Selecting Tanker Steaming Speeds under Uncertainty: A Rule-Based Bayesian Reasoning Approach

In the tanker industry, there are a lot of uncertain conditions that tanker companies have to deal with. For example, the global financial crisis and economic recession, the increase of bunker fuel prices and global climate change. Such conditions have forced tanker companies to change tankers speed from full speed to slow speed, extra slow speed and super slow speed. Due to such conditions, the objective of this paper is to present a methodology for determining vessel speeds of tankers that minimize the cost of the vessels under such conditions. The four levels of vessel speed in the tanker industry will be investigated and will incorporate a number of uncertain conditions. This will be done by developing a scientific model using a rule-based Bayesian reasoning method. The proposed model has produced 96 rules that can be used as guidance in the decision making process. Such results help tanker companies to determine the appropriate vessel speed to be used in a dynamic operational environmental.