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.     

Impacts of driving patterns on tank-to-wheel energy use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles

We evaluate the implications of a range of driving patterns on the tank-to-wheel energy use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The driving patterns, which reflect short distance, low speed, and congested city driving to long distance, high speed, and uncongested highway driving, are estimated using an approach that involves linked traffic assignment and vehicle motion models. We find substantial variation in tank-to-wheel energy use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles across driving patterns. Tank-to-wheel petroleum energy use on a per kilometer basis is lowest for the city and highest for the highway driving, with the opposite holding for a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle.     

A European perspective on bond finance for the maritime industry

The European Shipping Industry faces a huge capital requirement over the next decade as a result of increasing trade and ageing fleets. This growth in demand is juxtaposed with a contraction in the number of banks willing to support the industry and a general tightening of credit facilities. Consequently, companies have been forced to access the capital markets for equity and debt. The difficulties experienced particularly in the bond markets have lead to premature dismissal of this relatively new form of finance. This paper seeks to explore the suitability of bond finance and finds that it is largely dependent on the perception of the maritime industry by the investment community.     

A European perspective on bond finance for the maritime industry

The European Shipping Industry faces a huge capital requirement over the next decade as a result of increasing trade and ageing fleets. This growth in demand is juxtaposed with a contraction in the number of banks willing to support the industry and a general tightening of credit facilities. Consequently, companies have been forced to access the capital markets for equity and debt. The difficulties experienced particularly in the bond markets have lead to premature dismissal of this relatively new form of finance. This paper seeks to explore the suitability of bond finance and finds that it is largely dependent on the perception of the maritime industry by the investment community.     

Norwegian shipping: measuring foreign exchange risk

The primary aim here is an attempt to measure the impact of foreign exchange movements on the operating results of the shipping industry. The issue arises from the imposition of a volatile foreign exchange market on a freight market structure which fixes revenues in US dollars. Despite attempts to shift costs into dollars, some other currency liabilities still remain, making exposure to exchange rate fluctuations inevitable. The contemporary experience of the Norwegian industry is used to analyse the cost structure in terms of currency denomination, the volatility in the real Kroner/US dollar exchange rate, and the sensitivity of the operating results to these fluctuations. This serves to highlight the commercial vulnerability of shipping companies. Exposure can be seen in a positive or negative light depending on the direction of movement in the exchange rate. Operating profits can rise and fall dramatically simply because of these exchange rate movements.