Abstract
Article history: Received January 16, 2013 Received in revised format 23 April 2013 Accepted 29 April 2013 Available online May 1 2013 Managing empty containers in shipping industry plays an important role to increase the profitability on marine shipping industry. This paper presents an empirical investigation to detect influential factors in container transportation and estimates the value of empty containers transportation. The study also evaluates and compares different strategies employed to reduce the charge of empty container transportation. By selecting three major passages including Trans-pacific, trans-Atlantic and Europe-Asia and considering the balance in transportation network, regardless of the origin of shipping companies, an optimistic estimation of empty container transportation would be possible; therefore, empty container transportation could be explained, quantitatively. Furthermore, since shipping companies organize the movement of containers in various routes, four different strategies are also proposed.
Highlights
During the past few years, there have been big concentration on moving commodities using containers and it is estimated that nearly containers transport 60% of goods worldwide
Based on reports in 2003, the cost of empty container transportation has been less than fifteen million dollars, which accounts for 27% of running cost of fleets in all over the world
Due to the fact that strategy 1 takes into account the whole coordination of route as well as container distribution strategy among all cargo ships all over the network, it can obtain the most reduction in cost of empty container repositioning
Summary
During the past few years, there have been big concentration on moving commodities using containers and it is estimated that nearly containers transport 60% of goods worldwide. Container has revolutionized goods transportation, and has substantially decreased the cost of goods transportation in ports and other regions. One of the main reason is because of the availability of ships with the capacity of, at least, 12000 TEU, which has reshaped the transportation network to hub-and-spoke and it has increased the quantity of containers transported to main ports. In 2003, container traffic, from Asia to Europe, increased ten times more than the opposite direction. In 2004, about half of transported containers to Northern Europe, returned empty. As a consulting agent, estimated that, from 1993 on, the transportation of empty containers has been about 20% of all oceanic transportations. Based on reports in 2003, the cost of empty container transportation has been less than fifteen million dollars, which accounts for 27% of running cost of fleets in all over the world
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
