Resilience assessment of maritime container shipping networks – A case of the Maritime Silk Road

Abstract

This paper presents a framework for the resilience assessment of maritime shipping networks by quantifying its recovery performance under natural hazards. The vulnerability of the maritime shipping network is measured according to the variation of network efficiency and the relative size of the largest connected subgraph in the face of the disruption of transportation systems (shutdown of ports). The service performance of the maritime shipping network is indicated by the global network efficiency, and the resilience of maritime shipping network is associated to the network performance loss triangle considering the whole process from a partial disruption to full recovery. The proposed resilience assessment method is applied to a container shipping network of the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) under the storm risks. Two recovery strategies, which are random recovery strategy and multi-centrality based recovery strategy, are adopted respectively, and the recovery performance of the container shipping network under different strategies are comparatively analyzed. The research results can be used to not only support the identification of the weak points of the maritime transportation network along the MSR through vulnerability analysis but also provide a reference for the effective risk management of maritime transportation, so as to improve the safety and reliability of the whole system.