The evolution of Canadian liner shipping policy

This paper traces the evolution of Canadian liner shipping policy from its beginnings, at the time of the initial formation of shipping conferences, in the late nineteenth century, to its current form, as provided by the 1987 Shipping Conference Exemption Act. It is shown that evolution has been associated with a shift in policy orientation from an initial British-based position to a contemporary form that is distincly American in nature. The reasons for this shift are analysed and the similarities and differences between curent Canadian and U.S.A. legislation are identified. The paper shows that the adoption by Canada of an American-style policy became inevitable once the container revolution had physically integrated the transport systems of both nations.     

Short sea shipping: a Canadian perspective

Short sea shipping has begun to receive attention from governments worldwide, as they seek to reduce traffic congestion and greenhouse gases. Despite a long coastline and its interest in international maritime affairs, the Canadian government had, until 2003, placed greater emphasis on resolving the issues of other transport modes. In July 2003, Canada and the United States signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on Sharing Short Sea Shipping Information and Experience. Subsequently, the federal government embarked on an assessment of short sea shipping through a series of workshops. This paper explores the key issues with respect to further development of short sea shipping from a Canadian perspective. It examines the critical limitations and impediments to further growth of short sea services in Canada and trans-border trade with the USA, and identifies a number of questions Canadian policymakers need to answer.     

Explaining variations in national fleet across shipping nations

Many studies on national shipping attribute the declines in national fleets of developed economies to the lack of comparative advantage, but little has been done so far to identify factors contributing to countries’ shipping comparative advantage using a systematic approach. Although shipping markets are highly international and competitive, it is not clear whether tonnage owned by countries is governed by country-specific factors. This paper seeks to explain variations in nationally owned fleet across shipping nations. The main variable of interest is national fleet tonnage owned by country of domicile as opposed to registered tonnage. The results of econometric analysis using data from 84 shipping nations indicate that various country-specific factors do indeed contribute to variations in fleet tonnage across shipping nations, albeit at different levels of significance. Financial market development, external trade, ship registration, shipbuilding and shipping history appear to have the most significant impact, followed by the level of development and technology and maritime policy. Based on the results of analysis, implications for policy and future research are also discussed.     

Emission reduction in international shipping—the hidden side effects

In order to curb the trend toward global warming, many technical, operational, and policy options have been proposed to help reduce the emissions from international shipping—the carrier for 80% of the world’s trade. However, these options might not only reduce emissions from shipping activities, but could also have a ripple effect on the whole supply chain of traded goods, as well as on those serving shipping activities. These effects could have both positive and negative impacts, not only on emission reduction, but also on world trade, economic efficiency, and the local environment. While most studies have examined the feasibility of the various options and their potential contribution to emission reduction, their secondary impacts have not been studied. However, failing to take them into account could very well obstruct the implementation of the options. Through a review of existing studies, this article aims to identify and explain some of these previously unexamined secondary effects that are associated with emission reduction in international shipping, point out the problems that will arise if they are ignored, and provide a basis for further detailed research in this area.     

Shipping line networks and the integration of South America trades

One recent transformation of liner shipping is the entry of leading carriers into north-south markets. This paper aims to test the commonly held proposition that global shipping lines entered north-south markets to feed more cargo on their established east-west services. This proposition arises out of: (1) predominant models of transport networks evolution which emphasize the influence of hubs, and (2) lines' strategy of commissioning larger vessels for east-west routes. In this perspective, the expansion of networks to southern economies serves specifically to bring more cargo on main routes to ensure volumes are sufficient to generate the desired economies of scale. This paper analyses the changing configurations of South American services. Results show that by 1999 leading shipping lines were offering direct services to all major trade ranges from the region, and numerous US loops were added to the already established European and Asian services. These new services involved multiple ports in the US; running in parallel with east-west services over a large part of the American coasts. The paper concludes that global shipping lines entered the South American market by setting up services typically configured to serve trades between North and South America; not to feed established main routes.     

Asian hub/feeder nets: the dynamics of restructuring

The emergence of hub/feeder networks in the Singapore-Japan corridor through the 1970s and 1980s reflected not only the rapid growth of containerized cargo in regional Southeast and East Asia but also the exceptional importance of Far East/transPacific and Far East/Europe mainline shipping services in structuring these networks. This paper argues that the mid-1990s is a defining moment in the restructuring of these networks; that the period represents, in fact, a convergence of a number of different though related trends impacting on the regional shipping market. More particularly, continuing high growth rates of containerized cargo have not only spawned new ports but have also increased the proportion of ports handling threshold volumes of containers for which mainline calls, rather than handling thfeeder operations, are justified. Further, the quite dramatic retionalization of already large container shipping lines into mergers and alliances bestows a new level of market power that is able to underwrite major changes in shipping schedules, port rotations and feeder linkages. This paper speculates that these developments are generating, and will continue to generate new, hierarchically organized port/shipping networks in which high order networks will include high efficiency/high cost operations; and lower order networks will include a mix of hub and direct-call ports that will focus on different market segments.     

Evolution of green shipping research: themes and methods

Over the past 30 years, there have been growing concerns on the environmental impacts of maritime transportation, which have attracted great attention from both academia and practitioners. Understanding developments in this area can help guide future research. We conducted a comprehensive review of green shipping research, comprising 213 papers published in transportation journals in SSCI of 2017 over the period 1988–2017. We find that research on green shipping has increased greatly since 2012, accounting for 77.5% of the reviewed papers. The main focus today on green shipping was on air pollution, and the classification of green shipping practice, such as technical measures, operational options, market-based measures, and recycling and reusing, is becoming clear. According to the existing studies, future research on green shipping must strengthen technology research to not only solve practical problems, but also to establish a theoretical green shipping system. Moreover, researchers from different countries could cooperate with each other to give effective suggestions on setting standards and laws of green shipping. Finally, we identify the future research themes will focus on setting up green shipping system and legislation and policy.     

Short sea shipping in North America: understanding the requirements of Atlantic Canadian shippers

This research examines the potential for short sea shipping services on the east coast of North America, and focuses on the factors that freight shippers use to choose a transport mode. While there is significant literature available on modal choice and carrier selection, very little examines the effect of splitting the business on the choice that shippers specifically make between short sea and trucking options. Contrary to existing literature, we find that shippers' perceptions of short sea are favourable in this market. We also identify a new method of collecting data on how companies split business in these decisions.     

加拿大PSC检查应注意的几个问题

通过加拿大PSC对本船的几次严格检查,总结出加拿大PSC的常规检查时间、重点检查项目及相应的注意事项,最后给出了加拿大PSC检查的特点及为通过PSC检查的有关对策。     

Measuring and sustaining the UK maritime skills base: A review

Numerous factors over the past three decades have contributed to a major decline in the number of seagoing staff in the United Kingdom. These include shipping companies opting for other flags, as well as the profession itself becoming less and less attractive for school leavers. This decrease in numbers is not only significant for shipping companies, but also for the allied services which used to get supported from seafarers coming ashore in search of a new career. It is now recognised that changes in the maritime skills base will affect both the seagoing as well as the shore side of the industry.     

Future of the shipping dialogue in UNCTAD

UNCAD has played a central role in the development of international shipping policies, particularly those of developing countries. While comprehensively addressing all shipping issues affecting both the industry and the maritime trade of developing countries. UNCTAD has concentrated its greatest efforts on policies designed to achieve those objectives. These policies also reflected the then existing international environment of confrontation. East/West ideological conflicts and the North/South divide. The results were far from satisfactory, although a number of international agreement were reached under the auspices of UNCTAD. The end of the cold war and the emergence of the single economic system (the market place) has brought about far-reaching changes in UNCTAD, its secretariat, its intergovernmental machinery and the substantive content of its secretariat, its intergovernmental machinery and the substantive content of its deliberations. It is expected that the shipping dialogue in UNCTAD in the 1990s will be significantly different in content and structure. This article attempts to point to possible courses of action that will be taken in UNCTAD fora in the area of shipping in the context of promoting a competitive services in developing countries.     

Union rivalry and crew reform in shipping: A United States—Australia comparison

The national-flag fleets of most of the traditional martitime nations have, in virtually every case, been in decline in the 1980s and 1990s, despite the continued growth of ocean shipping. They have declined in terms of numbers of vessels and numbers of sea-going jobs, although not necessarily in terms of cargo carried. However, a number of those nations have responded to the changed technological and competitive conditions with some success by attempting to adjust crewing and work practices on vessels at sea. Neither the USA nor Australia has been in the forefront of such change. However, considerably more progress has been made in modernizing crewing practices and work rules in the Australian-flag fleet than in the US-flag fleet. There are a variety of reasons for this, inluding government policy. However, it is our argument that one of the principal reasons the US fleet lags behind the Australian fleet in the adoption of modern crewing practices and work rules is the much greater degree of union rivalry in the US shipping industry. In fact, while the degree of fragmentation and rivalry among unions in the Australian flag fleet has declined dramatically since 1980, their US cousins have continued, and in some ways expanded, their pattern of fratricidal behavior. First we shall discuss some of the technological and competitive imperatives that are driving human resource management practices in shipping and the crewing and industrial relations adjustments that are being made around the world to adjust to them. Then we shall indicate how the Australian and US fleets have responded to these challenges. This will be followed by a discussion of unionism in the Australian and US maritime industrics as it has devloped in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Finally, we shall draw conclusions about the impact of different patterns of unionization.     

Assessment of investment decision in the dry bulk shipping market based on real options thinking and the shipping cycle perspective

As the dry bulk shipping market seems to have been stuck in a trough period for a long time, investors need to pay more attention to their investment strategies to survive during this period. This study aimed to find a suitable model to assess dry bulk ship investment decisions in the tough and peak periods based on real options theories. Two options, involving an abandonment option and a deferrable option, were used to define investors’ responses to the uncertainty in investment processes such as stopping or selling vessels. The option valuation was solved by using a binomial valuation model, due to data limitations. In accordance with shipping cycle theories, different volatility parameters for the tough and peak periods were calculated using a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model. The application of the real options model to a case study involving secondhand ship trading indicated its viability. According to the results of the case study, the new model has advantages over the traditional net present value (NPV) method in uncertain investment environments. Thus, the results demonstrate that the real options model is a more suitable method for use in the current dry bulk shipping market.     

National-flag shipping: An appraisal of policy options from a Canadian perspective

In this paper the author reviews recent developments in Canadian government policy with regard to national-flag shipping. In response to criticism from various marine interest groups that successive governments have done little to encourage the development of national-flag shipping, federal administrations have taken a more active part in the debate. This has been manifest in several reports produced under the auspices of Transport Canada, which discuss the desirability of using selective tax or fiscal incentives to promote investment in Canadian shipping. The author outlines the arguments for expanding national-flag shipping, relating these to the greater question of what effect these proposed financial measures might have on the use of capital and other resources. He concludes that selective preferential taxation may be justified by the repatriation of shipping activities now offshore and avoidance of further shifts of manpower and capital offshore.     

Shorter sea routes as a result of increasing cargo flows

This paper examines the apparent paradox involved in shipping lines responding to increasing cargo flows from Britain to mainland Europe by moving to shorter routes. Analysis shows, however, this move to be a logical and valuable defensive response by shipping lines but at a cost to the transport consumer.     

Shorter sea routes as a result of increasing cargo flows

This paper examines the apparent paradox involved in shipping lines responding to increasing cargo flows from Britain to mainland Europe by moving to shorter routes. Analysis shows, however, this move to be a logical and valuable defensive response by shipping lines but at a cost to the transport consumer.     

上海国际航运中心应发力“软件”集群

综观国际经验,现代航运服务业的发展不是仅靠投资拉动的,而主要是靠产业集群效应所推动,航运服务技术、产品、市场通过产业集群的方式产生聚集效应。世界著名的国际航运中心也都是著名的国际航运服务中心,它们不仅具有完善的航运服务体系和健全的航运市场,而且有服务于航运业的信息系统,对航运业的发展起到了促进作用。     

实物期权在航运企业船舶投资决策中的应用

航运业是一个具有特殊风险的行业,然而传统的船舶投资决策却总是忽略不确定性对投资价值的影响。将实物期权运用到航运企业船舶投资决策中,运用布莱克-舒尔斯的期权定价公式,得出含有实物期权的投资价值和一般的投资价值,定量地分析了不确定性对投资价值的影响,使船舶投资价值与决策相一致,最终使航运企业获得最大的投资收益。     

An econometric analysis for container shipping market

This article presents an econometric analysis for the fluctuation of the container freight rate due to the interactions between the demand for container transportation services and the container fleet capacity. The demand is derived from international trade and is assumed to be exogenous, while the fleet capacity increases with new orders made two years before, proportional to the industrial profit. Assuming the market clears each year, the shipping freight rate will change with the relative magnitude of shifts in the demand and fleet capacity.

This model is estimated using the world container shipping market statistics from 1980 to 2008, applying the three-stage least square method. The estimated parameters of the model have high statistical significance, and the overall explanatory power of the model is above 90%. The short-term in-sample prediction of the model can largely replicate the container shipping market fluctuation in terms of the fleet size dynamics and the freight rate fluctuation in the past 20 years. The prediction of the future market trend reveals that the container freight rate should continue to decrease in the coming three years if the demand for container transportation services grows at less than 8%.     

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.