How can stakeholders promote environmental and social responsibility in the shipping industry?

The highly globalized and competitive nature of the shipping industry poses serious governance challenges. Recently, the use of voluntary measures, such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, has been explored in terms of moving towards environmentally and socially responsible as well as safe shipping industry practices. Limited attention has been paid on the role of stakeholders such as consumers, employees, NGOs, and academia in pressuring the shipping industry towards greater environmental and social responsibility. Here, by applying stakeholder theory and drawing on examples of already materialized stakeholder actions and multi-stakeholder initiatives, we study the potential ways that stakeholders can promote CSR in the shipping industry: we explore the resource dependencies between stakeholders, the stakeholder influence strategies, and the importance of multi-stakeholder pressure. We show that stakeholders can gain more power by using indirect strategies such as working via and/or in alliances with NGOs, trade unions, banks and financers, and/or different national or international regulatory bodies, as well as with the industry itself. Our results reveal the potential of multi-stakeholder pressure and action to promote the adoption of CSR activities, support the transparency, legitimacy, and enforcement of the practices, as well as widen the scope and focus of CSR initiatives and practices by focusing on a broad range of social and environmental issues. Finally, stakeholder pressure can push towards improved regulations. The study suggests that increased attention needs to be paid on the multi-stakeholder demands, especially considering the accentuated importance of effective maritime governance in the future.     

Achieving an ASEAN single shipping market: shipping and logistics firms’ perspective

ABSTRACT

To establish an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Single Shipping Market (ASSM) is an important part of ASEAN governments’ overall plan to achieve an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. It is expected that a single shipping market will improve the region’s logistics performance and international competitiveness. To achieve this vision, however, the ASEAN countries need to remove any remaining barriers to logistics performance. In this light, the objective of this paper is to identify these barriers and assess their effects on the logistics performance of shipping and logistics firms based in ASEAN countries. Using a questionnaire-based survey, the study revealed several barriers affecting their logistics performance with varying significance among these countries. Unless these barriers from the perspective of the industry are removed, the ability of the shipping and logistics industry to benefit from a liberalized market would be limited. These perceived barriers are examined in detail and strategies to address them are proposed. The ASEAN experience is applicable to similar countries in the process of integrating their international shipping sector as well as contributes to the understanding of the different barriers and how these barriers can affect the logistics performance of shipping and logistics companies.     

Do port security quality and service quality influence customer satisfaction and loyalty?

ABSTRACT

This study uses Kaohsiung Port as a case study to evaluate the relationships between port security quality, port service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. For this purpose, a survey was conducted with shipping companies and freight forwarders in Taiwan. The results indicate that port security quality has a direct and positive impact on both port service quality and customer satisfaction; port service quality has a direct and positive impact on both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty; and customer satisfaction has a direct and positive impact on customer loyalty. However, the impact from port service quality is more significant than that of port security quality. Accordingly, this study suggests that Kaohsiung Port should concentrate on improving its service quality in order to enhance customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.     

Market structures in coastal shipping: what to expect in Canada following the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement with the European Union?

After several years of negotiation between Canada and the European Union, the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) was ratified in early 2017. The regime set out by the Canadian Coasting Trade Act that reserves shipments of cargo between Canadian ports to Canadian vessels remains mostly untouched under CETA. Minor, yet potentially significant, changes to the regime are introduced by the trade agreement. Provisions are made to liberalize the repositioning of empty containers within Canada. The liberalization of public markets now allows European firms to compete in the Canadian dredging market. Finally, EU vessels can undertake some transshipment activity in Canada but this is limited to international cargo on the specific Montreal-Halifax route. The paper attempts to highlight some possible CETA’s consequences for domestic Canadian shipping markets. It uses industrial economics analytical tools drawn from a Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) paradigm. From a literature review, it reconstructs different cases of deregulation that occurred internationally. The observed transformations are then characterized in terms of the SCP model. The paper identifies some common impacts which occurred in different transportation industries after a deregulation process. Using these findings, it concludes by discussing potential impacts for domestic shipping markets in Canada.     

Overseas trade vis-a-vis overseas shipping: Growth and performance in India (1999–2009)

Maritime trade has been and even continues to account for about a lion's share of India's total cargo volumes. Despite the growth of multimodal transport (by land, water and air), shipping still continues to be the major mode of transport in the bulk carriage of country's overseas trade. In view of this vital role of shipping, in the first four decades of independence, under the initiative of planned development and active government support, India's shipping and port sector saw dramatic growth in their performance to build adequate national fleet, in keeping up with the transport of overseas cargo. However, the onset of economic liberalization in 1991 has given rise to many new dimensions in the development of the shipping and port sector of the country with a significant redefinition of shipping and port services, in response to the new global trend patterns. For instance, it has also established the new era of containerization in the mode of cargo delivery from the dominance of the era of bulk and break-bulk trade during the decade of sixties and seventies. Moreover, as global competition increases, in response to this emerging trade patterns within this country, India's volume of traffic growth also increases manifold. So, India's shipping and port sectors need, significantly, to build up and furnish their capacity by increasing the frequency of this mode of transport i.e. the growth of the national overseas fleet to meet this surging demand. This paper, therefore, have focused on this role of shipping in such rising overseas trade, with a view to examine the shipping performance (the growth of overseas fleet) in response to the growing overseas trade at all ports of India during the period (1999–2000 to 2008–2009), in terms of both a mathematical model and a graphical representation. Finally, it concludes that the absolute overseas trade, being highly import dependent, have led to a more or less stagnant performance in overseas shipping, owing to the lack of the adequate growth of absolute overseas exports during this period.     

Transport infrastructure provision and operations: Why should governments choose private–public partnership?

Recent transport sector liberalisation, as well as global economic crisis, is favouring the implementation of transport infrastructure projects through Public–Private Partnerships (PPP). However, there is a debate as to whether PPP schemes are a better option than conventional procurement. To this end, an evaluation framework is proposed, to assess which of these two alternative schemes for transport projects financing is preferable for the public. The proposed framework is complimentary to the Value for Money (VfM) approach and is based on a Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA). The first step is the estimation of the Public Sector Comparator (PSC) for the case of conventional procurement, dealing with construction, maintenance and operation costs revenues, as well as any costs associated with risks undertaken by the public. As for the PPP case, it includes any payments by the public sector and related risks costs. The MCA is then applied only if the PPP is found preferable for the public sector. The latter considers additional impacts, including among others the social attributes of a particular scheme, job creation, environmental impacts and safety and security aspects. The proposed framework was applied to a pilot Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor infrastructure project in the city of Indore, India, in order to demonstrate its validity. The framework and its application could provide useful guidance when considering PPP for a transport project, since it demonstrates in a transparent way the society's attitude towards this project, something that is critical to its acceptance.     

Liner shipping between East and West Europe: competitive developments in the Poland–United Kingdom trade

This paper provides an analysis of the development of the liner route between the UK and Poland and the activities of the two main operators—EuroAfrica of Poland and United Baltic Corporation of London. The most significant factors driving the development of this trade are analysed using a combination of an industrial survey and government statistics for the route, before going on to examine the threat to the trade presented by the growth of the trucking mode.     

Energy facility siting in the urban coastal zone: Compatible or not?

Abstract

Most federal and state coastal laws were framed with a distinct emphasis on preservation of rural/recreational areas. Yet in recent years a rural/urban coastal dichotomy has emerged. This has been especially prominent in the siting of energy facilities since these operations are often water dependent; power plants, for example, need huge amounts of cooling water, and offshore oil and gas extraction requires onshore support facilities. Recently, this issue has gained special prominence on the East Coast with the commencement of offshore oil and gas exploration. A case study was conducted in Hudson County, New Jersey, in New York harbor. In this area five oil‐related facility proposals were rejected from 1972 to 1976, primarily due to citizen opposition. Citizen activists now see the urban waterfront as a special place to which they want access and amenity uses rather than a continuation of past, almost exclusive industrial development. Hudson County citizens share the aspirations of those in several urban coastal areas which have experienced waterfront revitalization, including Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New Haven, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Toronto. Innovative siting which utilizes inland, rather than coastal, locations is suggested as one way to lessen urban/rural siting tensions.     

Dealing with uncertainty and volatility in the port industry network: social and instrumental antecedents of “clique” survival

The recent proliferation of inter-firm collaborative linkages within the container port industry is progressively shaping a complex architecture of voluntary ties among terminal operators, i.e. an inter-organizational network. Within the overall industry network, some stable groups of densely interconnected firms emerge suggesting the existence of “cliques” where firms repeatedly cooperate with each other and develop strong and durable ties. The growing pressure exerted by economic uncertainty and market volatility on clique stability stimulates a fruitful academic debate on clique survival and its determinants. The present contribution investigates social and instrumental antecedents of clique survival, focusing on equity joint ventures engaged by terminal operators in a 10-year time frame (2002–2011). For this purpose, this study introduces a longitudinal network analysis of inter-firm relationships. Research hypotheses are tested performing binomial logistic regression analysis. In line with network theory assumptions, the outcomes corroborate the explanatory role of a number of social (i.e., cultural similarity and organizational mismatch) and instrumental (i.e., the presence of core firms within the clique and clique equality) antecedents in the survival of cliques. The results, indeed, bring valuable implications for both academics and practitioners.     

Assessing a maritime service website prototype in a ship bridge simulator: navigators’ experiences and perceptions of novel e-Navigation solutions

The aim of this study was to assess proof of concept and usability of a maritime service website prototype in a full-mission ship bridge simulator through Swedish mariners’ experiences and perceptions. This test was part of the European Commission’s EfficienSea2 project for e-navigation. The prototype was intended as an aid to existing standard systems and methodologies for planning, executing and monitoring voyages. The study began with 5 days of simulator trials focused on today’s standard practices. This served as a baseline to compare to subsequent 4 days of simulator trials testing the prototype. For data collection, observations, video footage, interviews, and eye tracking were used. Data analysis included breaking apart the qualitative data to capture the perceptions of the participants, and a preliminary analysis of eye-tracking data as a complement. The results suggested that the prototype could be more suitable for a route planning stage, that the participants were familiar with similar existing solutions from other manufacturers, and that the contents of the tool would be most beneficial if integrated within the Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS). There is a pressing need for the novel solutions to be user needs-driven, integrated with the existing technologies, and standardized across the domain, and these processes must go hand-in-hand with accounting for all involved stakeholders, procedures, regulations, and training, as this will alter the course of shipping.     

Workshop 4: Designing contracts/concessions: What has worked and what has not and why?: 12th International Conference Series on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport

A contract establishes a mutual relationship between an authority and an operator. From the point of view of the authority, it is a tactical level mechanism to achieve the strategic objectives of government. Management of contractors translate the requirements of contracts into operational practices to guide the day-to-day work of staff for the delivery of services. Much can go wrong with contracts for the provision of public transport services. Workshop participants identified and ranked 25 potential risk factors. The five most important factors, which relate to objectives, tender assessment, allocation of risks, financial viability and dispute management, were examined drawing on the 11 papers presented to the workshop. Matters that work, that do not and would make the most difference to the success of contracts were identified.