Predictive power of inspection outcomes for future shipping accidents – an empirical appraisal with special attention for human factor aspects

This paper investigates whether deficiencies detected during port state control (PSC) inspections have predictive power for future accident risk, in addition to other vessel-specific risk factors like ship type, age, size, flag, and owner. The empirical analysis links accidents to past inspection outcomes and is based on data from all around the globe of PSC regimes using harmonized deficiency codes. These codes are aggregated into eight groups related to human factor aspects like crew qualifications, working and living conditions, and fatigue and safety management. This information is integrated by principal components into a single overall deficiency index, which is related to future accident risk by means of logit models. The factor by which accident risk increases for vessels with above average compared to below average deficiency scores is about 6 for total loss, 2 for very serious, 1.5 for serious, and 1.3 for less-serious accidents. Relations between deficiency scores and accident risk are presented in graphical format. The results may be of interest to PSC authorities for targeting inspection areas, to maritime administrations for improving asset allocation based on prediction scenarios connected with vessel traffic data, and to maritime insurers for refining their premium strategies.     

Foldable container in empty container repositioning in intermodal transportation network of Belt and Road Initiative: strengths and limitations

In 2013, the concept of the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road (Belt and Road)’ was initiated by the Chinese government, which involves Asian, European and African continents and their adjacent seas. Logistics plays a core role in such a large framework of economy and trade. In recent years, China, European Union, and Southeast Asia pay much attention to the design and development of the intermodal transportation network towards both economic and environmental efficiency. In this paper, we propose an empty container repositioning model in the intermodal transportation network of Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative by considering both standard and foldable containers. In this model, empty containers are repositioned from the inland of the original area, such as China, to other areas of B&R Initiative related countries and regions, such as European Union and Southeast Asia. We develop a mixed integer linear programming model to determine the optimal repositioning of empty containers via the intermodal transportation network. An Artificial Bee Colony algorithm is developed to solve large size problems in practice and numerical experiments are conducted to show the efficiency of our proposed algorithm. We provide managerial insights regarding the impact on the network performance of foldable containers transportation.     

Sustainability and interactivity between cities and ports: a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach

Ports and cities are intrinsically linked. Port city, which serves as a link between the local and global economy, is an integration of both urban and port systems. Constrained by different regional structures, port cities have developed various formulations over time. Using a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, this paper proposes a new method for measuring the sustainable development of different port city systems. While the previous empirical studies often separate the port system and the urban system, this paper assesses the two systems in an integrated way. Moreover, this paper develops a systematic methodology for measurement of sustainability. Twenty world-leading container port cities are selected for this study using contemporary data. The DEA results display their relative differences in levels of sustainable development, which reveal the effectiveness of the prevailing policies in them. Eventually, recommendations are drawn for other port cities by referring to the best practices.     

Disaster prevention and strategic investment for multiple ports in a region: cooperation or not

With the growth of maritime transportation, seaports have become critical to the world economy as linking nodes between shipping and inland transport. However, the port system is fragile under certain unconventional emergency events. This study addresses the issue of investment on disaster prevention within the port competition context. The present model discusses and compares four situations of different relationships and strategies of pre-disaster prevention between two adjacent ports. Results indicate that both ports increase the disaster prevention investment under the cooperation scenario compared with that in the case of non-cooperation wherein they are complementary ports. Meanwhile, a numerical simulation is conducted to examine the collective and individual rationality of both ports. Although cooperation strategy decreases the total risk cost of two ports, one of the two ports may profit, whereas the other may suffer losses.     

几种典型的大型集装箱船导轨结构特性对比计算分析

本文以固定装载型式导轨和混合装载型式导轨为研究对象,基于有限元方法分析了不同集装箱装载工况对导轨强度、刚度的影响,同时在相同集装箱装载工况下,对不同导轨的强度、刚度进行了对比分析。结果可为集装箱导轨的设计优化提供了一定的参考。     

沿海港口煤炭专业化运输系统适应性探讨

结合全国煤炭生产消费及调运情况,分析北方煤炭下水港布局、后方铁路通道规划建设及煤炭下水趋势对专业化煤炭下水港未来发展的影响,研究南方煤炭接卸港码头布局、外贸进口煤炭和煤炭中转基地建设及接卸港发展趋势对接卸港布局及建设的影响,对全国沿海港口煤炭专业化运输系统分区域、分结构的适应性进行探讨,并提出问题及建议。     

北方煤港装卸设备清洁生产技术与应用

针对目前国内煤炭港口生产作业过程中扬尘严重、环境日益恶化的现状,对北方煤炭港区装卸生产设备进行研究,从煤炭在物料转接过程中的撒漏和扬尘的形成机理入手,对各作业点存在的清洁生产问题进行总结和剖析,进而开展对物料运输的各个工作点的改进研究,找出生产工艺流程中控制撒漏和扬尘的方法。     

Risk assessment framework for exposure of cargo and ports to natural hazards and climate extremes

There is an increase in risks and catastrophic losses in maritime transport including ports and cargo. Significant losses have been associated with large scale natural hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunami, cyclones, and other extreme weather events. This paper identifies the main gaps in understanding maritime risks in transportation research. The gaps are attributed to insufficient empirical work available from the maritime transport and logistics research community to guide multi-risk and natural hazards impact assessment on seaport and cargo. In addition, disaster studies communities have barely made adequate efforts to understand and assess port and cargo risks arising from multi-hazards and disaster events. This paper examines existing conceptual frameworks concerning exposure and risk assessments of natural catastrophe’s impacts. Furthermore, the paper identifies trends and gaps in risk assessment frameworks in the field of disaster studies that can be beneficial for maritime risk research. The authors propose a new risk assessment framework that can guide future research and multi-hazard risk assessment processes at different scales of maritime risks.     

The Storage Space Allocation Problem at a Container Terminal

Due to the asymmetry between the time required to retrieve a container to vessel and the time required to register a container at the gate, the storage space allocation problem solves the best allocation policy of these containers that minimizes the potential number of gantry movements during the assigning process and the future retrieval process. A decision rule-based heuristic is proposed, and three properties are discovered in this research. Comprehensive numerical experiments show that the proposed heuristic can solve the real-sized instances within a second, making it possible to account for uncertainty because the re-optimization effort is negligible. Moreover, when applying the proposed heuristic to a container yard at the Port of Kaohsiung in Taiwan and considering the extreme cases, the heuristic performs even better when the number of containers increases and still requires less than 1 s to solve these extreme cases. Finally, the proposed heuristic can be applied to different layouts of storage space and various material handling machines.     

船舶岸电系统在集装箱码头的应用

靠港船舶岸电系统具有可以减少污染物排放和提高能源利用率的优点,正在我国港口大力推广。为探讨岸电系统在集装箱码头的应用前景,以大窑湾北岸某集装箱码头为例,利用仿真模型核算多种情景下2020年大窑湾北岸集装箱码头船舶使用岸电前后的碳排放量,并分析不同装卸效率对船舶的碳排放的影响。结果表明,集装箱码头使用岸电系统可实现低碳效益,提高装卸效率有利于船舶碳排放的减少,但应考虑提高装卸效率会引起装卸机械碳排放增加。