Technical changes and impacts on economic performance of dry bulk vessels

Spurred by the expanding bulk shipping and technological innovations, dry bulk vessels have gained considerable development in ship types, ship design, and operation since the invention of the first specialized dry bulk carrier in the early 1950s. However, questions like: what changes in technical specifications have occurred for dry bulk vessels during the past four decades; what triggered these changes and what impacts have these specific changes had on shipping costs or earnings potential, have never been examined systematically in previous work. Subsequently, this article attempts to investigate changes in main technical specifications and relationships between the main technical variables and their economic performance measured by costs and revenues of dry bulk carriers. Technical changes in speed, deadweight, lightweight, and engines are checked for the main types of dry bulk vessels, and trends revealed in these developments are demonstrated to be the consequences of both technical improvement and economical considerations. Additionally, it has been found that the earnings potential differs much from dry bulk vessels with different technical specifications. This can be manifested in the sensitivity analysis. The analysis of this article may contain useful information to practitioners of dry bulk shipping in guiding their market decisions about ship building and operations.     

How to turn an innovative concept into a success? An application to seaport-related innovation

The main objective of this paper is ‘to assess the conditions, including policy support, under which innovative concepts have a high chance of getting adopted and being successful’. The work will start from the state-of-the-art with the following goals targeted. Firstly, to identify the paths that new innovative concepts usually follow, what key determinants are, which actors are involved, and what policy has been doing and can do. As part of this, a typology of variables is established, which will be the basis for the identification of successful adoption paths. Illustrations are provided of the performance of different innovative concepts in the seaport sector. A further goal is to propose policy recommendations, identify best practices, barriers to implementation and transferability of innovative concepts and processes. Finally, the research establishes developments needed in assessment methods and a methodological framework if innovative concepts are introduced.