Global route choice and its modelling of dry bulk carriers based on vessel movement database: Focusing on the Suez Canal

Abstract

This paper addresses global route choices for dry bulk carriers, focusing on the competitive situation between the Suez Canal (SC) and its competitors, such as the Panama Canal (PC) and the route via the Cape of Good Hope. The authors first establish a methodology and estimate the actual route choices for dry bulk carriers based on a vessel movement database, focusing on the share of SC transit for each pair of regions where the cargo originates and is destined to. Second, an aggregated logit model is applied to predict the estimated shares by regional pair and is utilised in sensitivity analyses for simulations that consider the recent changes in the dry bulk shipping market such as the PC's expansion, the decline in bunker prices, and the suppression of Somali piracy risk. The results suggest that the proposed methodology is useful for estimating the share of SC transit by regional pair and that the model for describing route choice is validated through not only output indices such as prediction rate but also sensitivity analyses, a time transferability check, and a comparison with the results of a shortest-path model.