船价企稳回升。三大主力船型表现相对抢眼,但海工装备订单出现下滑。2014年,预计世界经济形势将有所好转,但未来相当长一段时间都将维持低速增长。随着干散货船和油船运力增幅逐年下降,这两种船型的运力过剩现象将得到改善。然而,集装箱船运力过剩的问题依然十分突出,海工装备市场在中、短期内都有望维持较高的景气度。     

2011年世界船舶市场评述与未来展望

在"增长放缓、风险增大"的2011年全球经济环境下,世界航运市场受"运力投放无休、运营成本增加"的影响而表现为"低迷不振"。新船的不断交付也使世界商船队年轻化势不可挡。新船建造市场同比有所下滑,液货船和散货船表现不佳,集装箱船和海工市场表现较好,新船价格呈现小幅下调趋势。预计2012年世界船市在三大主力船型上仍不容乐观,海工市场继续有尚佳表现。     

在航船舶尾气无人机遥测技术研究与应用

为打好船舶大气污染防治攻坚战,落实交通运输部海事局"陆海空天"一体化海事监管体系建设方向,提升我国海洋、内河及环境情况复杂水域中在航船舶尾气监测的自动化水平,研究了小型化的船舶尾气嗅探传感器,利用无人机搭载嗅探传感器实时监测在航船舶尾气中的SO2和CO2浓度,依此反推船舶燃油的硫含量.选择对上海(排放控制区)关键水域的...     

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.     

Safe manning of merchant ships: an approach and computer tool

In the shipping industry, staffing expenses have become a vital competition parameter. In this paper, an approach and a software tool are presented to support decisions on the staffing of merchant ships. The tool is implemented in the form of a Web user interface that makes use of discrete-event simulation and allows estimation of the workload and of whether different scenarios are successfully performed taking account of the number of crewmembers, watch schedules, distribution of competencies, and others. The software library ‘SimManning’ at the core of the project is provided as open source. The tool is conceived as a support for the maritime authorities, certifying bodies and shipping companies to assess whether a ship is safely manned.     

Economic feasibility of an NSR/SCR-combined container service on the Asia-Europe lane: a new approach dynamically considering sea ice extent

The trend towards global warming and the rapid decline in the extent of summer Arctic sea ice over recent years has increased the feasibility of international Arctic shipping. In this study we propose a seasonal NSR (North Sea Route)/SCR (Suez Canal Route)-combined shipping service linking Shanghai and Rotterdam, using the Northern Sea Route during the economical navigable window but using the traditional Suez Canal Route at other times. Different from the previous literatures, this paper dynamically considers the sea ice extent in the model, which is more reasonable for the assessment of Arctic container shipping, because fuel consumption is highly related to ship speed, while ship speed is determined by the relative distances of ice-covered and ice-free route stages. A new approach is developed to predict the time points at which the ship enters and exits the ice-covered stage, given that both the ship position and the extent of sea ice are constantly changing. The results show that the NSR/SCR-combined Arctic container service can be more economical than the SCR, given lower NSR tariffs.     

仿生减摇鳍升力模型的数值模拟及分析

船舶在系泊或低航速状态下,发动机主机停止工作,船舶失去自控方向能力,船体随波浪左右摇晃,比航行时摇摆更为剧烈。因此,研究零航速减摇鳍非常重要。文章研究零航速时仿生减摇鳍产生升力的模型,其基础为Weis-Fogh机构理论。首先讨论如何旋转才能产生给定的升力。依据吕卡提方程理论,给出模型周期解的存在性和稳定性条件 采用单步Runge-Kutta方法求出模型的数值解,给出保证数值解稳定的条件。     

Analyzing ship investment behaviour in liner shipping

This study analyzes capacity expansion and ship choice decisions. Theoretically, we derive the probability of capacity expansion as a function of market and company attributes and characterize the impacts of these factors on expansion decisions. Empirically, we analyze ship investment and ship choice behaviour using binary choice and nested logit models based on ship investment data from major liner shipping companies over the period 1999 to 2009. Most expansion decisions are found to be market-driven, and large companies expand to maintain their market shares. In terms of ship selection, statistical results support the assumption that shipping companies decide on a new order or second-hand purchase before considering the ship size. Also, new orders are preferable to second-hand purchases. For new orders, the preference increases with ship size, and decreases with shipbuilding length and demand growth rate. For all ship types, the preference increases with a high and stable time-charter rate. For second-hand ships, handysize is the most preferable size. The substitution of new orders and second-hand purchases is possible, but not symmetrical.     

苏通大桥桥区水域船舶通航能力研究

结合实测得到的苏通大桥桥区水域的船舶流量数据,运用船舶领域理论,论证苏通大桥施工期主通航孔上、下行全天通航能力,为保证现场施工和船舶通航的顺利进行提供科学依据。     

水流速度对内河船舶营运能效影响分析

本文在能源消耗和环境污染的危机下,致力于内河船舶能源消耗和温室气体排放的研究,分析了水流速度对内河船舶营运能效的影响。本分析是基于一艘客船的数据进行的,分别对不同航段下水流速度,主机转速,燃油消耗进行测量,并计算得到内河船舶营运能效。根据测量结果提出内河船舶营运能效提升策略,为内河航运业的节能减排提供帮助。