Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics最新文献

This paper studies the behaviour of shipping investors following an unexpected shock in the freight rates, while accounting for costs (fuel), and the macro environment (stock prices and trade). The estimates firstly confirm the existence of a long-term relationship between the macroeconomic environment and freight rates, as well as between that and newbuilding orders. Most importantly, we find that when the source of the shock is less clear but still causes an increase in freight rates, shipping investors respond with a delay, which could last almost a year. The thinking behind this “inaction period” is rational, given that the only way to observe whether a shock is permanent or transitory is to wait it out. The above findings have important policy implications not only for shipping investors but also for countries that rely heavily on their ship-building industries.

Ports form important links in the overall trade chain and act as driving forces for marine economic development. However, the operation of ports also has certain difficulties and challenges that port operators need to overcome. As such, this research aims to measure the performance efficiency of 22 ports listed in the stock market in Vietnam – a developing country with notable progress and role in global seaborne transport. The hybrid method of Delphi technique with KAMET principle and input and output – oriented DEA method was applied to solve the problem of efficiency assessment. The Delphi technique with KAMET principle was used to determine the efficiency evaluation criteria whilst the input and output – oriented DEA was employed to measure the efficiency. The findings show that capital, operation expenses, labour, port area, quay length, depth, revenue, and cargo throughputs are considered as input and output variables in the port efficiency evaluation. Additionally, it is also concluded in the research that scale and management skills are the dominant source of efficiency and Vietnamese ports show rather high management skills. Moreover, comprehensive and multi-variable assessment of port system may bring lots of benefits not only to the decision-making units but also the maritime authorities within constraint funds.

The freight rate is a representative variable in the shipping market and is characterized by a cyclical relationship. Even though downturns in the shipping market, such as the shipping industry recession in the 1980s, the global financial crisis in 2008 and COVID-19 crisis in 2020, recur, few studies have analyzed the dynamic relationship between supply and demand in terms of its effect on freight rates. Thus, this study classifies the factors affecting fluctuations in dry cargo freight rates into demand, supply, and freight rate specific demand factors, which play the most important role in managing risk in the shipping market. Based on the recursive structural vector autoregressive (recursive SVAR) model, we analyze the historical contributions of the effects of each factor across different time periods. Two main findings are summarized as follows: first, we identify the dynamic relationship between factors affecting BDI in the shipping market, and reveal that the magnitude and direction of factors are different. Second, we verify that in an extreme situation in which freight rates exceed the normal range, the market is overheated, and freight rates are therefore determined by the freight rate specific demand of market participants rather than by the actual supply and demand.

This study aims to contribute to analyze the logistics competitiveness of Yangyang International Airport and suggest improvement plans for airport logistics experts to use them as basic data to discover the actual factors for revitalizing the Gangwon-do logistics industry. Therefore, the importance and performance level of airport logistics competitiveness factors were investigated and differences were analyzed. The result shows "location", "local cargo demand", " specialized cargo supra-structure", and "government support policy" were surveyed as "focus" areas with high importance awareness but low performance.

Seaports are crucial in modern global supply chain networks and systems, exerting a significant impact on the ecological area's economy. Supply chain entities play a substantial integration role, and potential threats at seaports harm chain continuity. This study proposes a rough set-based genetic algorithm, to investigate the central tendency in seaport risk implied by supply chain threats through a questionnaire evaluation. We also employ the risk score to observe the level of clarity in terms of risk probability, showing that the lower the score an attribute obtains, the more likely it is that seaport risk implies supply chain disruption. We deploy 24 risk attributes, which threaten the proposed ten-dimensional factors, based on their risk scores. The results show that the lack of storage risk planning, low punctuality of delivery goods, shortage of port capacity, congestion in waterways, and the lack of distribution risk planning, are the "best five" of the seaport-fulcrum supply chain risk, in the context of Indonesian seaport firms. These identified risk attributes not only assist seaport managers to identify potential risk-associated deficiencies of supply chain disruption but also enhance their ability to determine resilience to manage supply chain problems.

Trend forecasting shows that Indian container terminals will handle 25 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by 2025. However, improving operational performance is the best strategy to achieve this target. Many factors have adversely affected the Indian container terminal's operational performance despite the fact that the Indian government has undertaken several initiatives. This study identifies factors and interactive effects of the factors influencing the operational performance of Indian container terminals. A conceptual model is developed using fuzzy qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) encompassing the successful factors. The conceptual model developed through QCA includes the physical characteristics, driving factors, and challenges. This study reveals the combined and individual effects of the identified factors. The results show that the most common factors are the quay infrastructure, yard infrastructure, infrastructure up-gradation, system initiatives, reefer systems, and logistics advantage. This study adds to the existing literature regarding the Indian container terminals' performance and supports the decision-makers in improving the operational performance of container terminals.

The aim of this paper is to conduct a systematic literature review to understand the research trends, identify area of improvements and recommend the future research direction in humanitarian relief logistics (HRL). Using Netminer 4.0, keyword network analysis, keyword frequency analysis, and topic modeling analysis were undertaken. As a result, it has been identified that the number of studies on HRL continuously increased since it mounted in the mid-2010s, with the main issues changing by period. Keyword network analysis and keyword frequency analysis discovered that establishment of the HRL identity and disaster response, preparation and recovery were the main issues from 2005 to 2009. Whereas followed by education and practical logistics flow (2010 – 2014) and provision and coordination (2015 – 2019) to be the main focused area of research. Through topic modeling analysis, nine topics (preparation, coordination, stakeholders, sustainable development, facilities location, recovery, supplying and sourcing, emergent response, transportation, supplying and sourcing) were extracted. Facilities location was the most frequent topic that studied in the number of papers. Meanwhile, recovery, preparation, stakeholders, and emergent response showed downward trends but facilities location, coordination, and supplying and sourcing showing upward. This study is significant in the sense that it suggests research trends in different approach using keyword network analysis, keyword frequency analysis, network analysis and topic modeling which are one of the first attempts in research trend analysis in HRL field. This study will support HRL studies by understanding macroscopic and comprehensive way and set as a steppingstone for future research direction.

This research aimed to design a transportation model for the international trade of agricultural products between Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, known as the Great Mekong Subregion (GMS). Agricultural products are transported from a farmers’ cooperative to a foreign end market. The mathematical models GA, DE, and VaNSAS were developed to determine the optimal mode of transportation. The objectives of the proposed methods are to (1) maximize the total profit for the entire agricultural chain and (2) minimize the makespan or the arrival time of the containers to the end market in order to maintain the freshness of the agricultural product. The computational result shows that VaNSAS produces a 100 % optimal solution for small-size problem instances, while DE and GA produce a 63.63 % and 72.72 % optimal solution, respectively. For large-size problem instances, VaNSAS shows a profit that is higher than that of DE and GA by 10.53 % and 8.96 %, respectively, while it shows a makespan that is lower by 9.57 % and 7.20 %, respectively.

Several ports want cruise ships to call at their ports for economic benefits. However, the main cause of concern is the complexity of port selection behavior for cruise lines. Tracking cruise ship movement data may help them understand the port selection behavior of cruise lines. This study aimed to examine the structural changes in the cruise network by ship size in Northeast Asia from 2014 to 2019 using network science methods with automatic identification system data. We identified five key findings. First, the number of nodes and edges in the mega- and small-size ship networks was growing rapidly. Second, the small-size network was growing with unique characteristics of low density and average clustering coefficient, and high average shortest path length and diameter. Third, the hub ports of Shanghai in the mega- and Hiroshima and Kobe in the small-size had gained more degrees over time. Fourth, owing to the deployment of new mega-ships in Shanghai, existing large- and mid-ships were shifting to different ports. Finally, modularity of all sizes increased over time, and the community structure became clearer.

Analyses of accident investigation reports show that attempting to simultaneously perform tasks onboard ships to manage workload has led to many accidents at sea. These accident reports point out that seafarers fail to follow procedures as expected by shipping companies when conducting tasks simultaneously. Only a handful of studies that examined such discrepancies between work as imagined by shipping companies and work as actually done by seafarers exist. This study aims to examine why seafarers engage in simultaneous tasks, which may lead to accidents. In an exploratory qualitative study, face-to-face interviews were conducted with selective and targeted seafarers previously involved in maritime accidents. The collected data were analysed using interpretive and descriptive qualitative methods with a socio-cultural approach. The findings of this study show that the substantial regulatory changes over the years in the maritime industry have resulted in increased occupational workload for seafarers. Some of these regulatory barriers designed to improve safety at sea prompted seafarers to engage in simultaneous tasks to perform excessive paperwork and compensate for insufficient crewing. The research also revealed how a poor speak-up culture onboard might encourage simultaneous tasks leading to accidents at sea. The analysis shows that reasons for engaging in simultaneous tasks at sea are varied and complex. Therefore, complex intervention efforts to discourage seafarers from engaging in simultaneous tasks is needed to mitigate accidents at sea.