Two different media platforms played a key role in keeping Tema Port in Ghana afloat during the period immediately leading up to and during the three-week COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdown in late March–April of 2020. The one media platform, Eye on Port, is a weekly broadcast television show by the port’s authorities, which caters primarily to external commercial stakeholders of the port. The other platform is a closed WhatsApp forum used by stakeholders working at the operational level of the port. Both platforms served specific needs among their users, who had been restricted in their mobility but had to keep the port operational. Combining ‘scalable sociality’ with the concept of polymedia, we identify how the two media functioned to meet the different informational and conversational needs of their respective users. We argue that either medium alone could not fulfil the communicative needs necessary to keep the port operational during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This paper advances the conceptual understanding of strategies of port development companies (PDCs) through applying the business ecosystem perspective. This leads to a distinction between four stylized strategies for PDCs and associated types of services: minimalist (six services), integrator (six services) and ecosystem services (six services). An analysis of the services provided by a PDC reveals which strategy they follow. This approach is tested through a case study of Port of Rotterdam Authority (PoR for short) the state-owned PDC in charge of developing Rotterdam's port complex. This case study yields three important conclusions: first the relevance of the identified service types is confirmed, as PoR is or has been active in providing 15 of the 18 identified service types, more specifically all six ‘minimalist services’, all six ‘ecosystem services’ and three of the six ‘integrator services’. Second, PoR follows a ‘platform provider’ strategy. Third, the provision of ‘ecosystem services’ seems to become a more important part of PoRs activities. The number of provided ecosystem services has grown between 2006 and 2021 and investments in ecosystem services account for an increasing share of PoRs total investments. These results provide a basis for further research, amongst others to better understand factors that may influence the strategies of PDCs.
The European Union (EU) transport policy recognizes the importance of the waterborne transport systems as key elements for sustainable growth in Europe. By 2030, 30% of total road freight over 300 km should shift to rail or waterborne transport, and more than 50% by 2050. Thus far, this ambition has failed but there have been several project initiatives within the EU to address these issues. In one of these projects, we consider a new waterborne transport system for Europe that is green, robust, flexible, more automated and autonomous, and able to connect both rural and urban terminals. The purpose of this paper is to describe work and preliminary results from this project. To that effect, and in order to assess any solutions contemplated, a comprehensive set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) has been defined, and three specific use cases within Europe are examined and evaluated according to these KPIs. KPIs represent the criteria under which the set of solutions developed are evaluated, and also compared to non-autonomous solutions. They are grouped under economic, environmental and social KPIs. KPIs have been selected after a consultation process involving project partners and external Advisory Group members. Links to EU transport and other regulatory action are also discussed.
The maritime sector contributes significantly to climate change, given thenumber of global emissions that this represents. Emissions inventorying isone of the measurement system approaches considered in terminals to mitigate harmful emissions. The concept of sustainability has gained attentionwhere economic, social, and environmental dimensions need to be balanced.Assessing all three sustainability dimensions is important. Both the environment and the society, e.g., human health and safety, are impacted by terminal operations. Reducing their negative impact can compromise the economicgrowth of the terminal. This is challenging the maritime sector, and althoughsome authors define methods to evaluate sustainability in terminals, nostandard guideline is available in the literature. The lack of a common reference guideline makes comparison of sustainability actions in terminals difficult.This paper presents a sustainability assessment framework based on theanalysis of the state of the art in literature contributing to sustainable development of terminals and supporting decision-makers.
The Ghana National Single Window has become the focus of attention over its potential to move goods swiftly. However, since its inception in 2002, the controversies surrounding the implementation suggest issues beyond trade facilitation. The Information Systems literature primarily ascribes the controversies to resistance to technology. By adopting the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) as a learning process for understanding port stakeholders' relations and attitudes, we explore the controversies to determine the meanings port stakeholders attribute to them. We combined SSM with interviews, media content analysis and focus groups made possible by snowballing. The responses were analyzed using rich pictures and validated through a conceptual model. The results reveal a fragmented government where ministries, agencies, and personalities assert power in single window implementation through I.T. vendor contracts. The situation results in a high cost of doing business at the port for shippers due to non-transparent and questionable contracts. The public's attitude towards the controversies reflects fears, hopes and expectations and legitimate concerns about important political and social goals. Using SSMs focus on relations and attitudes, we can document how controversies attributed to new technology is not a question of technology but of perceived political interference.
This paper studies the Quay Crane Scheduling Problem (QCSP). The QCSP determines how a number of quay cranes should be scheduled in order to service a vessel with minimum makespan. Previous work considers the QCSP to be a combinatorially hard problem. For that reason, the focus has been on developing efficient heuristics. Our study shows, however, that the QCSP is tractable in the realistic setting, where quay cranes can share the workload of bays. We introduce a novel linear time algorithm that solves the QCSP and prove its correctness.
We consider a variant of the berth allocation problem-i.e., the multi-port berth allocation problem-aimed at assigning berthing times and positions to vessels in container terminals. This variant involves optimizing vessel travel speeds between multiple ports, thereby exploiting the potentials of a collaboration between carriers (shipping lines) and terminal operators. Using a graph representation of the problem, we reformulate an existing mixed-integer problem into a generalized set partitioning problem, in which each variable refers to a sequence of feasible berths in the ports that the vessel visits. By integrating column generation and cut separation in a branch-and-cut-and-price procedure, our proposed method is able to outperform commercial solvers in a set of benchmark instances and adapt better to larger instances. In addition, we apply cooperative game theory methods to efficiently distribute the savings resulting from a potential collaboration and show that both carriers and terminal operators would benefit from collaborating.
The shipping industry's greenhouse gas emission reduction has received significant focus over the past years. One of the research areas is that of stowage planning for RORO vessels. Efficient stowage plans are necessary to reduce the turnaround time for vessels in a port. Reducing turnaround time results in prolonged sailing time, allowing vessels to reduce fuel consumption through slow steaming. When RORO vessels have calls at several ports, they handle cargo as an approximate FILO queue. Therefore, cargo can potentially become blocked when stowing cargo for later ports, behind cargo with an earlier discharge port. Planning the cargo assignment onboard the vessels also requires considering the arrival time of cargo at the port. Recent research assumes that all freight is available for stowage when the RORO vessels arrive at the port. However, this is not always the case. The unique elements of scheduling and generation of loading/discharge paths are therefore of academic interest. We propose a novel mathematical model with a weighted objective function that minimizes the relationship between the fuel consumption cost and the revenue gained from shipping cargo. The model schedules the cargo loading sequence to reduce time spent handling and re-handling cargo at each port. The problem is studied for a single deck layout for a vessel calling multiple ports. Results of the mathematical model and accompanying metaheuristic will be presented.
The mission policy approach to the sustainable blue economy has identified as critical the ability to anticipate the emergence of a wide range of feasible innovations as they enter the transactional environment of organizations in the marine and maritime sector. This article contributes to that growing effort by harnessing the wisdom of the crowd and presents more than 60 crowdsourced, time-specific innovation forecasts expected to impact maritime, shipbuilding, ports, offshore wind, and ocean infrastructure. Data were collected in 2020 by the EU-funded Interreg VB PERISCOPE Project, a North Sea Region initiative to catalyze transregional innovation. The results can be used strategically to develop collaborative, transregional planning and policy for innovation based on data reflecting public expectations for the future. Years from now, this article can also act as a snapshot of public expectations at the onset of the decade.