Container Transport System Research Articles

The competitiveness of mega liner shipping companies on Eurasia routes: consider the impact of the CR-Express services

ABSTRACT The CR-Express has enhanced international container transport services and altered the competitive landscape of mega liner shipping companies (MLSCs) in the Eurasia container transport market. Given the continuous growth of the CR-Express’s market share, this study establishes a novel evaluation system to assess the competitiveness of the MLSCs, measuring their performance in the Eurasia container transport market and analyzing how their competitiveness transforms when they offer CR-Express service. To accurately calculate the four competitiveness indicators—namely spatial coverage, level of route customization, directness of shipping, and alternative routes—we constructed complex networks representing the Eurasia container transport system of the evaluated MLSCs across various topologies and conducted complex network analysis. The evaluation results indicate that Maersk, CMA CGM, and COSCO are the three most competitive liner shipping companies in the Eurasia container transport market before Maersk and COSCO’s involving in the CR-Express. The CR-Express has significantly bolstered the competitiveness of Maersk and COSCO, with COSCO surpassing Maersk and claiming the top globally after offering CR-Express service. However, the CR-Express, launched incrementally by the MLSCs, have not been seamlessly integrated into their overall maritime shipping networks, resulting in a sparse overall container transport network.

Розвиток інтелектуальних транспортних систем

The purpose of the article is to develop a refined methodology for the general design of a container terminal. The difference between the given design methodology and the existing ones is that a decision is proposed to change its throughput (annual container flow passing through it), without changing the dimensions of the container yard and the way containers are stored, that is, for the same capacity of the container yard. Such cases occur, for example, when it is necessary to reconstruct a container terminal. Cargo terminals for containers are a specific field of logistics and cargo delivery system, where cargo is processed in consolidated transport modules - containers.
 Considered the main stages of designing a container terminal as a complex stochastic technical system: setting the task (it should be a single one); selection and determination of elements of technological zones and the structure of the container terminal, as various connections between system elements; analysis of system functioning (including its modeling); account of interaction of the system with the environment; consideration of the results of the container transport and technological system and operation. It is determined that this general methodology can be used during the creation or analysis of any other transformation of a technical or social system that receives a stream of some objects with one set of parameters, processes it through its structure and outputs them from other parameters. This method of formalizing the functioning of the container terminal can be used for its calculations, modeling, research and optimization. In the processes of interaction with environmental systems, the container terminal passes from one state to another, which is characterized by the types and volume of technological operations that must be performed at a certain moment, cargo that must be stored, delivered to and from the terminal, assembled, sorted, business employee processes, forklifts, cranes and other equipment in use. The functioning of the container terminal (part of the warehouse system) as a procedure of transitions from one state to another can be represented in the form of a graph or transition probability matrix.

Integrated Location Selection and Scheduling Problems for Inland Container Transportation

Well-organized network configuration is the key to the success of inland container transportation systems. In this study, we firstly propose an integrated framework for the location selection of inland container depots (ICDs) and the scheduling of containers and trucks. The objective is to minimize the total cost of setting up the ICDs and transportation cost associated with trucks and containers. A mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed to solve the proposed problem. The computational studies show that the proposed decision approach is effective and can reduce the total operating costs of ICDs and transportation costs of containers. Sensitivity analysis on the impact of customer distributions and the number of ICDs on the total cost are conducted to reveal the characteristics of the problem. The utilization of ICDs can significantly improve the efficiency of the transportation network, i.e., the total cost is reduced by at least 27% for the proposed instances, and the transportation distance of empty containers is reduced by at least 4%. Finally, managerial insights and future research directions are provided.

A real-time synchromodal framework with co-planning for routing of containers and vehicles

This paper considers a decentralized container transport system in which two decision-makers are involved in getting a container from its origin to its destination: a logistics service provider (LSP) and a flexible service operator (FSO). While the LSP receives shipment requests from shippers and controls the movement of containers over a multimodal network by booking scheduled (e.g., barges and trains) and flexible services (e.g., trucks) from service operators, the FSO manages a fleet of vehicles (e.g., trucks) that have flexible routes and departure times to fulfill the transport requests proposed by the LSP. In the literature, most of the studies focus on either container routing, by assuming all services have fixed routes and trucks are unlimited, or vehicle routing in a road network. This paper investigates the integrated problems of routing containers and vehicles through a multimodal network from a decentralized perspective considering the decision authorities of the LSP and the FSO. A synchromodal framework is designed to control the decision process which enables to utilize the benefits of real-time mode and route changes. To investigate the impact of communication, we develop a co-planning method under the synchromodal framework to coordinate the transport plans between the LSP and the FSO in real-time. The co-planning method considers a realistic level of information exchange and adheres to no changes in their responsibilities and authorities compared to current practice. The performance of the co-planning method is evaluated under various scenarios. The experimental results show that co-planning, using expected transport request fulfillment as feedback, reduces the total costs of container transportation and decreases the distance traveled by flexible vehicles under most of the scenarios.

Theoretical foundations for designing a digital container freight road transportation system

The article reveals the principles of the scientific approach to the study of the system of freight road container transportation, as a subsystem of the freight road transport industry. The system of automobile container transportation has a complex structure consisting of external and internal relations, which are influenced by the factors of the external and internal environment that determine the information state of the study. The information description of the truck container transportation system should contain information about the requirements for the parametric characteristics of the system, as well as about their functional properties and the presence of errors and patterns of their formation. This data should be formalized during the system study based on system analysis methods. Keywords: container road transportation, complex system, optimization algorithm, multi-criteria problem, entropy

A Sustainable Port-Hinterland Container Transport System: The Simulation-Based Scenarios for CO2 Emission Reduction

This paper calculates the CO2 emissions for the port-hinterland container transport system and proposes possible emission reduction measures. This paper considers the Dhaka–Chittagong port-hinterland transport system in Bangladesh. The port-hinterland transport system represents 70% of the total international maritime containerised trade, including more than 2.0 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) per year. By implementing different scenarios using a simulation approach, this research suggests a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions for the port-hinterland transport system. The scenarios include infrastructure development and performance and operational efficiency improvement in the port and modal shift for the hinterland. In formulating the scenarios, the current performance statistics of the port and its hinterland as well as the possibility of the implementation of these scenarios are carefully analysed. The findings depict that Bangladesh could significantly contribute to the reduction in port-hinterland CO2 emissions by implementing the suggested scenarios.

Construction of resilience mechanisms in response to container shipping market volatility during the pandemic period: From the perspective of market supervision

As a key enabler of international trade, the container shipping market experienced port congestion, space shortages, and skyrocketing freight rates following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this paper first utilizes the vector autoregressive model with exogenous variables (VARX) to analyze the interactive mechanisms of economy, capacity, freight rate, and port congestion during the pandemic to identify the causes behind the excessive market volatility. We then introduce government supervision to improve the policy deficiencies in pricing rules and assess whether prohibiting liner companies from charging excessive surcharges can solve market dilemmas by constructing a tripartite evolutionary game model. The results show that liner companies deliberately maintained congestion by using strict control over shipping capacity to raise freight rates and obtain high profits, which is one of the main reasons for the problems. However, we also conclude that relying solely on the spontaneous behavior of the market is unlikely to resolve the predicament. Instead, government intervention can play a crucial role in encouraging liner companies to increase appropriate container capacity, stabilize freight rates, and mitigate the risk of supply chain disruptions due to port congestion. This, in turn, can enhance the resilience of the container transport system.

Uncertain Programming Model for the Cross-Border Multimodal Container Transport System Based on Inland Ports

The importance of inland ports in promoting current cross-border trade is increasingly recognized. In this work, we aim to design the entire network for the cross-border multimodal container transport system based on inland ports. Unlike previous studies, we consider strong uncertainty in cross-border transportation demand to be caused by a variety of realistic factors such as the global economic situation, trade policies among countries, and global epidemics, etc. To handle the demand uncertainty, we develop an uncertain programming model for the considered cross-border multimodal container transportation network design problem to minimize the expectation of the total costs, including carbon emissions, by imposing two types of chance constraints for capacity limitations. Under mild assumptions, we further convert the proposed uncertain model into its equivalent deterministic one, which can be solved by off-the-shelf solvers such as CPLEX, Gurobi, and Lingo. Finally, we illustrate the applicability of the proposed model by taking the Huaihai Economic Zone-Europe multimodal container transport system as a real-world case study. The computational results provide valuable suggestions and policy guidance regarding four issues: the inland port locations, the transportation route choices, the strategies for reducing the total cost, and the schemes for improving network performance against uncertain demand.

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.

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.

The container transport system during Covid-19: An analysis through the prism of complex networks

This paper analyses the changes on the maritime network before and after the Covid-19 outbreak. Using a large sample of vessel movements between ports, we show a decrease in the global maritime connectivity and significant differences between ports and inter-port links. Furthermore, we find that Covid-19 mitigation measures implemented by governments affected regional port hierarchies differently, with a reduction in port concentration in Europe and Africa and an increase in Asia and North America. Globally, very large ports and small but densely inter-connected ones resisted better to the crisis than the others, while small transshipment hubs and bridges appear to have been more negatively impacted. These findings have implications for the design of more resilient port strategies and transport policies by states and firms.

Интегрированное управление контейнерной транспортной системой региона

Nowadays, regional container transport systems operate in the context of incomplete information and lack of integration of economic entities. Pursuance of personal economic gains by companies often leads to an imbalance in the development of regional terminal capacities, irrational empty container flows and a decreased efficiency of the regional container system in general. The present article proposes an approach to the integrated management of the regional container transport system based on the coordinated container flow distribution between terminals. This technology aims to increase the efficiency of the whole system, including due to the flow enlargement and the accelerated container trains formation. The approach involves the data sharing between cargo owners, terminals, the railway and resource owners on a digital logistics platform that forms logistics chains taking into account the transportation geography, infrastructure capacity and the interests of container market entities. The research presents a mathematical formalisation of the optimal container delivery chains by the time criterion, as well as a model of the integrated distribution of container flows between terminals. The model distributes the total container flow generated by a region between the existing terminal facilities in a way to minimise the total time of cargo delivery (taking into account the accumulation time of the full-length container block train at the terminal). The model, tested in the conditions of the container transport system in the Ural region, showed that an integrated management approach reduces the average container delivery time by 5 days due to the flow enlargement and regular container block trains. The effect size depends on the total regional container flow, as the larger number of requests for transportation to a certain destination leads to the accelerated formation of loaded container trains. The proposed technology is of economic interest for various participants of the container transport system. For cargo owners, it reduces the delivery time and, consequently, increases the capital turnover; for container owners, it accelerates the container turnover and reduces empty running; for terminals, it increases the throughput by reducing the accumulation time. To improve the model, it is planned to develop approaches for coordinating not only outgoing, but also incoming container flows between existing terminals.

ПОСТРОЕНИЕ ЛОГИСТИЧЕСКИХ ЦЕПЕЙ ПРИ ДОСТАВКЕ ГРУЗОВ В КОНТЕЙНЕРАХ

The article presents the construction of logistics chains for the delivery of goods in containers. Container transport and technological systems are cost – effective, as modern vessels and transshipment equipment are used. Keywords. Containers, port, complex system, logistics, cargo, transportation.

The impact of container transport on economic growth in Turkey: An ARDL bounds testing approach

This study aims to analyse the effects of maritime and rail container transports on the economic growth in Turkey with annual data for the period 1991–2016 using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) based bounds testing approach. The empirical findings of the study show the existence of a cointegration between the variables. Additionally, according to the results of the analysis, there was no significant relationship between economic growth and rail container transport. On the other hand, maritime container transport has a positive and statistically significant impact on economic growth both in the short- and long-run. These findings could be used to develop an extensive and efficient container transport system which contributes more to international trade, thus to economic growth of Turkey.

Container Transport System as a Means of Saving Resources

Analysing the transportation of goods as one of the constituent elements of the transport system, it can be argued that container transport today occupies a leading position in the delivery of goods throughout the world. According to statistics, the total volume of container traffic in the first two months of 2018 was approximately 26 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit is a conventional unit of measure for the capacity of freight vehicles, namely, a 20-foot container), which is 6.7% more than the same index last year. Positive growth rates of container traffic indicate the relevance and scale of this type of transport. Also, thanks to the rapid development of intermodal and multimodal transportation, the volumes of cargo delivery in containers are increasing. Resulting from this, the container transport system, the main components of which are containers and container terminals, can be considered and analyzed as a technology for the conservation of resources.

Design and Simulation of a New Intermodal Automated Container Transport System (ACTS) Considering Different Operation Scenarios of Container Terminals

In this study, we have designed a new intermodal automated container transport system (ACTS) via a roll-on/roll-off method that connects a logistics hub between a port and inland. Further, we have presented the development of a simulation model and the results of the simulator development. A simulation program was developed using a general-purpose simulation system (GPSS)/H to predict the processing capacity of the ACTS system and derive the optimum input equipment size and operation method. Additionally, the PROOF5 program was used for the visual verification of the system algorithm and for users to intuitively view and monitor events occurring in the terminal. The simulation program developed in this study can be used in the future as a tool to compare and analyze the efficiency of the existing road-transport-based system and the proposed ACTS system when the latter is implemented in a specific region.

Optimization of production and transport infrastructure based on cluster analysis methods

In order to solve the problems of optimizing production and transportation systems, a clustering procedure for objects is suggested. The procedure is a universal methodology for dividing a set of objects into subsets with their centers possessing optimal properties. At the same time, the use of point proximity metrics used in cluster analysis models the minimization of distances during transportation. If the volume of produced/extracted containerisable products of a production point is considered as the “weight” of each point, than the problem of minimizing transportation costs can be solved as a problem of optimizing clusters and their centers. A set of analytical models has been developed to describe and optimize the choice of location and number of container terminals (CT) at the first level and container storage and distribution centers (СSDC) at the second level of a two-level terminal model and logistics infrastructure of the container transport system (CTS). New clustering algorithms are suggested to determine the locations of CT and СSDC based on the condition of minimizing transportation costs and creating a terminal and logistics infrastructure, taking into account given or random number of clusters.

Determining hub port locations and feeder network designs: The case of China-West Africa trade

Considering the impacts of low port distribution (i.e., concentration of ports in a certain geographic area) and liner network development, we study hub port locations, current and future, along the West African coastline. We feel that the relationship between hub port locations and liner network structures should be further researched. To that effect, we apply our modelling to the Asia - West Africa trade, in view of China's increasing economic involvement in the development of the African continent. In formulating our model, we specify the relationship between the path choice behavior of shippers, the liner network and the hub port location. To do this, we split the problem into two associated subproblems: a liner network design with a non-discrete calling port set (LNDNS) and the shippers' path choice problem (SPCP). In contrast to conventional discrete location models, our method relaxes the usual constraint requiring hub port alternatives be listed a priori. This allows us to consider the development of new port infrastructure, in green-field areas, along the West African coast. We believe such an approach—i.e., the identification of ‘greenfield’ sites—could be of particular interest to infrastructure financiers, such as the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as a port policy blueprint, for regions such as West Africa, characterized by low port density. Our results show that Abidjan, Cotonou and Lomé, located in the central part of the West African coastline, are more important for the China–West Africa container transport system, and could potentially be selected as hub ports. Currently, the western and southern parts of the coastline do not appear to be suitable for this function; ports there, however, could be developed to important feeder ports in the future, in a pendulum type of network design, as we demonstrate. Interestingly, we also find that, as the number of routes increases, the structure of the liner network changes from circular to hub-and-spoke. Finally, the networks we design and present in our model show how shippers' path choice behavior affects liner network design and the location of hub ports.

A two-stage model for an urban underground container transportation plan problem

As a new transportation mode, underground logistics system can be used as one of the solutions to alleviate traffic congestion and air pollution on urban roads. In this paper, an underground container transport system is designed to realize the road-underground-ocean container multimodal transport. This paper first analyzes the multi-stage decision-making content needed to design the underground container transportation system from the functional point of view of transporting a container. Then a two-phase model is built. The first stage is a 0–1 planning model with the lowest single-container cost to determine the planning layout and the second stage is to construct a simulation model under the current scenario to simulate the volume of transport containers within a specified time. Finally, a case study was carried out to determine the effectiveness of the method.

High-speed container transport system

Background: The new scope of application for vehicles equipped with magnetic suspension is the fright container transportation. In order to realize the transit potential of the country, the increase in mean speed of the container trains is required.
 Aim: The present work aims to explore the possibilities to develop the high-speed transport system equipped with magnetic suspension for container transportation along Euro-Asian land bridge.
 Methods: As the research tools used methods of situational analysis, computer modeling, transport geography, technical and economic analysis.
 Results: The market analysis results of the transit container transportation have shown that the major challenge for Russian transit development is the constrained traffic capacity of the existing transport corridors. The drastic solution to the problem can be the construction of a new high-speed transport system. The following factors determining the conditions for the creation of the new transport system have been identified: use of transport possibilities of the Azov-Black Sea basin; ensuring accessibility of the northern territories; development of technical solutions for the creation of a transport system with low-cost infrastructure. The combined traction levitation system has been developed based on the extremely simple design of the linear switched reluctance motor. The experimental researches of the full-functional physical model of the transport platform have been performed. The assessment of investment project efficiency has shown that despite the large start-up investment in the track infrastructure, the project has positive economic effect.
 Practical importance: The computer model of the combined traction levitation system based on the linear switched reluctance motor has been designed. The concept of constructing a new transport system is proposed, taking into account the characteristics of the proposed operational region in poorly developed territories. The high-speed route has been proposed connecting the Azov-Black sea basin with the Pacific coastline and completely passing through the territories of Russia including some northern regions. The transit potential assessment has shown that due to the transit time reduction it is possible to attract the container freights with traffic volume of 1,52 million in twenty-foot equivalentunit.