Container Fleet Research Articles

Decarbonizing the inland container fleet with carbon cap-and-trade scheme

Market-based measures, like the carbon cap-and-trade (CCT) scheme, can effectively reduce emissions and promote green technology by internalizing the external costs in the shipping industry. Under the CCT scheme, the government sets the quantity commitment of carbon emissions for a unit of shipping work, and the excessive quantity must be traded from the inner shipping market. To cope with carbon regulation, carriers can adjust their ship deployment plan and adopt new engine technologies to support low-carbon fuels. This paper proposes a bi-level programming model to investigate the effects of the CCT scheme on the decisions of carriers in a competitive inland container shipping network. At the upper level, carriers adjust their own ship deployment plan and the choice of technology and fuel type. At the lower level, the shippers between different origins and destinations choose the shipping lines with the given ship deployment plans of carriers. Two kinds of equilibrium are considered in the proposed problem: the competitive equilibrium of carriers on freight shipment in the inland shipping network and the trading equilibrium of carbon quotas. The former equilibrium can be captured by a traffic assignment model in a similar transit transportation network, and the latter equilibrium follows the idea of the demand–supply equilibrium of carbon quotas in the traditional market. The two equilibria interact since the freight distribution affects the shipping revenue of each ship and the trading equilibrium is related to the total cost of the ship. The properties of the optimal choice of technology and fuel type are theoretically studied. We find that the optimal choice of fuel technology for each ship assigned to any shipping line at any given CCT must be Pareto optimal in the sense of cost-related and emission-relative measures. Based on the result, the optimal solution of the proposed model can be calculated by a sampling-based method. Numerical examples based on the Yangtze River are further adopted to illustrate the proposed model and conclusions.

ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF DEPLOYING FOLDABLE CONTAINERS: REDUCING BUNKER AND CONTAINER MANAGEMENT COSTS IN A MULTI-PORT SHIPPING NETWORK

This study seeks to explore the effectiveness of employing foldable containers (FLDs) in liner shipping to reduce relocation and the empty containers and bunker costs (BCs) associated with ship operations. This resolves a minimum-cost multi-commodity network flow problem by optimizing container fleet size and empty container relocation in a multi-port shipping service network. Port handling time and sailing speed provided by obtained optimal solutions enable the determination of ship BCs as a secondary step. The numerical experiments demonstrate the comparative effect of FLDs against standard ones on the reduction of the costs of empty containers and containership bunker oil.

On the issue of logistic support of export of medicinal preparations of national production

The current geopolitical situation raised pointed question of developing new supply chains and looking for rolling stock to develop newly formed cargo flows, including medicinal preparations transportation. Considering necessity in timely and safe supply of medicines, it is necessary to develop set of measures permitting to implement export of this production of national industry to ensure ultimate independence from unfriendly states. The article considers main indicators of import and export operations of medicinal preparations and measures taken by the state to support industry in current conditions, requirements for international transportation of this category of goods. The measures increasing exports within the framework of the Pharmaceutical Industry Development Strategy until 2030, such as expansion of fleet of autonomous refrigerated containers, use of consolidation warehouses in Turkey and Kazakhstan to ensure decreasing of cost of multi-modal transportation of medicinal preparations, as well as validation of rolling stock in accordance with GDP requirements.

Promising Directions for the Development of the Transport and Logistics Infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route

Relevance. The modern global agenda dictates new rules and principles of building international relations, including international trade. Under these conditions, the reorientation of foreign trade flows becomes an obvious step. This reorientation plays a significant role for Russia in terms of stabilizing the economy, increasing competitiveness and defending national economic interests. The purpose is consideration of the direction of reorientation of Russian foreign trade flows in the context of anti-Russian sanctions.Objectives: describe the composition and tasks of the functioning of the transport and logistics infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route; identify the problems and prospects for the development of the transport and logistics infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route.Methodology. The research methodology included the use of methods for analyzing quantitative and qualitative characteristics, theoretical analysis and generalization of scientific literature, methods of mathematical statistics, analysis of the expert method in open sources, generalization of the analyzed information.Results. The geographical position of Russia and its dominant position in the Arctic makes it promising to use the Northern Sea Route to develop its own transport potential, provided that all the problems that currently prevent an increase in the cargo turnover of this route are solved. Despite the advantages in the length of the route and speed, the meteorological features and complexity of the northern waters, as well as the technological backwardness of the port infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route, make it necessary to make serious investments in the development of both the transport and logistics infrastructure itself and in the creation of a fleet that will carry goods and ice wiring.Conclusions. The creation of an appropriate technological infrastructure for the development of cargo transportation involves the creation of new hub ports. In addition to improving technological infrastructure systems for improving loading and unloading capacities, the expansion of the container fleet is also relevant. To connect the ports of the Northern Sea Route with the railway infrastructure, the implementation of the projects "Northern Latitudinal Passage 1" and "Northern Latitudinal Passage 2" should be continued.

Operation Optimization of the Sea Container Fleet Based on the Double-Level Planning Model

In response to the optimal operation of ocean container ships, this paper presents a two-level planning model that takes into account carbon tax policies. This model translates the CO2 emissions of ships into carbon tax costs and aims to minimize the overall operation costs of the ships. In top-level planning, the model considers factors such as speed, cargo load, and energy consumption to establish an objective function and optimization strategy. In bottom-level planning, the model involves ship stability and imposes corresponding constraints. By integrating the two levels of planning, a ship operation optimization model that considers multiple factors is obtained. With practical ocean container ships as cases, through numerical examples and sensitivity analysis, the constraint, stability, and structural feasibility of the constructed model are confirmed. The research results of this paper provide a decision-making basis for optimizing the operation of oceanic container ships.

Implementation of Statistics in Container Ship Safety Inspection

The IMO developed the Formal Safety Assessment (FSA), which is a systematic and formalized risk assessment methodology that supports decision-making within the IMO. The main objective of the FSA is to provide detailed information on a ship’s current level of safety and highlight the need for any necessary changes. In the European Union, a comprehensive FSA was conducted primarily for container ships under a project named SAFEDOR [2], which took place from 2005 to 2009. The project’s results were submitted to IMO through MSC83/INF.8, utilizing data on container ship fleets and casualties from 1993 to 2004 for the investigation. During the COVID period, there has been a significant increase in demand for container ships. In 2020, the global container fleet capacity expanded by almost 3%, reaching 281,784,000 deadweight tons (dwt), while container trade experienced a contraction of 1.1%, totaling 149 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) according to UNCTAD [13]. This study aims to enhance and evaluate the safety performance of all container ships by primarily focusing on integrating the IMO-introduced FSA into vessel inspections. This integration will enable the measurement of all container ships globally using the same scale.

An application-oriented testing regime and multi-ship predictive modeling for vessel fuel consumption prediction

Fuel consumption prediction (FCP) of vessels is the core of many decarbonization efforts by the maritime industry. Understanding the capability of machine learning (ML) FCP models is essential in various decision-making processes. However, the current model testing practice does not reflect their uncertainty and resilience in actual applications. To address this gap, this study proposes a testing regime that could provide insights into models’ behaviors, dependency on different features, and potential vulnerabilities to data uncertainties in the deployment phase. Two multi-ship FCP models were developed for testing, using extreme gradient boosting (XGB) and multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network (ANN) algorithms on noon reports of a container fleet operated globally in 2.5 years. Unlike previous studies, which explicitly indicated the superior ML algorithms, results from this study depicted a complicated situation with no decisive dominance of one algorithm over another, suggesting the potential of model combination and cooperation for optimal application performance. Aiding the FCP model development efforts, this study also includes findings regarding (1) the optimal configurations for ANN models, and (2) the reliance of FCP ML models and algorithms on different fuel consumption influencing factors. To our knowledge, this study is among the first to advocate a more comprehensive understanding of AI-based FCP models’ characteristics in realistic scenarios instead of simple selections based on accuracy indicators.

Energy efficiency and decarbonization for container fleet in international shipping based on IMO regulatory frameworks: A case study for South Korea

ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact and potential of ship’s energy efficiency and decarbonization in Korean container shipping following the IMO regulatory framework. The IMO started implementing the EEXI (Energy Efficiency eXisting-ship Index) and CII (Carbon Intensity Indicator) regulations for the existing vessels on 1 November 2022. The government of South Korea announced a national plan called “the 2030 Greenship-K initiative” to boost the shipbuilding and shipping industries. This plan describes 140 merchant vessels with green ship technologies that will be required for sustainable shipping. The Korean container fleet needs to examine the impact of the IMO regulations through eco-friendly technologies like engine power limitation, energy-saving devices, alternative maritime fuels, etc. It is necessary to select an eco-friendly technology based on the marginal abatement cost for the fleet. Five case studies are considered on which alternative is beneficial for ship decarbonization. The most favorable alternative seems to be an LNG fuel retrofit for the EEXI and CII regulations for the Korean container fleet.

A Kubernetes dataset for misuse detection

Container security involves a broad spectrum of concerns, including the security of the operating system, auditing the supply chain and the application security of the running containers. This wide attack surface will also include the security of the container orchestration system and its components once a container orchestration system is introduced to manage the fleet of containers in an environment. In order to advance the research in this field, prior work should be comparable and reproducible. However, we identified a research gap for this aspect; publicly available datasets for container security is sparse and reproducibility of the research output so far is arduous. In this study, we share a dataset consisting of network flows, collected from a Kubernetes cluster. Furthermore, we performed a preliminary analysis on the data as a sanity check to evaluate its quality. By sharing this dataset publicly, we hope to help further studies and establish benchmarks in the field of container networking security.

Image Processing Method for Cargo Container Identification in a Stack Within the Cargo Temperature Control and Fire Safety System on Container Ships

Abstract The current research is focused on the identification of cargo containers in a stack from their images in the infrared and visible spectra, in order to locate the container-origin of ignition within the cargo temperature control and fire safety system. The relevance of the topic is reinforced by the functional requirements for shipboard safety, which are embodied in Chapter II-2 of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention, and demanded by the necessity of enhancing safety measures during cargo transportation by the world container fleet. The thermal imager’s field of view (FOV) and the coordinate dependencies between the object and its image have been studied and modelled, and an algorithm for fire detection has been defined within the scope of the current research in connection with the containers within the camera’s FOV. A corresponding verification has been carried out by means of simulation modelling using the Unity and C# programming language capabilities.

АНАЛІЗ РИЗИКІВ ПРИТАМАННИХ КОНТЕЙНЕРНОМУ ФЛОТУ У КОНТЕКСТІ ПІДВИЩЕННЯ БЕЗПЕКИ МОРСЬКИХ ОПЕРАЦІЙ

Nowadays container transportation occupies more than 90% of the non-bulk cargo market. At the same time, the growing demand for the transportation of this type of cargo contributes to the replenishment of the container fleet with extra-large container ships. It was determined that between 2011 and 2019, the volume of the container fleet had increased by about 15% with the respective part of the vessels over 10,000 TEU by approximately 500%. On the other hand, despite the advantages of containerized cargo transportation, the intensification of maritime transport flows, the increase in the number of cargoes, the growth of ship sizes, constant changes in the maritime industry, as well as human errors are the factors that increase the risks of maritime accidents. The present study is aimed at analyzing the risks inherent to the container fleet to determine ways of safety improvement in the industry. Since the formulated direction covers a wide range of tasks, this article attempts to focus on the issue of navigational safety, sea container transportation and the influence of the human factor. In the course of the study, the grouping of various types of emergency situations on the container fleet was carried out in accordance with the appropriate categories for the further determination of cause-and-effect relationships and the formation of a fault tree for the purpose of maritime operations' analysis in general. The formation of the specified model provides an opportunity for the determination of independent factors contributing to the development of emergencies at the first approximation. Within the framework of the established goal, the work presents the relevant risk matrix, scales for assessing the probability and consequences of a potentially dangerous situation, the risk assessment in accordance with the identified factors, and the pre-formulated means of control and minimization of such risks. Keywords: safety of cargo transportation, navigational safety, containerized cargo, risk analysis, human factor.

부품 공급망 위험이 공급사슬과 해운 분야에 미치는 영향

Of late, various risk factors, such as the closure of container ports due to the COVID-19 pandemic, decline in container fleets, and instability in final demand, have had a detrimental impact on the business environment. Such negative effects could prevent companies from achieving their goals. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the risk and implement appropriate risk management strategies based on the impact factors of the risk. This study analyzed the impact of supply chain risks on the domestic automobile production network and maritime car carrier market. We quantified supply chain risks that arise in domestic automobile production processes and employed the vector auto regression models to analyze the effects of these risks on the automobile supply chain and pure car carrier market. In addition, using impact reaction function, we analyzed the process through which the risk in the supply chain extends to automobile production and pure car carrier market. It is expected that this study will help set long-term and short-term targets for production plans and demarcate corporate strategies through effective response to market conditions.

Container Ship Fleet Route Evaluation and Similarity Measurement between Two Shipping Line Ports

The characterization of ship routes and route similarity measurement based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) data are topics of various scientific interests. Common route research approaches use available AIS identifiers of ship types. However, assessing route and similarity profiles for individual fleets requires collecting data from secondary sources, dedicated software libraries or the creation of specific methods. Using an open-source approach, public AIS and ship data, we evaluate route characteristics for the container ships of a single fleet in a six-month period, calling on two selected ports of the shipping line on the USA East Coast. We evaluate the routes in terms of length, duration and speed, whereas for the similarity measurement we employ the discrete Fréchet distance (DFD). The voyage length, duration and average speed distributions were observed to be moderately positive (0.77), negative (−0.62), and highly positively skewed based on the adjusted Fisher–Pearson coefficient of skewness (1.23). The most similar voyages were from the same ships, with the lowest discrete Fréchet distance similarity value (0.9 NM), whereas 2 different ships had the most dissimilar voyages, with the highest DFD value (14.1 NM). The proposed methodology enables assessment of similarities between individual ships, or between fleets.

Environmental effects of Maersk Line’s global container shipping operation

ABSTRACT This article investigates emissions from a container ship fleet’s worldwide operation regarding spatial distribution and negative externality on regional ports. It is the first to study the adverse effects of a mega operator’s transport activities. A bottom-up model is developed to compute emissions using ships’ voyage data and applied in the service network of Maersk Line, the world’s biggest carrier. The fleet of 653 units (3.52 m TEUs) serves a global network with a weekly travelling distance of 1,043,845 miles. Such large-scale activities result in weekly emissions of 683,428 tonnes of CO2 and other pollutants, equivalent to an external cost of €202.3 m. Emissions are primarily released on the focal East-West shipping network to connect East Asia, Europe, and North America. The fleet serves 353 ports in all continents, but focuses mainly on a few strategic spots, leading to most in-port emissions in East Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean Sea.

О ТЕНДЕНЦИЯХ РОССИЙСКОГО КОНТЕЙНЕРНОГО РЫНКА

The trend towards containerization has been maintained over the past few years, but currently its systematic development is being affected by macroeconomic constraints, such as the sanitary and epidemiological situation, border closures, and the reorientation of cargo traffic from West to East. The major foreign operators have left the Russian market, and currently there is an active process of building up our own container fleet in the country, and consequently, issues related to its management and effective use are becoming particularly relevant. The article presents an overview of the state of the Russian railway shipping container transportation market and analyzes the factors which affected the change in the structure of container transportation.

Model of the optimal composition of the main technical facilities of a container transport and technological system

To solve the problem of determining the rational type and parameters of containers, as well as the structure of their fleet for the delivery of cargo (cargo), taking into account whether the accepted type and structure of the container fleet corresponds to the values of the required (custom) batches for the delivery of products and the possibility of making appropriate adjustments to the container payload values, an economic and mathematical model of the optimal composition of the technical complex of a container transport and technological system has been developed.

Algorithm for Monitoring Emissions Based on Actual Speed of Ships Participating in the Korean Vessel Speed Reduction Program

The vessel speed reduction program (VSRP) was first introduced in the Port of Los Angeles in 2001 to improve air quality. In this study, an algorithm was developed to calculate ship emissions with a bottom-up approach based on ship activity using automatic identification system (AIS) data. The target vessel applied to the emission calculation was a vessel participating in Korea’s VSRP. Factors considered for the calculation of emissions were ship type, speed, gross tonnage, engine power, load, sulfur content of fuel, and fuel consumption rate by engine age. The algorithm is designed to calculate the reduction amount by VSRP by simultaneously calculating the emission amount of the actual speed and the emission amount of the cruise speed when not participating in VSRP. The emission results of ships that participated in the VSRP in 2020 revealed that their speed was reduced by 47% and carbon dioxide emissions by 71.9%. These results were verified through comparison with the fuel consumption report of the container fleet presented by the International Maritime Organization. Our findings can be used to monitor the air pollutant emissions of ships entering major ports in Korea and to develop policies envisaged at reducing the production and effect of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. Moreover, we recommend that this model be replicated in other countries for monitoring ship-induced emissions.

Impact of the COVID–19 on Container Ships Efficiency

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has significantly slowed down the global economy, affecting global shipping and impacting all shipping sectors. COVID19 slowdowns disrupt port operations and cause delays in planned schedules at major ports around the world. Around of 2,4 million TEUs (10 % of the Container fleet at the end of 2021) was waiting globally due to port´s congestion. Ship operators are facing increasing problems from biofouling, which occurs during idle periods. The considerable extent of hard fouling appears to be due to increasing idle time; COVID-19 shows the extent of unnecessarily increasing fuel consumption, emissions and speed losses due to increased hydrodynamic drag. Most antifouling paints are toxic and extremely harmful to the environment, and increasing idle time causes additional amounts of leached biocides in the port area. Ship operators are increasingly demanding antifouling paints that are suitable for specific ship routes as well as for the different activities of the ships. This paper focuses on the possibility of reviewing the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the efficiency of container shipping. The authors emphasis the need for the use of a new environmentally friendly technology against biofouling, as container ship lay times increase significantly in the COVID-19 pandemic.

ASPECTS OF PROVIDING ECOLOGICAL EFFICIENCY OF THE NORTHERN SEA ROUTE CONTAINER TRANSPORT SYSTEM

One of the important tasks of environment conservation, such as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by commercial fleet, which is under special consideration of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and becoming a basis of world trade policy, is considered in the paper. The analysis of the container transportation system in world trade demonstrates its growing role. The dynamics and trends of the modern container fleet for the period of 2015-2020 confirm the thesis of the growing importance of the container system in world trade. The volumes of greenhouse gas emissions and contributions by the tanker, bulk carrier and container segments of the world merchant fleet are considered, the conclusion about the low environmental efficiency of the container fleet toward the volume of cargo flow is presented. Options and consequences of including the Northern Sea Route in the global logistics network to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are proposed. Based on early studies, the comparative calculations linking variation of ship speed with reduction of carbon dioxide emissions for four types of container ships on the routes including the Northern Sea Route and through the Suez Canal are given. Estimates for the mentioned reduction due to shortening the route between Europe and Asia are proposed. The practical applicability of the calculated estimates and their impact on the overall environmental friendliness of transport corridors in the case of more active use of the Northern Sea Route as a transit route for the goods flow from the Asia- Pacific region is discussed.

Incorporating Sulfur and CO2 Emission Reduction Options into the Container Fleet Capacity Renewal Alternatives for a Shipping Operator in the Post-COVID-19 Era

In this article, a cost-benefit decision framework is proposed to analyze the three alternative options of the container fleet capacity renewal for a ship operator. In this decision framework, the ship operator can trade off the following factors: MGO fuel or LNG option vessels, carbon neutrality, and other investment factors. The following variables are considered: the distance of the round trip, the prices of LNG and MGO, the freight rates of each option, and the initial investment ratios of new vessels. It was found that (1) the retrofitted vessels were more stable and suitable in an uncertain shipping market and have better investment potential. (2) The MGO option was the best option before the epidemic of COVID-19. In the postepidemic era, under the double carbon (carbon neutral and carbon peaking) policy, the advantage of low fuel consumption for the LNG ships disappeared due to the increase in LNG prices, and the NPV advantage of MGO ships becomes significant.