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Container ports operate in more challenging and volatile environments at present times. Events such as US-China trade tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic severely affect numerous container ports at various levels. Strategies pursued by container ports are key to port development and management amidst these challenges. Drawing on configuration theory, this research employs Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to investigate the relation between port strategies and container throughput. The research contributes to the literature by proposing an approach to account for complexity of the port sector and offers insights into strategies adopted by major container ports. The research further identifies 10 port strategies and proposed indicators that can represent the essence of these strategies. Being able to represent strategies in a quantitative format is important for strategy analysis and performance evaluation. Results reveal that major container ports employ a combination of strategies which address both the supply and demand-side aspects of the port business. Growing digitalization and digitization coupled with advancements in information capture, diagnostics capabilities and predictive abilities means a greater role for data analytics to influence container port strategy and performance. Implications for port managers, policy makers and researchers from the perspective of port policy and management are proposed.
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PurposeThis paper presents a systematic review of the literature in the domain of maritime disruption management, upon which future research framework and agenda are proposed. Two review questions, i.e. the measures that are employed to manage disruptions and how these contribute to resilience performance, were pursued.Design/methodology/approachThe systematic literature review procedure was strictly followed, including identification and planning, execution, selection and synthesis and analysis. A review protocol was developed, including scope, databases and criteria guiding the review. Following this, 47 articles were eventually extracted for the systematic review to identify themes for not only addressing the review questions but also highlighting future research opportunities.FindingsIt was found that earlier studies mainly focused on measures, which are designed using mathematical models, management frameworks and other technical support systems, to analyse and evaluate risks, and their impacts on maritime players at the levels of organisation, transport system and region in which the organisation is embedded. There is, however, a lack of research that empirically examines how these measures would contribute to enhancing the resilience performance of maritime firms and their organisational performance as a whole. Subsequently, a Digitally Embedded and Technically Support Maritime Disruption Management (DEST-MDM) model is proposed.Research limitations/implicationsThis review is constrained by studies recorded by the Web of Science only. Nevertheless, the proposed research model would expectedly contribute to enhancing knowledge building in the specific domain of maritime disruption management and supply chain management overall while providing meaningful managerial implications to policymakers and managers in the maritime industry.Originality/valueThis research is perhaps one of the first studies which presents a systematic review of literature in maritime disruption management and proposes a future research framework that establishes the link between disruption management and resilience and organisational performance for empirical validation.
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Since January 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused widespread impacts on virtually every sector of the global economy, including world trade and global supply chains. [...]it has been argued that the existing globalised economies might require to be restructured in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic when governments and firms start to re-strategize their critical supply chains through various disruption and resilience management strategies. [...]other shipping intermediaries, i.e. freight forwarders and logistics service providers, who play crucial roles in connecting demand and supply of maritime supply chains also suffered due to reduced business transactions. [...]the focus of this special issue is on understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on various players in the maritime supply chain, as well as possible trends of global trade and maritime supply chains and strategies and policies in the aftermath of the pandemic.
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Marina Business, or Marina in&with Business is a new term in the terminology of nautical tourism, introduced in Croatia in the conditions of COVID-19. In other words, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the old, disorganized relationships of entities operating in and with marinas. The damaged relations during the pandemic showed all the illogic in their existing relations as well as the damage to the better results of Croatian charters and ports of nautical tourism, especially marinas. The fact that the state distanced itself from the economy and the development of entrepreneurship was reflected in the development of nautical tourism in Croatia, which developed independently in all its sub-forms after the Homeland War. Favourable post-war opportunities on the market of nautical tourism offer, i.e. lagging in the development of nautical tourism capacities and high dynamics of tourism demand, favoured nautical tourism enterprises that achieved positive business results until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. If the problem of cruising is excluded, both large world cruises and small domestic cruises, nautical tourism ports, especially marinas and charters, developed dynamically, but with the intention of doing profitable business, the problems gradually deepened. At the same time, the relationship problem could not be solved due to the good mutual business results. The emergence of the pandemic in 2020 showed the other side of the cooperative relationship between charterers and marinas, which for both subjects led to the distancing of the state in aid programs that should have been specific and not general for subjects of all types of businesses. In addition to the problems of charters and marinas, it is also necessary to consider the activity of skippers, who are of great importance for Croatian charter, which is considered the largest in the world. The services of skippers are used by about 40% of sailors, and they are an important segment for the success of the Croatian charter business. It should be noted here that in the further paragraphs of this paper the terms nautical tourism ports and marinas will be used, and this is because charter is mainly located in marinas and only to a lesser extent in other forms of nautical tourism ports, so it is also mentioned in nautical tourism ports. Thus, the relationship "marina-charter -skippers" represents a working symbiosis that links it to the intention of all successful businesses. The goal of the research is to valorise the factors of the quality of business cooperation and good business relationships that ensure profitable business for everyone. The research hypothesis states that the necessary good business cooperation can be achieved through a higher level of cooperation than before.
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The cruise shipping industry has existed for centuries. However, sustainability is a relatively new trend that could make a big difference and someday impact the industry. A growing body of research on sustainable cruise tourism includes studying changes among industry stakeholders, internal and external processes, and more. However, until now, there have been no comprehensive and systematic reviews of the academic literature on this topic and proposals for future research areas. The sample for our research consists of 56 articles structured into the following themes and subthemes: (1) corporate social responsibility (public interaction and emissions management);(2) territory management (collaboration with stakeholders and infrastructure development);(3) training in sustainable behavior (passengers, ship personnel, and other stakeholders). These themes fully explore the various use cases for sustainable cruises, forming a conceptual framework for understanding trends for the industry's sustainable development. We direct the attention of other researchers to the following areas for further research: GHG emissions of cruising;biodiversity impacts;quantitative understanding of the target audience and their participation in sustainability financing;in-depth understanding of the reasons for cooperation between stakeholders;identifying the true motivation for participation in sustainable development;the long-term trends;and how the shipping industry is adapting to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The collection and distribution network of ports is the main cause of carbon emissions. The carbon peak is a basic policy in China, and the subsidy policy is one of the common measures used by the government to incentivize carbon reduction. We analyzed the transportation methods and the flow direction of a port and proposed a carbon emission calculation method based on emission factors. Based on the transportation time and the cost, a generalized transportation utility function was constructed, and the logit model was used to analyze the impacts of subsidy policies on transportation, thus calculating the effects of the subsidies on carbon reduction. We used Guangzhou Port as a case study, and calculated the carbon reduction effects in six different subsidy policy scenarios and concluded that the absolute carbon reduction value was proportional to the subsidy intensity. In addition, we constructed a subsidy carbon reduction efficiency index and found that the Guangzhou Port collection and distribution network had higher subsidy carbon reduction efficiency in low-subsidy scenarios. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was conducted on the subsidy parameters, and scenario 8 was found to have the highest subsidy carbon reduction efficiency. This achievement can provide decision support for the carbon emission strategy of the port collection and distribution network.
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Purpose This paper aims to explore the comparative analysis of marketing strategies between seaports and dry ports. Second, this paper proposes a recommendation to improve marketing approaches in both nodes.Design/methodology/approach This research analyzes current marketing approaches to improve the freight volume and enhance interrelation between them for a comprehensive collaboration in the freight supply chain. This research employed semi-structured interviews via an e-interview questionnaire.Findings The result shows that dry port and seaport practice a mixed marketing strategy. Some marketing elements that a seaport applies are also applied by a dry port, like focusing on the target customer, joining exhibitions and face-to-face meetings. Customized service to clients, frequent discussion on the effective marketing plans and increasing the facilities at the seaport and dry ports can improve the marketing strategies in dry port and seaports.Originality/value Seaports are the critical components in esteem-driven context, which add to supply chains by creating value-added services in the transport chain. Nonetheless, research between dry ports and seaports has increasingly drawn the attention of scholars during the last decade. Having said like that, there have not been any pragmatic studies undertaken in the Malaysian context that mainly discusses the marketing prospect of the dry ports and seaports especially during COVID-19 outbreak.
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Maritime security is facing many challenges due to war conflicts, geopolitics, sanctions, and pandemics. The supply chain for maritime containers has faced considerable obstacles as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous factors, such as port closures, travel restrictions, and a decreased workforce, have impacted the supply chain. The risk of cargo theft, piracy, and other security events has increased as a result of these difficulties. Therefore, it is essential to look at the risk variables that may affect the security of the marine container supply chain during the pandemic. This research paper highlights those risks through the following three indexes: the likelihood index (LI), severity index (SI), and average risk index (ARI) by analyzing 64 risk factors that were prepared and designed by incorporating the Delphi expert survey technique to prepare a systematic questionnaire. The article addresses worries over the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on international supply networks. The causes of the most recent global shipping industry disruptions and their impact on supply chains have been thoroughly examined. In order to reduce the number of disruptions in global supply chains and lower the direct and indirect costs for consumers, the authors have also mentioned the necessary actions that must be implemented. The results concluded after the analysis pointed to "management activities,” such as human resources or the working environment as having the highest possibility of going wrong, whereas "operation activities” were judged to likely be the fatal ones if the security of maritime containers was ever compromised. The main objective of the study is to evaluate how the COVID-19 epidemic may affect international shipping, particularly container shipping, which is currently the most important link in the world's multimodal land–sea supply chains.
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Since the second half of the twentieth century, maritime transport has been characterized by specific dynamics. There has been an unprecedented growth of freight flows, in a context of decolonization, rapid globalization (second wave), and rise of emerging countries through production delocalization. Ports are key players in the global supply chain, as critical nodes at the interface between land and sea. However, disruptions of all kinds can have important repercussions on this supply chain. Maritime networks have reached a high level of optimality and concentration, but also of vulnerability, as global shipping circulations depend more and more on a handful of major hubs. The aim of this paper is to test the network impacts of the global financial crisis (2008-2009), which caused the collapse of the world demand for goods and significant decreases in GDP and maritime traffic volumes, in order to correlate them with those of the COVID-19 pandemic. Historical, daily data on containership movements allow us to trace such impacts with precision, in order to study port traffic dynamics, network topology, and geographical variations. Methods are borrowed from the field of graph theory and complex networks. This analysis contributes to the literature on network criticalities in general, while it also discusses the capacity of ports and maritime networks to recover from a major shock. © 2023 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.
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The COVID-19 outbreak has had detrimental consequences on the cruise industry due to the suspension of commercial cruise trips, and these effects remain apparent in Saudi Arabia. The offered service quality (SQ) in the post-COVID-19 era seems to be a critical element for improving customer experiences and satisfaction, enhancing destination attractiveness, increasing revenue, and maintaining repeat business. The current study aimed to assess the impact of service quality on tourists' satisfaction and corporate image as well as the intention to pay for cruise trips and revisit the destination among 315 tourists in Saudi Arabia. Service quality was measured using five subscales of the SERVQUAL scale, including reliability, tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Tourists' satisfaction was significantly influenced by four domains of SQ, whereas the intention to pay more, intention to revisit the destination, and corporate image were significantly predicted by ≤3 domains of SQ. The study's findings can help the cruise industry to improve its offerings and create more personalized and engaging experiences that meet the changing needs of customers in the recovery period after the COVID-19 outbreak.
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In 2022, COVID-19 solutions in China have entered a normal stage, and the solutions imported from ports have been transformed from emergency prevention and control measures to investigative long-term prevention and control measures. Therefore, it is necessary to study solutions for COVID-19 at border ports. In this study, 170 research papers related to the prevention and control measures of COVID-19 at ports from 2020 to September 2022 were retrieved from Wanfang database, HowNet database, Wip database, and WoS core collection. Citespace 6.1.R2 software was used to research institutions visualize and analyze researchers and keywords to explore their research hotspots and trends. After analysis, the overall volume of documents issued in the past 3 years was stable. The major contributors are scientific research teams such as the Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine Sciences (Han Hui et al.) and Beijing Customs (Sun Xiaodong et al.), with less cross-agency cooperation. The top five high-frequency keywords with cumulative frequency are as follows: COVID-19 (29 times), epidemic prevention and control (29 times), ports (28 times), health quarantine (16 times), and risk assessment (16 times). The research hotspots in the field of prevention and control measures for COVID-19 at ports are constantly changing with the progress of epidemic prevention and control. Cooperation between research institutions needs to be strengthened urgently. The research hotspots are the imported epidemic prevention and control, risk assessment, port health quarantine, and the normalized epidemic prevention and control mechanism, which is the trend of research and needs further exploration in the future.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Humans , COVID-19/prevention & control , East Asian People , China , Beijing , SoftwareABSTRACT
Since the second half of the twentieth century, maritime transport has been characterized by specific dynamics. There has been an unprecedented growth of freight flows, in a context of decolonization, rapid globalization (second wave), and rise of emerging countries through production delocalization. Ports are key players in the global supply chain, as critical nodes at the interface between land and sea. However, disruptions of all kinds can have important repercussions on this supply chain. Maritime networks have reached a high level of optimality and concentration, but also of vulnerability, as global shipping circulations depend more and more on a handful of major hubs. The aim of this paper is to test the network impacts of the global financial crisis (2008-2009), which caused the collapse of the world demand for goods and significant decreases in GDP and maritime traffic volumes, in order to correlate them with those of the COVID-19 pandemic. Historical, daily data on containership movements allow us to trace such impacts with precision, in order to study port traffic dynamics, network topology, and geographical variations. Methods are borrowed from the field of graph theory and complex networks. This analysis contributes to the literature on network criticalities in general, while it also discusses the capacity of ports and maritime networks to recover from a major shock. © 2023 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.
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To cater to the gradually increasing sizes of ships, several traditional container ports in East Asia built deep-water wharves to attract shipping carriers to berth, a decision that is considered highly reasonable because it allows for shipping carriers to gain a cost advantage. For traditional Far East/Europe (F/E) trunk routes, shipping carriers must deploy vessels that are large enough at hub ports to maintain low transshipment costs. However, for a port to attract shipping carriers, it should be able to first meet the cargo demand of these carriers. The port would also need to improve the loading ratio to enjoy the cost advantage. Simultaneously, the port should leverage the loading and unloading efficiency of the terminal to gain a competitive advantage. Although the port congestion observed at the F/E trunk during COVID-19 was not as serious as that in North American ports, it was sufficient to affect the route deployment and port selection decisions of shipping carriers. Currently, because the size of container carriers is the most critical factor in the reduction of shipping costs, as demonstrated in this study, the upsizing trend of container ships is regarded as a highly relevant aspect in the deployment of trunk routes and the selection of hub ports. © 2023 National Taiwan Ocean University.
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To achieve environmental sustainability on ships, stakeholders should make efforts to reduce emissions. Port authorities are crucial to attain this goal by introducing new policies. This study takes the Port of Long Beach as an example to assess port-wide ship emissions and explain the significance of shore power policy. Additionally, the study considers the impact of disruptions, such as the COVID pandemic, on ship emissions. The analysis compares data from three years before and after the pandemic to examine the relationship between ship waiting times, quantities, and emissions. The findings indicate that the majority of port-wide ship emissions are generated by berthing or anchoring vessels, from ship auxiliary engines and boilers. Furthermore, ship congestion due to reduced port productivity during the pandemic significantly increased emissions from berthing and anchoring vessels, with the emission proportion increasing from 68% to 86%. Adopting the shore power policy has effectively reduced ship emissions in port areas, and increasing the number of ships utilising shore power will be instrumental in tackling excessive ship emissions.
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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 Container 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.
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By considering the economic and social contribution of Senegalese artisanal fisheries to the national economy, this study firstly provides elements of analysis of the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the fishing sector. Secondly, it lifts the veil on the adaptation strategies of the actors concerned. The field surveys reveal that the response measures of the authorities have affected the production, distribution, and marketing chains of fisheries products. The results show a remarkable decrease in landings. The landings of pelagic fish species in Ouakam, Hann, Soumbédioune, and Mbour fishing ports have decreased by −10.11%, −61.25%, −9.75%, and −18.98% proportionately. The same downward trend for demersal fish species was observed, except in Ouakam fishing port. The landing increased slightly to 29.28%. Also, significant income losses have been reported, particularly by fish traders, following the closure of the air borders and the decrease in the selling prices of species formerly destined for export. Thus, faced with this problem, the artisanal fishermen have developed site-specific strategies to continue their activities, which have slowed down. However, this pandemic has paralyzed artisanal fisheries activities, demonstrating the need for this study to strengthen the economic resilience of the sector.
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The outbreak of COVID-19 has impacted the shipping industry while the extent of the impact is still not fully understood. To quantitatively investigate the relationship between pandemic-related factors and port operations, a panel regression analysis is conducted using data from three important Asian ports, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Daily data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) database, and port authorities from January 2020 to December 2021 are utilized. Local newly confirmed cases of ports tend to negatively impact cargo throughput, while worldwide newly confirmed cases outside of ports tend to positively impact cargo throughput. Overall, the policy implications are that ports with better control of COVID-19 reap the benefits of more cargo throughput. In addition, countermeasures against COVID-19 and other epidemics should be designed deliberately to minimize the side-effect on port operations and maritime transportation.
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In the paper, there are presented digitalization development results for Arctic port activity management in ice season within Industry 4.0 period under climate change and COVID-19 pandemic. In study, there are used situational analysis, web technologies and building database methods in distributed networks. As the research result, to increase the efficiency and reliability of port activity management in ice season within environmental economics, it is proposed the using of geodata from remote sensing and modelling. As the digital managerial support instrument, it is proposed to use aggregate modular managerial decision support system, which integrate the heterogeneous hardware and the software resources in distributed networks. As the research results, there are demonstrated examples for arctic ports in the area of the Ob and Yenisei rivers. The research results presented in this article has significant scientific novelty and can be useful to different players within Arctic port activity management in ice season, including insurance business. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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There are many inevitable disruptive events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters and geopolitical conflicts, during the operation of the container port supply chain (CPSC). These events bring ship delays, port congestion and turnover inefficiency. In order to enhance the resilience of the CPSC, a modified two-stage CPSC system containing a container pretreatment system (CPS) and a container handling system (CHS) is built. A two-dimensional resilience index is designed to measure its affordability and recovery. An adaptive fuzzy double-feedback adjustment (AFDA) strategy is proposed to mitigate the disruptive effects and regulate its dynamicity. The AFDA strategy consists of the first-level fuzzy logic control system and the second-level adaptive fuzzy adjustment system. Simulations show the AFDA strategy outperforms the original system, PID, and two pipelines for improved dynamic response and augmented resilience. This study effectively supports the operations manager in determining the proper control policies and resilience management with respect to indeterminate container waiting delay and allocation delay due to disruptive effects.
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U.S. container ports have experienced unpresented congestion since mid-2020. The congestion is generally attributed to import surges triggered by heavy spending on consumer goods during the COVID-19 pandemic. Port congestion has been compounded by the inability of importers to retrieve, receive, and process all the inbound goods they have ordered, resulting in supply chain shortfalls and economic disruption. How can the shipping industry and government organizations predict the end of the current surge and anticipate future surges? Expected seasonal variations in import volume are associated with peak holiday shopping periods; nonseasonal import surges are signaled by other factors. The research goes beyond transportation data sources to examine broader connections between import volume and indicators of economic and retail industry conditions. The strongest and most useful relationship appears to be between retail inventory indicators and containerized import growth. From January 2018 through July 2021, there was a relatively strong negative correlation between retail inventory- and import TEU indices with a 4-month lag (corresponding roughly to the time between import orders and -arrival). In the 2020 to 2021 pandemic period the negative correlation was stronger, again with a 4-month lag. These findings suggest that observers might anticipate import surges after marked, nonseasonal drops in retail inventories, and that import surges are likely to last until target inventory levels are restored. In a broader sense, an awareness of the linkages between consumer demand, retail chain responses, and containerized import volumes could better inform port, freight transportation, and government planning and policy choices.