ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many discussions arose about how digitalization is crucial for maintaining supply chains and ensuring the continuity of transport networks, especially shipping. At this stage, one of the most promising ways to improve efficiency is by introducing digitalization in the maritime industry. After all, the main goals in the information age are the digitalization of information and its proper use. Today, the business world expects faster service, simpler processes, and better efficiency from all companies and individuals. The transition of modern society to the information age challenges one of the main tasks of education to be the formation of the foundations of the information culture of the future specialist. However, all stakeholders are connected through a network, and illustrating the maritime transport process and the roles of its participants can elucidate the special features that are unique to the industry. Advances in information transfer, data analysis, and encryption techniques can reshape the business landscape and allow for managerial innovation, as well as new or complementary forms of learning to achieve it. But the pandemic has also led to a complete reorganization of the provision of education around the world. In practice, the learning process has been continued through a combination of different approaches. One of them is the implementation of web-based software for the shipping industry. Its products help make accurate and efficient business decisions and are designed for brokers, operators, shipowners, research firms, and financial institutions. The purpose of the article is to consider the presented software as a tool that may support maritime education and industry. © 2022 IAMUC. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we focus on the management of risks in the maritime transport sector after the spread of the pandemic Covid-19. We propose an integrated strategy to determine the best action decision to manage the most important risks. This strategy is based on two stages: the first stage consists on detecting the most serious risks using the AMDEC method and proposing a set of corrective actions for each of these risks;the second stage is responsible to determine the most appropriate action about the set of proposed alternatives using the AHP multi-criteria decision-making approach. Finally, to validate the proposed strategy, real data are collected from a Tunisian maritime transport company and the obtained results show the effectiveness of the proposed integrated method. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Maritime transport chain is facing huge information asymmetry after the outbreak of major emergencies, such as COVID-19 epidemic. The previous literature has proved that information investing and information sharing are two effective tactics to relieve information asymmetry between supply chain nodes, and help them improve the performance of the supply chain. This paper assumes random demand disruption is the main cause of the information asymmetry in a maritime transportation chain. To explore how the random demand disruption and channel competition jointly impact operational decisions in a dual-channel maritime transport chain composed of one port, two carriers and shippers, we construct a game-theoretical basic model, and proposed two strategies, i.e., information investing and information sharing. Several significant managerial insights are derived. First, we find that inaccurate disruption information leads to inaccurate decisions and huge losses; Second, investing in precise information benefits the port only if the chain members are optimistic about the market, and improves the revenue of the carrier who invested in information if the investment cost is reasonable; Third, accepting information sharing benefits the port only when the precise disruption and the distortion of information are relatively large, as well as the misappropriate rate is relatively small; and only when the port is pessimistic about the market or the channel competition is weak, sharing information may hurt the carrier who invested in information. Finally, the strength of the channel competition will enhance the impact of information inaccuracy on the maritime transport chain.
ABSTRACT
With the proposal of "carbon peak" and "carbon neutralization", Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) has gradually garnered the attention of energy market as a clean and low-carbon energy. In this context, it is of great significance to analyze the evolution mode of the LNG maritime transport network, so as to master the dynamic of global energy pattern and the status of China's import trade. In this paper, the evolution trend of the global LNG maritime transport network from 2018 to 2020 is explored based on the ship trajectory data and complex network theory. Meanwhile, according to China's trade status, LNG import sources, distribution of main import ports, and the inflow status of the top three import ports in China are analyzed. The results show that: (1) From 2018 to 2020, the global LNG maritime transport network expanded with a "scale-free" characteristic. The "breadth" and "depth" of node connections in the backbone network are increasing, and there is a risk that global LNG trade will become monopolistic;(2) The countries along the "Belt and Road Initiative" actively participated in trade. The numbers of import ports and import voyages in Central and North America, South and Southeast Asia have significantly increased, and in particular, Sabetta and Bonny ranked the top eight globally according to their export volume;(3) The average shortest path length of the network is increasing year by year from 2018 to 2020, and the new mode of "transshipment port" business is gradually emerging. By 2020, 21 transshipment ports have participated in LNG trade, and the United States occupies the dominant position in global transshipment;(4) In recent three years, China's LNG import scale has developed rapidly, and the flow direction of the maritime transport network tends to be diversified. However, Australia is still the main LNG source for China. In terms of import volume, the ports of Tianjin, Shenzhen, and Yung'an rank the top three in China, and the pressure to reduce carbon emissions has prompted the economically developed regions to build terminals and increase imports. © 2022, Science Press. All right reserved.
ABSTRACT
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, popularized by Klaus Schwab in 2015 at the World Economic Forum represents a fundamental change in the way we live, work and relate to one another. We're working in an environment where volumes and complexity are increasing, but budgets are decreasing. How to sense and act upon a future that remains unclear? The COVID-19 crisis has painfully demonstrated the heterogeneous landscape that currently exists across ports and shipping worldwide. While some port communities have developed into full-fledged "smart"ports, many others have barely grasped the essentials of digitization and continue to struggle with larger reliance on personal interaction and paper-based transactions as the norms for shipboard, ship-To-shore interface, and shore-To-hinterland exchanges. The e-navigation Common Shore-based System Architecture (CSSA) is a step forward to an harmonized solution to bring the maritime ports and shipping to the digital era. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The development of coastal shipping (CS) in Africa has been identified as a way to bolster the continent’s freight transport network. Thus, our study examined the recent CS experiences of three regional shipping lines in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)—Ocean Africa Lines, Adom Mbroso Transport and United Africa Feeder Line—operating respectively in Southern, West and East Africa. We employed an in-depth case-study approach involving semi-structured interviews with senior managers, which enabled us to discover and understand the real-life phenomenon of successfully operating CS services in SSA today and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the three companies. Our study revealed gaps that need to be addressed in order to develop maritime transport in Africa’s subregions, namely by clarifying the predicted appropriateness and credibility of different policies and which elements are more likely to generate positive behavioural change in regional shipping lines. It also revealed major barriers for CS, including customs, a lack of intra-regionally traded cargo and high tariffs and low efficiency at port. Although the establishment of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area and 2050 Africa’s Integrated Maritime Strategy have clearly had positive effects, African states need to implement the policies in concert as well as improve the performance of ports. Last, concerning the pandemic, COVID-19-related restrictions have decreased transport demand for CS in SSA and limited crew changes, shore leaves and cargo operations. Although business viability has been negatively affected as a consequence, freight rates have increased across SSA and thus improved the sustainability of CS.
ABSTRACT
Maritime transport has become important due to its ability to internationally unite all continents. In turn, during the last two years, we have observed that the increase of consumer goods has resulted in global shipping deadlocks. In addition, the future goes through the role of ports and efficiency in maritime transport to decarbonize its impact on the environment. In order to improve the economy and people's lives, in this work, we propose to enhance services offered in maritime logistics. To do this, a communications system is designed on the deck of ships to transmit data through a constellation of satellites using interconnected smart devices based on IoT. Among the services, we highlight the monitoring and tracking of refrigerated containers, the transmission of geolocation data from Global Positioning System (GPS), and security through the Automatic Identification System (AIS). This information will be used for a fleet of ships to make better decisions and help guarantee the status of the cargo and maritime safety on the routes. The system design, network dimensioning, and a communications protocol for decision-making will be presented.
Subject(s)
Ships , HumansABSTRACT
The maritime transport of containers between ports accounts for the bulk of global trade by weight and value. Transport impedance among ports through transit times and port infrastructures can, however, impact accessibility, trade performance, and the attractiveness of ports. Assessments of the transit routes between ports based on performance and attractiveness criteria can provide a topological liner shipping network that quantifies the performance profile of ports. Here, we constructed a directed global liner shipping network (GLSN) of the top six liner shipping companies between the ports of Africa, Asia, North/South America, Europe, and Oceania. Network linkages and community groupings were quantified through a container port accessibility evaluation model, which quantified the performance of the port using betweenness centrality, the transport impedance among ports with the transit time, and the performance of ports using the Port Liner Shipping Connectivity Index. The in-degree and out-degree of the GLSN conformed to the power-law distribution, respectively, and their R-square fitting accuracy was greater than 0.96. The community partition illustrated an obvious consistence with the actual trading flow. The accessibility evaluation result showed that the ports in Asia and Europe had a higher accessibility than those of other regions. Most of the top 30 ports with the highest accessibility are Asian (17) and European (10) ports. Singapore, Port Klang, and Rotterdam have the highest accessibility. Our research may be helpful for further studies such as species invasion and the planning of ports.
Subject(s)
Ships , Asia , Europe , Singapore , South AmericaABSTRACT
This paper considers two current challenges in the governance of maritime transport, specifically container shipping. The first is the oligopolistic market structure of container shipping, the downsides of which became evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second challenge is climate change, both the need to reduce emissions to zero by 2050 and to adapt to effects that are already locked in. The paper reviews the academic and policy literature and unveils a link between these market and environmental challenges which result from a focus on efficiency without considering negative effects such as diseconomies of scale and induced traffic, leading to a continued rise in total industry carbon emissions. The review likewise identifies links in how policy-makers react to the two challenges. Regulators could remove anti-trust exemptions from carriers, and policy-makers are being pushed to provide strict decarbonisation targets with a coherent timeline for ending the use of fossil fuels. Recent thinking on ecological economics, degrowth and steady-state economics is introduced as the paradigm shift that could link these two policy evolutions. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
ABSTRACT
Maritime transport, which includes shipping and port operations, is the fundamental basis of international trade and globalization. In transportation management, efficiency is critical for verifying performance and proposing the best countermeasure to meet predetermined goals. Various efforts in this field have been made to solve this problem satisfactorily. However, the significant proportion of conventional approaches are based on long-term observations and professional expertise, with only a few exceptions based on practice-based historical data. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a non-parametric technique for analyzing various output and input variables parallelly. The efficiency of maritime transport in European countries is explored using a two-stage DEA approach based on Malmquist and Epsilon-Based Measure (EBM). First, the Malmquist model analyses countries’ total productivity growth rates and their breakdown into technical efficiency (catch-up) and technology change (frontier-shift). Second, the EBM model is used to determine the efficiency and inefficiency of the maritime transportation systems in each European country. Apart from identifying the best-performing countries in specific areas over the study period (2016–2019), the results highlight that the gap in applying the EBM method to maritime transport has been successfully closed and that the emerging paradigm, when combined with the Malmquist model, can be a sustainable and appropriate evaluation model for other research areas.
ABSTRACT
A shortage of empty containers has become a global crisis with more devastating effects than during previous periods when combined with various problems arising from the COVID-19, such as an increase in an imbalance of global trade between supply and demand, a decrease in the workforce, and restrictions by countries or regional quarantine practices. The absence of empty containers in regions where they are needed slows down industrial activities and locks the global supply networks, necessitating the use of alternative methods that are inefficient. Although this shortage causes many disruptions in global trade, solutions to the issue have not been studied in detail. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the issues caused by the shortage of empty containers and to rank the appropriate solutions. Four main criteria and sixteen subcategories used to define the issues, as well as a multi criteria decision model comprising five criteria for the solutions, were proposed based on information from the literature, sectorial publications, and expert opinions. The issues’ weighted order of importance in our proposed model was calculated using the SWARA (Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis) method;solutions were ranked using the ARAS (Additive Ratio Assessment) method. The results of the study revealed that the issues were ranked in importance as cost increases, uncertainty in the supply chain, volume loss, and increases in blank sailing announcements. Appropriate solutions were ranked as booking guarantee applications and information communication technologies, using shipper-owned containers, inducement calls, and E2E (end to end) delivery services.
ABSTRACT
Maritime transport plays a key role in global trade. The safeguard of maritime transport is the Port State Control (PSC) inspection implemented all over the world. The outbreak of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in 2020 presents new and unprecedented impacts on global supply chains and the ports as well as the entire shipping industry. Various measures were adopted by the countries and regions to halt the spread of the pandemic, mainly by reducing face-to-face interactions. As PSC inspections involve getting onboard vessels and in-person communications between the inspectors and the crew, its procedure and results are highly likely to be influenced by the COVID-19. This study aims to explore whether, how, and why the global and regional PSC inspection statuses are influenced by the pandemic through analyzing real inspection data. Specifically, three general indicators, namely inspection number, average deficiency number per inspection, and detention rate, are considered. Moreover, a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the inspection data at the Hong Kong port is conducted, including the number of inspections conducted, the average deficiency number and detention rate, the types of inspections conducted and ships inspected, the detailed deficiency and detention conditions, the relationship between the local pandemic situation and the PSC inspection status, and regression analysis on the influencing factors on inspection outcome. It is found that the COVID-19 pandemic indeed has an impact on PSC. Meanwhile, pragmatic and flexible measures are adopted by the port states, and the PSC has always been acting as a 'safety net' to guarantee maritime safety, promote the marine environment, and protect the seafarers' rights even under the difficult times during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
y In recent years, the maritime-port supply chains mobilized through global intermodal transport networks have faced adverse scenarios derived both from the geopolitical tensions expressed in neo-protectionism and the trade war between the main world powers, as well as the sudden and devastating appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic. This context has provided evidence of certain vulnerabilities of the logistical and spatial fragmentation of the productive processes derived from the economic globalization that have prevailed in the last three decades. The trade war between central countries of the world-economy, but above all the irruption of the COVID-19 pandemic caused huge imbalances that abruptly interrupted the regularity and continuity of the supply of inputs and goods from the extensive productive chains that are mainly articulated in a global space through complex maritime and intermodal transport network. Arising from the above, this proposal seeks to advance in the identification of the logistical and spatial impacts of COVID-19 in the maritime transport of goods and in the Mexican ports, as well as to visualize, broadly speaking, the emerging trends of spatial articulation of globalized supply chains, with the aim of provide qualitative elements that eventually contribute or assist to the construction of post-pandemic scenarios, based on a structural-systemic theoretical-methodological approach, based on the creation of a networks space and global flows.
ABSTRACT
The importance of maritime transport and ports to international trade and the world economy is invaluable. It is maritime transport and seaports that ensure the integrity of the supply chain, which ensures the success of world trade and economic activities. The importance of maritime transport is confirmed by the fact that 80% of the transported goods come from maritime transport. Consequently, maintaining a sustainable supply chain is a guarantee of sustainable development in the world. However, the new coronavirus (COVID19) changed the world and affected the civilized world, causing a crisis and having a very large impact on maritime transport and trade. The impact of the pandemic on maritime transport has challenged various industries whose operation and production depended on the production of raw materials, the processing of semi-finished products and more. Restrictions introduced to prevent the spread of the pandemic have led to the closure of ports, reduced working hours and manpower in ports, and freight-forwarding opportunities. Countries also avoided the spread of COVID-19, and therefore refrained from importing and exporting products and goods during the quarantine period, which led to a decrease in import-export, which in turn reduced demand for cargo. In some cases, due to the imposed restrictions, the transportation time was increased and it became impossible to transport goods with a specific nature. It was these restrictions that led to the slowdown in trade flows and supply chain operations. It was difficult to navigate and trade in different regions. Despite so many difficulties, restrictions, and the impact of the pandemic, maritime transport and seaports continued to operate to ensure the delivery of personalized goods to countries, such as: food, energy, raw materials, medicines and medical supplies. We think that this topic is very important, it needs to be well researched and analyzed, because if we understand what impact the pandemic has had on maritime transport and ports, we will be able to quickly and easily lay out ways to respond to challenges and get the industry back to normal. The spread of the coronavirus has once again confirmed that the backbone of international trade is precisely maritime transport. Georgian ports are a good example of this. This article discusses the impact of the new pandemic on maritime transport and ports, as well as the impacts identified and solutions found. The article analyzes for example the cargo turnover of Georgian ports during the pandemic. Based on the discussion and analysis of each of the above issues, conclusions are drawn. © 2021 21st Annual General Assembly, IAMU AGA 2021 - Proceedings of the International Association of Maritime Universities ,IAMU Conference. All rights reserved.