Polish shipping and shipping policy

Following a period of about 120 years, when external political pressures prevented Poland from engaging in maritime commercial activities, the end of World War I marked an important epoch in Poland's maritime history. Although the Peace Treaties gave Poland access to the sea and the right to use Gdansk, it was not until 1926, when Poland's first shipping company was established and Poland's new port of Gdynia opened, that her new status as a maritime country was fashioned. This paper traces the development of Polish shipping from 1918 to the present time; discusses the factors related to Poland's problems in the sphere of international maritime transport; and outlines Poland's present shipping policy.     

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.     

Themes and tools of maritime transport research during 2000-2014

This study examines how maritime transport has been researched through a comprehensive review of papers published in 19 transportation journals over the period 2000–2014. Systematic investigation shows that Maritime Policy & Management plays a prominent role in publishing maritime transport research. At the same time, ‘shipping’ is a dominant research area, with ‘port management, service, performance, efficiency and competitiveness’; ‘shipping market, industry, freight rate and economic impact’; and ‘terminal studies’ as the most popular topics. Nevertheless, few efforts have investigated ‘shipping finance’; ‘shipping service’; or ‘port risk and security.’ Since 2000, the use of quantitative analysis techniques has steadily increased in maritime transport to help participants make decisions scientifically. We here present the major data analysis techniques and highlight some limitations regarding their application. Thus, we provide a better understanding of how maritime transport research has been undertaken in a quantitative manner.     

Polish shipping and shipping policy

Following a period of about 120 years, when external political pressures prevented Poland from engaging in maritime commercial activities, the end of World War I marked an important epoch in Poland's maritime history. Although the Peace Treaties gave Poland access to the sea and the right to use Gdansk, it was not until 1926, when Poland's first shipping company was established and Poland's new port of Gdynia opened, that her new status as a maritime country was fashioned. This paper traces the development of Polish shipping from 1918 to the present time; discusses the factors related to Poland's problems in the sphere of international maritime transport; and outlines Poland's present shipping policy.     

A study on time constraints and task deviations at sea leading to accidents – a cultural-historical perspective

The high frequency of maritime accidents and incidents occurring at sea has been a major challenge for the maritime industry in the last decades. The majority of these accidents are attributed to seafarers’ poor performance. This, despite the fact that the international maritime domain continues to adopt and update conventions regulating maritime safety to mitigate these accidents from occurring. In this paper, utilising a qualitative research approach, we show through a socio-cultural contextual perspective that time constraints as a major influencing factor in causing task deviations at sea which leads to dangerous situations. We analyse how some of the present barriers in place to prevent accidents at sea are in effect prompt seafarers who are working under time pressure to deviate from their task. Moreover, the paper discusses the social constituents such as job insecurity and the seafarers’ viewpoint towards the ship operators’ commitment to safe ship operations are crucial in motivating seafarers’ deviating from the task at hand when faced with time pressure.     

Incentives to reduce port inefficiency: a theoretical approach

Over the last decades, the European Union (EU) has devoted a large amount of effort and money to projects aimed at boosting some of its maritime corridors as a modal alternative to road or rail freight transport. However, the overall design of most of these programmes has ex post revealed as very ineffective. This paper suggests that promoting port efficiency might be a more suitable target to increase the modal split of Short Sea Shipping (SSS) than subsidizing firms to transfer cargo from road to sea. But defining ‘port efficiency’ is a complex task and, therefore, granting money directly to port authorities could also generate perverse moral hazard effects, particularly when the improvements are difficult to monitor and many investments are non-refundable. The European Court of Auditors points out that millions of EU public port finance was wasted on empty terminal and other unused infrastructure. The objective of this paper is to design a proper subsidy to promote SSS by encouraging port improvements through a proper system of incentives. As a policy recommendation, in this paper we propose the development of a subsidy per inefficiency-reduction unit.     

Exploring maritime ergonomics from a bottom line perspective

The present paper reports a study composed of three research activities exploring the economics of ergonomics in a shipping context. First, a literature study aimed to review previous studies on the economics of ergonomics in general and within the maritime domain in particular; and moreover, to ascertain the key ergonomic factors addressed in contemporary maritime ergonomic research. Second, the concept of ergonomics was probed from a stakeholder perspective through nine semi-structured qualitative interviews. Third, structured interviews were held with representatives of ten Swedish shipping companies to investigate if the shipowners are aware of and calculate the economic effects of ergonomics.     

Maritime policy in Scotland

This paper begins by defining the meaning of the term ‘maritime policy’. Since devolution in the UK, the opening of the new Scottish parliament in 1998 and the creation of the Scottish Executive, little effort has been made to establish a distinct maritime policy for Scotland. As was evident prior to devolution, the primary emphasis from any maritime policy perspective has continued to be a focus on lifeline island ferry services. This ignores significant developments in several other key maritime transport sectors, and this paper provides examples of areas that require some form of policy response, including intra-European short sea shipping, UK coastal shipping, urban/river transport and global container shipping. Long-standing institutional bias against maritime transport coupled with subsidy devoted almost entirely to land transport systems has resulted in a quite distorted marketplace. This suggests that a maritime policy is now imperative if maritime transport is to play a more significant role in the overall transport system. Further discussion centres on the need to consider, from a Scottish policy perspective, the role of various state-sponsored maritime service providers and how these bodies might fit better within evolving policy. The conclusion is that formulation of a maritime policy by the Scottish Executive is overdue and that a degree of restructuring of transport responsibilities within the Executive, combined with adequate resource allocation towards the maritime industry, will be necessary in order that market distortions can be overcome, so enabling Scotland to fully exploit the competitive and environmental advantages that maritime transport can provide.     

Causes and effects of FDI by the Norwegian maritime industry

This paper analyses foreign direct investments (FDI) in Asia by the Norwegian maritime industry. It focuses on three topics: (1) Why do Norwegian maritime companies invest abroad? (2) What are the effects of maritime foreign direct investments on the Norwegian maritime milieu? (3) What are the effects of these investments on the host country? By analysing specific Norwegian maritime companies, it was found that the FDIs have partly been induced by the instability of the Norwegian policy towards this sector. Several firms also point at the importance of being closer to the Asian market as a significant reason for FDI, and the Norwegian ship equipment industry tends to 'follow' the shipping companies abroad. The domestic effects of FDI are uncertain, and are likely to depend on the motivation behind the investments. Finally, using Singapore as an example, it is argued that the host country effects of FDI tend to be positive.     

A quantitative risk analysis by using interval type-2 fuzzy FMEA approach: the case of oil spill

ABSTRACT

Risk assessment in maritime domain is one of the most cited topics since maritime transportation poses potential hazard for human life, marine environment and property. To mitigate risk and enhance safety awareness in maritime transportation, safety researchers have been seeking proactive solutions. This article prompts a quantitative risk-based approach combining interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2FSs) with failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) to perform a comprehensive risk analysis. Thus, potential failure modes and their effects are revealed by calculating risk prioritisation numbers (RPNs). Whilst the FMEA method provides a robust risk analysing tool with relevant control options, the IT2FSs deals with ambiguity and vagueness of linguistic assessment of decision-makers through the FMEA. Hence, expert’s linguistic assessment in risk assessment can be transformed into useful information in terms of enhancing safety and pollution prevention in maritime industry. To demonstrate the proposed approach, potential failures and effects of a real shipboard oil spill case are handled. The findings show that incomplete information exchanged with local maritime authorities, malfunction of oil skimmer and poor organization of shoreline clean-up team are the most important failures during case of oil spill. The proposed approach provides not only theoretical insight into the maritime transportation industry but also practical contributions to chemical/oil tanker safety and environmental protection by mitigating risk in terms of technical or operational aspects.     

Development of Motorways of the Sea in the Adriatic region

Freight volumes are increasing worldwide, following almost the same growth rate as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This has resulted in congested sections of the road system and increase of traffic accidents. Consequently, several governments in Europe are promoting alternative modes of transport. Besides the use of railways, the European Union is promoting the use of maritime transport for short distances. This initiative, ‘Motorways of the Sea (MoS)’, aims at the establishment of more efficient and competitive maritime services between different countries. The present paper analyzes the development of an MoS network in the East Adriatic area, linking the Greek Ports of Igoumenitsa and Patras in the Ionian Sea. This is done by identifying financially viable MoS corridors, servicing the freight and passenger demand of the area. Initially, the freight and passenger flows of MoS in the East Adriatic/Ionian Seas region, based on the application of the four-step methodology for transport planning, are estimated. Then, the financial viability of each MoS is elaborated, based on the estimated flows. Hence, the network of MoS services is determined for the area. Thus, the paper provides a useful tool to maritime operators, port authorities and policy makers to investigate the financial viability of an MoS network.     

Operational measures to mitigate and reverse the potential modal shifts due to environmental legislation

On 1 January 2015, the sulphur upper limit for marine fuels used within sulphur emission control areas was lowered from 1% to 0.1%, with which vessels can comply only through using pricier ultra-low-sulphur fuel, or investing in abatement technologies. A potential increase of fuel prices could lead to closures of services due to the combined effects of loss of market due to higher freight rates, and increased operational costs. This paper builds on previous work allowing the modelling of modal shifts between sea and land-based options, and assesses the potential of operational measures that ship-owners can deploy to cope with the threat of the low-sulphur requirements. The measures include speed reduction, change of service frequency, use of alternative fuels such as liquefied natural gas, investments in scrubber systems, and improved fleet assignment. The proposed measures are tested on a set of case studies for services that are part of a short sea shipping network of a leading Ro-Ro operator. The results of this work can be useful to practitioners seeking to design new strategies that improve the resilience of their network, as well as to regulatory bodies designing new regulation that could have negative implications on certain sectors.     

Market analysis and pricing policies for sea canals: the case of the Greek Corinth Canal

This paper develops a pricing policy for sea canals gained from the experience of a research programme on the Corinth Canal in Greece. The methodology followed is based on the dual role of the canal, as a private management company, operating in a competitive maritime market and as an instrument for the development and application of transport policy by the national authorities. The elaborated pricing strategy uses as inputs the canal's users profile as well as its competitors characteristics, that were determined through a survey conducted in the Corinth Canal market. The paper concludes with a policy that satisfies the goal of profit maximization and promotion of sustainable mobility at a national and international level.     

Maritime policy in Scotland

This paper begins by defining the meaning of the term 'maritime policy'. Since devolution in the UK, the opening of the new Scottish parliament in 1998 and the creation of the Scottish Executive, little effort has been made to establish a distinct maritime policy for Scotland. As was evident prior to devolution, the primary emphasis from any maritime policy perspective has continued to be a focus on lifeline island ferry services. This ignores significant developments in several other key maritime transport sectors, and this paper provides examples of areas that require some form of policy response, including intra-European short sea shipping, UK coastal shipping, urban/river transport and global container shipping. Long-standing institutional bias against maritime transport coupled with subsidy devoted almost entirely to land transport systems has resulted in a quite distorted marketplace. This suggests that a maritime policy is now imperative if maritime transport is to play a more significant role in the overall transport system. Further discussion centres on the need to consider, from a Scottish policy perspective, the role of various state-sponsored maritime service providers and how these bodies might fit better within evolving policy. The conclusion is that formulation of a maritime policy by the Scottish Executive is overdue and that a degree of restructuring of transport responsibilities within the Executive, combined with adequate resource allocation towards the maritime industry, will be necessary in order that market distortions can be overcome, so enabling Scotland to fully exploit the competitive and environmental advantages that maritime transport can provide.     

Maritime logistics as an emerging discipline

The evolution of maritime logistics as an emerging discipline has resulted, to a large extent, from the increasing and varied demands of shippers and customers and the rapidly changing role of ports in the context of supply and logistics chains. Scholars are becoming increasingly aware of the need to integrate logistics and supply chain management concepts in the maritime transportation chain and operations. This article aims to provide a review and foundation for understanding the domain of maritime logistics and to assess its potential as an emerging discipline. To do so, a framework for understanding the various aspects of maritime logistics strategy and implementation is developed. A synthesis of the existing knowledge on maritime logistics is done by integrating diverse explorations forming the basis of this framework. We draw upon the literature on maritime transport and ports and primarily theliterature that analyses concepts by adopting an economic or management perspective.     

Short sea shipping

This paper quantifies the potential environmental benefit of short sea shipping. Critical strategic issues relevant to formulating public policy are developed. Coastal shipping has traditionally been a major sector of the maritime industry. This continues to be the case in the European Union, but the sector has diminished in relative importance in North America as the transport industry has become increasingly dominated by less environmentally-friendly interstate trucking and railroads. Congestion threatens to overwhelm overland carriage and limit economic growth. An alternative strategy is to revitalize coastal shipping as short sea shipping to alleviate traffic congestion and enhance economic development by maintaining freight flow efficiency. Because ship transport offers higher fuel economy and lower emission of harmful pollutants, the environmental benefits of short sea shipping over land transportation can be quantified and used to inform public policy.     

基于模糊理论的财务数据分析法

随着经济的发展,企业规模不断扩大,对于决策者而言,就要准确、及时地掌握公司的经营状况和财务状况,这就需要使用相关的会计信息进行财务分析。基于因数分解法和模糊理论思想实现对财务数据的分析和评价,具有优越性和合理性。以马钢财务报表为例,运用杜邦分析法,结合因数分解法和模糊控制理论,阐述此合理可行的财务分析方法。     

Initial public offerings in the port industry: exploring the determinants of underpricing

The capital-intensive nature of the port industry and the long payback period of port investments traditionally determine high financial needs for operating the business. Due to the growing financial requirements for developing greenfield mega-projects and feeding international terminal operators’ overseas expansion, equity markets are expected to extend their role in promoting the industry. In this perspective, the underpricing phenomenon, which represents a direct cost for the issuer during initial public offering (IPO) and discourages companies from going public, is neglected by port literature. The paper explores the antecedents of IPO underpricing in ports. Building upon extant finance and port literature, firm characteristics, transaction features, and country-specific variables are tested as determinants of IPOs’ initial returns. For the aim of this study, 58 port-related IPOs taking place on international stock exchanges are examined, and ordinary least squares regression analysis is performed. The study offers unprecedented understandings of the phenomenon and supports port managers in facing financial challenges. Before launching the IPO, financial executives are invited to carefully identify time-window opportunities, and to monitor underwriters’ reputation when selecting financial partners. Findings bring insights for policymakers, as the public listing of port companies emerges a viable option for implementing port reform.     

A cross-section analysis of stock returns: The case of shipping firms

This paper undertakes an analysis of the determinants of the cross-section of expected stock returns of 19 shipping companies listed in the US, Norway, Stockholm and London. Various factors, including company stock market beta, divided yield, and financial leverage have been identified in the finance literature as determinants of share price performance. We capitalize on these findings and add one more industry specific factor, the average age of the company's fleet, to quantitatively analyse the determinants of the performance of shipping shock returns. We use the Fama-MacBeth methodology to empirically test whether the five factors above have a significant effect on shipping stocks' performance. Our results indicate that the industry specific factor (the average age of the fleet) plus financial leverage, are significant in explaining shipping stocks' returns, wheras the stock market beta and the dividend yield are far less significant.     

Shipping operations support in the “High North”: examining availability of icebreakers along the Northern Sea Route

A rather significant number of business entities already operate within (or, have considered to exploit) the Arctic region, focusing upon previously untapped resources such as precious minerals and large quantities of oil and gas; touristic and fishing activities are clearly on the rise, with various endeavors of maritime transport also being put forward. Up until recently, harsh year-long environmental conditions have significantly hindered the necessary access and transport connections in the Arctic. Even in the case that weather conditions did permit vessels’ passage, unreliable navigational aids and lack of infrastructure/support provided obstacles difficult to overcome. However, environmental data recorded during the last couple of decades clearly indicates that there is a continuous decline of ice coverage in the “High North.” Given this steady decline, the Arctic has now been viewed as a promising field for economic activities and is considered as a potential connecting corridor between Asia and Europe/America (and vice-versa). As human presence and operations are expected to intensify there, it is of utmost importance to evaluate the current level of support towards ships that will be crossing the region; capabilities in relation to search and rescue (SAR) operations and oil spill response are also important. The analysis in hand will first deliver a discussion of the so-called Arctic Passages. While various different maritime routes have been proposed in relation to the Arctic, the most promising one, the Northern Sea Route (NSR), will provide the epicenter of discussion. Through an extensive literature review that includes numerous internet resources, the current analysis will identify the numbers of icebreakers already operating in the NSR, as well as those that will be commissioned into service in the near future. The choice to research the specific type of vessels is supported by a simple argument: icebreakers currently are and will continue to be in the foreseeable future the main “tool” to support shipping activities in the Arctic. Furthermore, emergency management capabilities in the Russian Arctic will be examined to include the current state of rescue coordination centres along with the availability of SAR assets. Additionally, the efforts thus far by the Arctic Council to increase coordination and interaction among the States involved in Arctic affairs will be summarized; the latter will be achieved via a brief review of a very important legally binding agreement: the “search and rescue” instrument. In conclusion, the Russian State has already heavily invested in icebreakers’ building and their current number is fully capable to handle the present level of limited traffic. On the other hand, ships are currently faced with long distances to cross (often without adequate support) adverse environmental conditions, unpredictable hurdles, and slow response times in case of an emergency. Therefore, in case ships operating in the region are increased, it will be difficult to deal with all the additional demands for support. Of particular interest is the fact that considering the vast area of the NSR, the overall available response capabilities in the region under discussion are rather thin; any further increase of maritime traffic in the “High North” must be balanced with additional strengthening of emergency management capabilities. In any case, should the NSR become fully integrated in the global maritime transport system, Russia’s geopolitical status will be clearly improved and further research is needed to discuss the implications both at the regional and global levels.