Maritime Economics & Logistics

This paper proposes an innovative foresight methodology to estimate the future port transit throughput volumes in Iran using scenario planning, econometrics, and heuristics calculations. Two critical components of the framework are the gravity models, for estimating potential international trade flows that can pass the ports as transit freight, and the novel approach for calculating the attractiveness of transport corridors. The global business network approach is applied to determine several scenarios using three major driving forces, reflecting the future domestic and international environment affecting Iranian ports transit. For each scenario, a systematic approach is used to quantify the effects of driving forces and obtain port transit throughput for different goods categories. In doing so, the estimated trade flows are assigned to the corridors with the highest attractiveness scores. Major transport corridors such as International North–South Transport Corridor, Belt and Road Initiative, Suez Canal route, TRACECA, Trans Asian Railway, Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC), and Trans-Siberian corridor are taken into account in the assessments. The proposed methodology is not country specific, therefore it could provide valuable insights to port authorities to help cope with uncertainties within the international trade and logistics environment when conducting strategic planning.

Global trade lanes rely on shipping companies and operators to transport their goods. This may be changing as producers increase their control in downstream logistics. We examine how the flow of pulp from Brasilia to main markets in Europe has evolved, and how the roles of producers, ship operators and distributors in the value chain have changed and will continue to develop. By using an in-depth case study, we show some disruptive changes in the structure and operations of the concerned supply chain. The case company signed a long-term contract with a shipbuilder and operator company to transport its total export volume of wood pulp. Thus, the pulp producer’s dedicated fleet enables a move from fluctuating, unreliable pulp shipments towards pre-scheduled, accurate deliveries to destinations within close proximity of the pulp customers’ sites. Moreover, the pulp producer under study has also agreed with its key overseas customers that vendor-managed inventories (VMIs) will be implemented on a global scale to reduce inventories across the supply chain and improve customer service. In the current body of knowledge, VMI is mainly applicable in local contexts. There are only few cases documenting VMI implementation on a global scale, not to mention in the global maritime context. The case reported could serve as a precedence of novel solutions for supply chains more generally.

The events of September 11th, 2001, in the US have brought a greater focus to the ways in which national security is viewed. International agencies such as the International Maritime Organisation and most national governments have been active in developing new security policies. Security, however, poses particular problems because, unlike safety where there is no conscious effort to cause harm, there is an inevitable gaming problem with potential perpetrators continually vying to circumvent security regimes. Added to this, security involves uncertainty that, unlike risk, has no real probability associated with it. These features necessitate a public as well as a private sector response. To develop public policy in these circumstances there is a need to tailor actions to the nature of the maritime market. A difficulty in doing this is that there is no single market; rather there are a number of overlapping markets. An added problem is that there is no consensus on the underlying structure of most of these markets. This paper fills some of the resultant voids by examining the extent to which actors in various market situations have internal incentives to ensure security and how they would react to external incentives such as regulations.

As freight transport flows grow continuously, developing better quantitative models for forecasting future trade flows becomes more important. Trade flows can be estimated by discrete choice theory, leading to gravity models formulations. At a given point in time, trade flows may also be affected by long-term contracts or simply trading habits. This leads to situations where only a fraction of the market is subject to choice. In this article, we extend the traditional gravity model such that a fixed amount is separated from observed trade flows and only residuals are subject to discrete choice. We apply our model on coal, iron ore and oil seaborne trade flows and demonstrate that the proposed construction results in a significantly better fit for the observed data. This observation is important in predicting future trade volumes.

This paper proposes a mathematical programming approach for empty container management. Since directional imbalances in trade activities result in a surplus or shortage of empty containers in ports and depots, their management can be thought of as a min cost flow problem whose arcs represent services routes, inventory links and decisions concerning the time and place to lease containers from external sources. We adopt an hourly time-step in a dynamic network and, although this time-period generates large-size instances, the two implemented algorithms show a good computational efficiency. A possible case study of the Mediterranean basin is proposed and results are presented with a graphical representation, providing a useful support to decision-makers in the field.

Current global production patterns have led to the emergence of systemic, chronic and structural trade imbalances between major trading regions. Increasing transportation led to a growth in the amount of full containers and subsequently to preceding and ensuing empty container movements. Empty container management is substantial to overcome the complex problem of empty container repositioning, storage and ownership conditions. Because of growing cost pressures and the continuous search for efficiency improvements, collaborative design approaches in the empty container management are becoming increasingly important. One approach is the joint use of containers by several container carriers and container leasing companies. Therefore, the aim of this article is to introduce a mathematical optimization approach, which optimizes container logistics networks and quantifies potential savings considering the establishment and operation of container pooling. It will be shown that positive economic effects can be generated by the implementation of container pooling, compared with non-cooperative behavior of container owners and leasing companies. In addition, port operators will be able to handle rising container volumes without major capacity adjustments. Further studies need to focus on practical implications of container pooling models and empirical evidence of the mathematical approach.

Road transportation inevitably causes environmental problems such as air pollution, congestion and accidents. In contrast, inland waterway transportation is a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to road transportation. Cost is usually the most critical factor in selecting a mode of freight transportation. With a greater focus on the externalities of transportation systems, the European Commission advocates the idea that the impacts on society and the environment should be reflected by the costs of transportation. As a result, the full costs of a given transportation system should include both the internal and external costs. In this study, we develop a model for calculating the internal and external costs of road and inland waterway freight transportation systems and use the model to determine the break-even distance of the two systems. The model was applied to the Yangtze River Delta in China. Our key finding is that handling rates have a great effect on the break-even distance. In addition, the policy of internalisation of externalities clearly decreases the break-even distance and reduces the market share of road transportation.