Key criteria influencing the choice of Arctic shipping: a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process model

As Arctic sea ice shrinks due to global warming, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the Northwest Passage (NWP) offer a substantial reduction in shipping distance between Asia and the European and North American continents, respectively, when compared to conventional routes through the Suez and Panama Canals. However, Arctic shipping routes have many problems associated with their use. The main objective of this paper is to identify the key criteria that influence the decisions of shipping operators with respect to using Arctic shipping routes. A multi-criteria decision-making methodology, the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process, is applied to rank four potential categories of criteria (‘economic’, ‘technical’, ‘political’ and ‘safety’ factors) and their sub-criteria.

The results of the analysis suggest that, on aggregate, ‘economic’ is the most important category of influential factors, followed by ‘safety’, ‘technical’ and ‘political’ factors. The paper concludes, however, that the most influential specific sub-criteria relate to risks that lie mainly within the ‘safety’ and ‘political’ domains and that, especially in combination, these overwhelm the importance which is attached to ‘economic’ factors such as reduced fuel use. Finally, the implications of these findings for the future development of Arctic shipping are addressed at a strategic level.     

Methodology for ro-ro ship and fleet sizing with application to short sea shipping

A novel methodology is developed for determining the characteristics of a cargo roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) ship and the fleet size required for a given short sea shipping route. The ship and required fleet size to satisfy the transportation demand (for each pair of speed and freight rate) are determined using a database of existing cargo ro-ro ships to obtain the main technical characteristics of the most suitable ship. The time charter, voyage costs and revenue are then calculated considering the technical characteristics of each ship. Fuel costs are corrected for the actual ship speed and loading condition. A number of restrictions in the transportation problem are considered leading to the exclusion of unfeasible solutions. The maximum profit over the period of a year is identified among the feasible pairs of speed and freight rate. This general methodology is applied in a case study that considers the route between Leixões (Portugal) and Rotterdam (Netherlands). The study allows the identification of the most suitable ship and fleet sizes for different market penetration levels and quantifies the impact on shipping company profit of changes in parameters such as fuel costs, time charter costs, emission control area, installed propulsion power and stacking factor.     

Formulating cargo inventory costs for liner shipping network design

This study examines how to incorporate the inventory costs of containerized cargoes into existing liner service planning models such that the designed networks could be improved while not causing extra modeling/computational burden. Two approaches are compared: (i) not considering the inventory costs at all and (ii) incorporating the inventory costs associated with onboard time and those related to transshipment by assuming a fixed connection time. The two models are compared with the ideal model capturing the exact inventory costs on a route choice problem and a capacity planning problem based on extensive randomly generated and practical numerical experiments. The results show that: first, ignoring the inventory costs in service planning models may lead to network design with much higher costs (poor network design decisions); second, in service planning models assuming weekly frequency, the inventory costs associated with onboard time could be formulated exactly, and those related to the connection time of weekly services could be approximated by assuming fixed connection time of 3.5 days for ports with 1 day’s minimum connection time and 4.5 days for ports with 2 days’ minimum connection time.     

Mathematically calculating the transit time of cargo through a liner shipping network with various trans-shipment policies

This paper derives the mathematical expressions for the transit time of cargo through a liner shipping network. Main efforts are devoted to deriving the calculation expressions of the connection time of cargo during trans-shipment. For the forward and many-to-one trans-shipment policies, we conduct a minor correction towards the expressions in existing studies to improve the completeness. Meanwhile, we propose an alternative but more straightforward calculation method for connection time which bypasses the complicated inductive argument in existing studies. Then we introduce two new trans-shipment policies: backward trans-shipment and one-to-many trans-shipment, and mathematically calculate the corresponding connection times. Numerical experiments also deliver some managerial insights into the effectiveness of backward trans-shipment in transit time control.     

深海海山周围航船噪声建模与特性研究

本文以抛物方程模型为基础,结合声场的互易性,提出一种深海低频航船噪声建模方法,该方法将声源与接收点位置互换,大大降低了声场计算的运行次数和运行时间,基于该方法对深海海山周围的航船噪声进行计算和分析.研究结果表明:海山对声传播损失的影响取决于接收阵元与海山的位置关系以及海山的几何参数.由于海山的遮挡作用,海山附近航船噪声的水平指向性具有不均匀性,在有海山遮挡的方向噪声级明显低于无海山遮挡的方向,海山附近航船噪声的垂直指向性会出现多个峰值.此外,单个尖峰海山的遮挡对接收阵元处的航船噪声总级影响较小.     

辽东湾北部浅水区海冰对航行的影响及对策

辽东湾北部浅水区有许多石油开发区块,由于水浅有冰等因素,使在现有的破冰船和冰区航行技术条件下的航行十分困难。分沿岸冻结区、滩涂堆积区和流冰区等不同区带讨论辽东湾北部海冰存在特征以及海冰对航行的影响,并根据海冰存在特点和海域工程的具体特性提出相应的对策。     

严冬回暖中的航运企业生存与发展问题的探讨

由美国次贷危机而引发的金融危机对全球航运市场产生了严重影响,对航运市场特别是干散货市场和集装箱市场造成了巨大的冲击,使航运市场跌入低谷。虽然现在有回暖的趋势,但今年的行情仍然不容乐观。航运企业应该及时调整经营策略,采取积极的应对措施,将金融危机给企业带来的损失降低到最小程度。     

浅谈金融危机下海事监管对策

文中通过透视2008年金融危机所引起的航运业的潮起潮落,指出了航运业与造船业在不景气的情况下所存在的问题,并分析了在这特殊时段海事部门应当如何做好监管与服务工作,提出了笔者一点浅显的意见。     

关于国际海员劳务的几点思考

航运业随着经济全球化快速扩展,对海员的需求日益增长。文中通过对国际海员劳务的重要性、国际海员劳务环境以及我国海员劳务竞争力的分析,提出大力发展国际海员劳务输出对我国经济、社会发展的积极作用,并结合实际提出了提高我国海员劳务竞争力的建议。     

金融危机对中国航运业及中国海事的影响之追踪

文中以广州南沙港区为例,通过大量的数据分析,讨论了金融危机对中国航运业所带来的冲击,以及对中国海事监管造成的影响。建议在当前形势下,中国航运业和中国海事都要紧紧抓住危机中蕴含的机遇,谋发展、求提升。