The shipping industry faces huge challenges with regard to improving its environmental performance. The current regulatory approach has not been successful. Public and private actors increasingly rely on partnerships. The literature on partnerships for sustainability has contributed to a better conceptualisation of the subject. However, less is known about the processes and the outcomes of the partnerships as well as interactions between partnerships. This paper aims to improve the understanding of how partnerships contribute to developing cleaner technologies in the Danish shipping industry. Two partnerships have been analysed: Partnership for Cleaner Shipping and the Green Ship of the Future. Participation, scope and division of roles among partners have influenced both partnerships. Furthermore, both partnerships have developed organisational forms that proved to overcome the tensions in traditional partnerships, between open and information-based networking on the one side and closed and development-oriented collaboration on the other side.
The rapid growth of e-commerce applications has promoted the establishment of shipping e-commerce channels by many liner companies in addition to their existing traditional Non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC) channel. Unlike NVOCC channels, shipping e-commerce channels guarantee shippers the availability of contracted container slots. However, some problems arise, including the competition with NVOCC channels, shipping slot sales’ risk, and the increasing liner companies’ costs. Therefore, this paper addresses optimal sales strategy selection in the liner transportation industry, including a single traditional NVOCC channel (TN) strategy, and a dual channel with both e-commerce and NVOCC channels (EN) strategy. Two contract scheme models are constructed considering the channel competition on canvassing ability, overselling behavior, demand fluctuation, and the limited liner vessel capacity. Findings show that the impact of overselling behavior on the profit under the EN and TN is not always negative, which is related to the shipping capacity and probability of the high canvassing ability. Comparative analyses reveal that the EN is dominant if the unit overselling compensation cost varies small. Meanwhile, the TN is profitable if the unit overselling compensation cost increases and the canvassing cost of e-commerce channel exceeds a certain value. Otherwise, the selection of sales strategy relies on the arrival rate, the canvassing cost of the e-commerce channel and shipping capacity. The results offer new insights to both theoretical research on container slot sales and the practical selection of sales strategy since shipping e-commerce has changed the slot selling mode in the container shipping industry, which could also enhance the competitiveness of liner companies in the container shipping industry.
This paper analyzes what happens to redundant skills and workers when large companies close down and whether their skills are destroyed or reallocated. The analysis is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative data of the closure of four companies. Getting a job in a skill-related industry or moving to a spinoff firm leads to skill reallocation. Thus, the result depends on regional idiosyncrasies such as industry structure and urbanization. If local policy makers and the owners exert a coordinated effort, it is possible to create success stories of less skill destruction in urban as well as peripheral regions.
This paper addresses the connection between added wave resistance and required propulsion power of ships, having focus on the early stage of new ship designs, notably tankers and bulk carriers. The paper investigates how mean added wave resistance affects the required torque of a fixed pitch propeller and thus also the operational conditions of a directly coupled main engine. The interest of the study has its background in the assessment of minimum propulsion power, and the study considers the prescriptive guidelines of the IMO as basis. Specifically, the study focuses on an assessment of the minimum forward speed attainable under consideration of the propeller light running margin and static load limits of engines in the early phase of new ship designs, where details of hull geometry are not available. The study considers three semi-empirical methods for predicting mean added wave resistance. All methods are known to be applied in the industry, emphasising that only methods relying solely on main particulars, together with information about sea state and advance speed, are of interest. The paper contains a case study used to illustrate the importance of the added wave resistance prediction with respect to the loading of the main engine. It is shown that, despite small absolute differences, the consequence in relation to the loading of the propeller and hereby the directly coupled main engine can be relatively large. Furthermore, the study illustrates that the propeller light running margin of a fixed pitch propeller directly coupled to the main engine has crucial influence on the attainable speed during adverse weather conditions.
Port selection is of vital importance for both port operators and shipping lines. In this contribution, an Automatic Identification System (AIS) big data approach is developed. This approach allows identifying container ships using only AIS data without the need for supplementary information from commercial databases. This approach is applied to investigate the port selection statistics of container ships between Shanghai and Ningbo Zhoushan Port, two of the largest ports in the world in terms of calling frequency, to generate practical insights. Results show that: i) the ratios among large ships, medium ships and small ships of these two ports are both approximately 1: 4: 5; ii) these two ports both have an exclusive (i.e., more feeder ports covered in geographical coverage) and intensive (i.e., more feeder ships deployed in shipping service frequency) collection and distribution network mainly consisting of small ships, but that of Shanghai is more intensive; iii) in terms of ultra-large ships over 380 m, Shanghai has accommodated an extra 18.5% compared to that of Ningbo Zhoushan, this indicates Shanghai's attraction for such vessels in global fleet deployment; iv) the feeder network between Shanghai and Ningbo Zhoushan is weak, and their relationship is actually in competition; v) Ningbo Zhoushan could offer more choices for ultra-large container ships (over 380 m), which implies its greater potential in future port competition; vi) when the depth of channels and berths is sufficient, the distance to hinterland and the convenience of a collection and distribution network begin to get more important in port selection. The empirical findings unveil the decision-making of container lines, competition between ports and implications for shipping policy.
Background: The provision of healthcare for seafarers is challenging due to their isolated working conditions and limited access to healthcare. Telemedical maritime assistance relies on pre-stocked medical chests aboard vessels. However, the contents of these medical chests are not globally standardized, and current data on prescription patterns is limited.
Material and methods: A retrospective observational cohort study was conducted, analyzing medical records from ships that received telemedical assistance between 2021 and 2023. Data were obtained from medical reports submitted by onboard medical officers and an internal medical record registry.
Results: In total, 9,458 individual patients received medical assistance, and 11,698 medications were prescribed. The mean patient age was 38.7 years (range 0–91 years), and patients aged 30–49 years were the most likely to receive medication. Merchant ships were the most common type of vessel requiring medical assistance, and they also had the highest probability for drug prescriptions. Approximately 80% of patients were prescribed medications, and patients required on average 1.24 prescriptions (range 0–6). A total of 266 individual types of medication were available for prescription. Overall, patient demographics and prescription patterns did not change over the three-year period.
Conclusions: The prescription patterns in the treatment of acutely ill seafarers are highly variable due to excessive availability of different drugs. The rare use of certain medications suggests potential inefficiencies in the stock management of medical chests, warranting further evaluation. These findings underscore the need for standardizing medical chests based on a data-driven approach. Medication use in telemedical care of seafarers is frequent but highly variable. A data-driven standardization of medical chests may improve efficiency and ensure availability of essential drugs.
Ship recycling refers to the process of dismantling vessels with the purpose of extracting and recovering materials for reuse, particularly the steel. The aim of this paper is to map the supply chain of ship recycling. This exploratory and qualitative research provides a glimpse on how regulations influence the supply chain management through inter-organizational arrangements. It considers the trade-offs and combinations of financial and sustainable values that, in many ways, determine these inter-organizational arrangements. Preliminary findings show that there are conflicts of interest with the ship recycling stakeholders. Although compliance of regulations should foster better transparency in the supply chain, these regulations have not yet fully embraced social aspects, such as the fact that domestic demand and supply for steel, as well as many jobs, are dependent on this industry. On the contrary, the initiatives to regulate ship recycling might induce negative effects. This paper suggests that transaction costs analysis and the principal agency theory are two complementary theories for analyzing inter-organizational relationships in the supply chain of ship recycling.
Marine flexible pipe/cables, such as umbilicals, flexible pipes and cryogenic hoses, are widely adopted in ocean engineering. The reinforcing armor layer in these pipe/cables is the main component for bearing loads, which is a typical multi-layer helically wound slender structure with different winding angles for different devices. There has been no general theoretical methodology to describe the tensile performance of these flexible pipe/cables. This paper first introduces a theory to solve the tensile mechanical behavior of a helically wound structure. Based on the curved beam theory, a solution of the tensile stress of a helically wound slender is derived. Then, the deformation mechanism of the marine flexible pipe/cables structure with different winding angles is studied. Through comparing theoretical and numerical results, the deformation characteristic of the helically wound slender structure is further explained. It is found that a sectional torsional deformation generates when the structure with a larger winding angle is under tension condition, while the sectional deformation of the structure with a smaller winding angle is mainly tension. Finally, a couple types of marine flexible pipe/cables under the tension condition are provided to analyze the mechanical performance and compare the difference between different theoretical models. The research conclusion from this paper provides a useful reference for the structural analysis and design of marine flexible pipe/cables.
Maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea is a challenge that straddles multiple players and sectors, and crimes like piracy cause disruptions to international trade and shipping. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the global shipping industry tried to keep maritime security on the agenda, while advocating for global security assemblages, specifically, transnational policing initiatives as part of the maritime security governance. Using the notion of narratives and assemblage thinking, it is argued that although global shipping and Ghanaian state agents agree on the problem, they differ on which maritime security governance infrastructure to deploy, resulting in tensions between the two parties.