Costs of air pollutants from shipping: a meta-regression analysis

ABSTRACT

This study estimated the external cost of air pollution from shipping by means of a meta-regression analysis, which has not been made before. Three pollutants, which were included in most of the primary studies, were considered: nitrogen oxides (NO_x), sulphur dioxides (SO₂) and particulate matters with a diameter of max 2.5 micrometres (PM_2.5). All primary studies included damages of health and a majority added impacts on agriculture and estimated the cost of air pollutants by transferring cost estimates from studies on costs of air emissions from transports in Europe. Different regression models and estimators were used and robust results were found of statistically significant emission elasticities of below one, i.e. total external costs increase by less than 1% when emissions increase by 1%. There was a small variation between the pollutants, with the highest elasticity for PM_2.5 and lowest for NO_x. Calculations of the marginal external cost of the pollutants showed the same pattern, with this cost being approximately six times higher for PM_2.5 than for the other pollutants. Common to all pollutants was that the marginal external cost decreases when emission increases. Another robust result was a significant increase in the cost of studies published in journals compared with other publication outlets. These findings point out some caution when transferring constant external unit cost of air pollutant from shipping, which is much applied in the literature, and the cost functions estimated in this study could thus provide a complementary transfer mechanism.     

Maritime security guidelines: a study of Swedish ports’ perceived barriers to compliance

ABSTRACT

Due to the constant risk of piracy and terrorist attacks which cause disturbances within international shipping of goods, barriers to the adoption of maritime security guidelines (MSGs) at European ports have become prevalent. In this paper, a conceptual framework was created to explore the perceived barriers that prevent compliance with MSGs. To verify the conceptual framework, empirical data were collected using a mixed-methods approach, which was comprised of interviews with national experts and a survey of 47% of Swedish ports involved in the shipping of goods. According to the presented framework, the perceived barriers of Swedish ports to compliance with MSGs were linked to collaborations within the Swedish Maritime Security stakeholder network, available resources and educational knowledge about security culture. In addition, the perceived barriers of smaller ports were linked to the adaptation to MSGs at different levels and the absence of specific tools of maritime security management. Due to an increased interest in international shipping of goods, this paper is currently one of few that addresses the barriers to compliance with MSGs. Moreover, the paper presents a general conceptual framework, novel managerial implications and recommendations for future research.     

论海上危机决策

阐述了海上危机管理的发展趋势,针对海上危机决策的特殊性,分析了决策者的作用和能力,决策的模式、方法、艺术和决策最佳人选,以及防止危机产生的方法和措施。     

航运市场中的牛鞭效应研究

揭示了航运市场中存在的牛鞭效应。结合航运产品的特点及H.L.Lee对牛鞭效应的研究,分析了对航运产品需求的预测、船舶建造周期、批量运输及运输的不平衡性、运输价格的波动、定量供应与短缺博弈是产生航运市场牛鞭效应的主要原因,并由此提出了相应的对策框架。     

港口腹地划分的两种新方法探讨--以大连国际航运中心为例

引入经济地理学的新理论成果———圈层结构法和点轴法,提出了圈层结构划分法和点轴结构划分法两种新的港口腹地划分方法,并应用这两种新方法对大连国际航运中心港口腹地范围的界定与划分进行实例分析。与以往的行政区划法、经济区域法等港口腹地划分方法相比,这两种方法更加注重对港口原有腹地的细分,更接近于港口腹地的实际状况,进而有利于港口企业的经营发展。     

Connectivity analysis of the global shipping network by eigenvalue decomposition

ABSTRACT

Maritime shipping necessitates flexible and cost-effective port access worldwide through the global shipping network. This paper presents an efficient method to identify major port communities, and analyses the network connectivity of the global shipping network based on community structure. The global shipping network is represented by a signless Laplacian matrix which can be decomposed to generate its eigenvectors and corresponding eigenvalues. The largest gaps between the eigenvalues were then used to determine the optimal number of communities within the network. The eigenvalue decomposition method offers the advantage of detecting port communities without relying on a priori assumption about the number of communities and the size of each community. By applying this method to a dataset collected from seven world leading liner shipping companies, we found that the ports are clustered into three communities in the global container shipping network, which is consistent with the major container trade routes. The sparse linkages between port communities indicate where access is relatively poor.     

粤港澳航运服务合作机制研究综述

港澳是广东经济发展最重要的外部推动力,是"经济转型"举足轻重的合作伙伴,进一步深化粤港澳各领域合作,是全面深化推进改革的重要举措.基于粤港澳区域经济一体化发展为背景,以航运服务合作为出发点,对国内外关于粤港澳航运服务理论研究的相关文献进行了梳理,归纳粤港澳现代航运服务的发展特点、发展规律、发展现状,总结了粤港澳航运服务存在的问题,针对我国目前在粤港澳航运服务合作机制方面研究空白,提出了今后的研究方向和重点:合作方法和模式研究、合作政策衔接研究、合作策略和措施研究.     

Benefit of speed reduction for ships in different weather conditions

Currently, the shipping industry is facing a great challenge of reducing emissions. Reducing ship speeds will reduce the emissions in the immediate future with no additional infrastructure. However, a detailed investigation is required to verify the claim that a 10% speed reduction would lead to 19% fuel savings (Faber et al., 2012).This paper investigates fuel savings due to speed reduction using detailed modeling of ship performance. Three container ships, two bulk carriers, and one tanker, representative of the shipping fleet, have been designed. Voyages have been simulated by modeling calm water resistance, wave resistance, propulsion efficiency, and engine limits. Six ships have been simulated in various weather conditions at different speeds. Potential fuel savings have been estimated for a range of speed reductions in realistic weather.It is concluded that the common assumption of cubic speed-power relation can cause a significant error in the estimation of bunker consumption. Simulations in different seasons have revealed that fuel savings due to speed reduction are highly weather dependent. Therefore, a simple way to include the effect of weather in shipping transport models has been proposed.Speed reduction can lead to an increase in the number of ships to fulfill the transport demand. Therefore, the emission reduction potential of speed reduction strategy, after accounting for the additional ships, has been studied. Surprisingly, when the speed is reduced by 30%, fuel savings vary from 2% to 45% depending on ship type, size and weather conditions. Fuel savings further reduce when the auxiliary engines are considered.     

How do economies of density in container handling operations affect ships’ time and emissions in port? Evidence from Norwegian container terminals

Efficient port services are prerequisites for competitive and sustainable maritime transports. This paper makes advances in studying the determinants of the time that ships spend in port and the associated emissions to air. We estimate a production model for cargo handling based on a unique dataset containing each port of call at the largest container terminals in Norway in 2014. In turn, we use auxiliary engine emission factors to estimate particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions from ships at berth, to determine how the corresponding damage costs of air pollution vary with container throughput, location, and terminal investments. We find that Norwegian container terminals operate under increasing returns to density. Small ships that unload few containers are far from reaping economies of density, leading to high marginal time requirements for container handling and consequently high marginal external costs. From a Pigouvian taxation perspective, port charges should therefore be regressive in the number of containers handled. Moreover, we find that the external costs of maritime transports are severely understated when port operations are ignored. Our model allows determining the marginal productivities of port facilities. Thereby, it is instrumental in designing port charges that are diversified according to the quantity of containers handled and the service quality (i.e., the speed of handling operations). Regarding contextual factors, we find that establishing high-frequent liner services improves the ship working rate, while simultaneous calls at a terminal impede productivity. The type of container (loading/unloading; empty/laden) also appears to influence the duration of ship working.     

An operational activity-based method to estimate CO2 emissions from container shipping considering empty container repositioning

This paper develops an operational activity-based method to estimate CO₂ emissions from container shipping in contrasts to the traditional aggregated activity-based method. Two case studies investigate the impacts of empty container repositioning policies and port handling capacity on CO₂ emission index. The results show that the aggregated method could well overestimate CO₂ emissions and the operational activity-based method is more appropriate. The paper also demonstrates that high port-handling capacity and efficient empty container repositioning could reduce CO₂ emissions in seaborne container transportation.