Abstract
This paper deals multidimensional examination of performances of a trunk line/route of liner container-shipping network serving an intercontinental supply chain by the conventional (Panamax Max) and mega (ULC - Ultra Large Container) ships. The trunk line/route of the network includes the supplier and the customer seaport of freight shipments consolidated into containers (TEU (Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit)), and the container ships operated by liner shipping carriers and/or their alliances providing transport services between them. The supplier and the customer seaport can be either the main seaports of the line or the hubs of the H&S (Hub-and-Spoke) network of particular liner container-shipping carriers.The multidimensional examination implies defining and developing the analytical models of indicators of the trunk line’s infrastructural, technical/technological, operational, economic, environmental, and social performances and their application to the selected real-life case. The infrastructural performances relate to the characteristics of infrastructure (berths) and container terminals in the seaports at both ends of the line. The technical/technological performances reflect the characteristics of facilities and equipment for loading/unloading and storing TEU shipments in these terminals, and that of the container ships transporting them. The operational performances include the transport service frequency, size, transport work and technical productivity of the deployed container ship fleet while serving a given volume of TEU flows during the specified time. The economic performances contain the inventory, handling, transport, and external costs of handling the TEU flows. The environmental performances relate to the fuel consumption and consequent emissions of GHG (Green House Gases). Finally, the social performances in terms of impacts generally refer to noise, congestion, and safety.The models of indicators of performances have been applied to the liner container-shipping trunk line/route connecting the East Asia and North Europe operated exclusively by two above-mentioned categories of ships according to the “what-if” scenario approach. The results have indicated the very high sensitivity of all considered indicators of performances to the category of deployed ships under given conditions. As well, they have shown to be dependent on each other – the operational on the technical/technological, and the economic, environmental, and social on the technical/technological and operational.
Highlights
With globalization of the world’s economy, many supply chains have become increasingly global spreading between particular continents
Environmental performances The environmental performances relate to the energy consumption and the consequent direct and indirect emissions of GHG (Green House Gases) by the ships performing transport services and the area of land used by the trunk line/route infrastructure, in this case parts of the seaports and their container terminals enabling handling both ships and their payload (TEU parcels)
This paper has dealt with the multidimensional examination of performances of a given trunk line/route of a liner container-shipping network serving an intercontinental supply chain by the conventional (Panamax Max) and the mega (ULC - Ultra Large Container) ships
Summary
With globalization of the world’s economy, many supply chains have become increasingly global spreading between particular continents. The three large alliances - Grand Alliance, New World Alliance, and CKYH Alliance have been analysed and compared mainly in terms of 17 indicators of operational performances and motives of shipping carriers to join the alliance depending on its market position in the international/intercontinental shipping markets (Panayides and Wiedmer 2011) Objectives and assumptions This above-mentioned rather narrowly focused literature overview has indicated that there has not been an explicit and straightforward academic and professional research dealing with the multidimensional examination of performances of the trunk lines/routes of liner container-shipping networks serving the intercontinental supply chains by the ships of different size and payload capacity. If each ship operates along the line/route in both directions at the approximately same load factor, the average ship’s turnaround time [tij(dij)] in Eq 4 is estimated as follows: ÀÁ tij dij τij þ τji
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