Ships carrying large amounts of cargo and passengers are larger and slower than other modes of transportation. They are mostly foreign flagged and operate at sea far from coasts for 20 years or more, incurring more operating costs than construction costs. Therefore, an efficient maintenance system is necessary for stable, economical ship operation. Researchers are attempting to equip ships with predictive maintenance technology, which is used proactively in other modes of transportation to predict the maintenance time of machines through data monitoring and analysis. However, due to the nature of ship operation, data collection is difficult, and most studies focus on fault detection, hindering the application of predictive maintenance to ships. In this study, we developed a maintenance time prediction algorithm using the revision generator engine condition criterion (RGCCV) value and the cylinder exhaust gas temperature, as developed in a previous study for marine generator engines. And through comparison and verification using machine learning, the average mean absolute error (MAE) across all cylinders was 2.916 for the RGCCV-based method and 8.138 for the temperature-based method, demonstrating a 64% improvement. These findings establish a practical foundation for implementing predictive maintenance in ship engines by enabling more reliable and condition-based maintenance.

Various deterministic models for economic ship speed optimisation exist in the literature, but none considered the time charter contract, and in particular the influence of the redelivery time. This paper studies the economic optimal speed of a ship on a (time) charter contract through the development of an Operational Research (OR) optimisation model. The ship charterer’s objective is to maximise the Net Present Value (NPV) of a cash-flow function of the ship’s activities over a relevant future horizon H, where H can be interpreted as any possible day within the redelivery time window as specified in the time charter clause. We develop a general time charter contract model PM(H), and three special cases P1, P∞ and PM(H→∞), each model mapping onto different contractual contexts, and present algorithms to each of these models for finding optimal ship speeds for any journey structure. While ships on time charter contracts may travel to any series of ports during the charter contract, examining the models’ behaviour when the ship repeatedly executes a roundtrip journey allows us to reach some important general insights about the impact of contract type for any journey structure. In particular, economic speeds in PM(H) follow a very different pattern than those in the classic models from the literature, as well as in the recent class of NPV models P (n,m,Go) from Ge et al., (2021). We prove that P1 and P∞ map quite generally to the classes P (1,n,0) and P (∞,n,−), respectively, while P (n,m,0) shows behaviour in approximation equal to the special case PM(H→∞). We prove that two main strands of speed optimisation models from the literature, which did not consider the contract type nor used the NPV approach, show equivalence under mild conditions to P1 and P∞, respectively. These results facilitate matching models to contract types. None of these models, however, matches the general time charter contract model PM(H) introduced in this paper. In general, the paper demonstrates how optimal economic speed is dependent on the (time) charter contract type, and that this should thus be reflected in the speed optimisation model developed.

Researchers have come up with varying opinions on the impact of fiscal policy tools on the economic growth of many nations. While some are of the view that fiscal policy tools have positive relationship with economic growth, others posit that it has a negative impact while a third group are of the opinion that its impact could either be positive or negative depending on how it is harnessed with other macro-economic variables and yet a fourth school of thought has emerged. They are of the opinion that fiscal policy tools could have a little but not significant impact on the economic growth of any given nation. Thus this study is set to lend its voice and opinion on this discuss with emphasis on the Nigerian economy using a time series data for the period 1999-2020. The data were analyzed using Ordinary Least Square method and a Vector Auto regression Analysis. In the model, Real GDP (taken as dependent variable) was regressed on tax revenues, capital and recurrent expenditures. Other independent variables include deficit financing, external and domestic debts. Findings of study indicate that in the short run, deficit financing, domestic debt and recurrent expenditures all had significant positive relationship with economic growth in Nigeria; while there exists a significant negative relationship between external debts and real GDP. Capital expenditure and tax revenues did not have a significant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria in the short run. In the long run, the earlier outcomes fizzled out as only the lagged value of RGDP, taken as an explanatory variable was found to be positively significant. From the foregoing analysis, it was established that fiscal policy tools did not sustain a significant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria in the long run, thus pitching our tent with the fourth school of thought. Fiscal policy tools are not enough to pilot the economic ship of Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that government should use fiscal policy instruments to complement its sister strategy – the monetary policy tools to promote stability in the Nigerian economy. A good mix of fiscal and monetary policy tools could help in the formulation and implementation of sound economic policies; the impact of which will be appreciated from the standpoint of how rapidly and effectively it fosters, innovates or facilitates economic growth in Nigeria.

Electrical/electronic/programmable electronic (E/E/PE) safety-related systems are widely applied in several industrial fields due to noticeable technical growth of information processing technologies. In the design and development for the E/E/PE safety-related software, safety assessment is required by following IEC 61508, which is the international basic standard for the E/E/PE safety-related systems. And, quantitative safety assessment technologies is useful for enhancing and validating their safety for the hardware as well as for the software of the E/E/PE safety-related systems. Especially for the E/E/PE safety-related software, the manager pays a lot of attention for quantitative software safety assessment technologies, which have not provided by IEC 61508, and for realizing economic software development with their safety objective. This article discusses mathematical approaches for conducting quantitative safety assessment for the E/E/PE safety-related software and mathematical software release problem for supporting decision making on when to release the E/E/PE safety-related software economically with assuring a certain safety objective.

The article analyzes the achievements and limitations in regional linkages in the Southeast region of Vietnam in the current period. This is the region with the highest economic growth rate, infrastructure, as well as attracting foreign investment capital of the country. The Government of Vietnam, as well as the local authorities of the 6 provinces in the Southeast, have had many policies to promote regional linkage, in order to create a driving force for the growth of each locality as well as the whole region economic ship of the country. In the context of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Southeast is the epicenter of the 4th outbreak (June 2021), which has profoundly affected economic development in the region. Along with anti-epidemic policies (especially the closure of production and business establishments in the areas, blockade in localities) have greatly affected economic activities, as well as regional linkages of the country area. These pose significant challenges, but also require the Government and local authorities to make efforts and improve operating methods to promote regional connectivity in the context of the “new normal”.

An environmentally friendly and economical ship operation can be accomplished through many different methods. Most of these approaches focus on technological solutions, e.g. internal engine measures in order to make the engine more eco-friendly, by changing engine control parameters for a better connection between propulsion system and ship, by usage of different fuels or fuel supplements or installation of exhaust gas-treatment systems. For many ships, it is neither efficient nor economically viable to replace or improve existing power generation or propulsion systems in order to improve efficiency or reduce emissions. Some of the internal measures used to reduce NOx-emissions like exhaust gas recirculation even lead to a higher fuel consumption. The vessel itself is still controlled by a crew and they should be kept in the loop to improve efficiency. Therefore optimal operational procedures for handling ships and specifically the outcome of engine manoeuvres is a substantial source for eco-friendly ship operations. The German research project MEmBran (Modelling Emissions and Fuel Consumption during Ship Manoeuvres) addresses especially the basis for optimising ship engine manoeuvres. It focusses on very detailed simulation of the processes of currently existing ship diesel engines, especially in a first step 4-stroke engines in order to implement models in wider comprehensive ship handling simulation software. As part of an existing planning and prediction software that can be used on board, it enables the watch keeping nautical officer and the shipping company to forecast and compare the fuel consumption of the ship for each manoeuvre. In order to reach this goal it is necessary to use fast calculating and stable methods that can be used to forecast the power output of the engine and the fuel consumption. This paper discusses an approach to calculate friction mean effective pressure.

The paper considers the problem of dynamic positioning nonlinear model of a vessel under the multi-harmonic disturbances. The multipurpose control law makes it possible to tune the nonlinear observer, the feedback control, the dynamic corrector, and the estimator of external disturbances frequencies independently from each other. We achieve the economical ship control mode by tuning the dynamic filter to the primary external perturbation frequency. We apply a finite time approach to construct estimates of multi-harmonic external disturbance frequencies.

Optimal economic ship speeds, the chain effect, and future profit potential

With soaring oil prices worldwide, determining the most optimal routes for economical ship operation has become an important issue. Optimizing ship routes is economically important for ship operation, but it is also essential to meet the standards of environmental regulations recently imposed by the International Maritime Organization. For this purpose, various algorithms for determining ship routes have been developed to ensure the economical operation of ships via utilization of marine climate data and Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. However, such algorithms require a large amount of computational time and do not provide optimal routes because they do not consider practical operating conditions, such as weather and ocean conditions. In this study, an improved A* algorithm using AIS and weather data is proposed to overcome the limitation of the original A* algorithm, one of the most widely used path-finding algorithms. The improved A* algorithm uses an adaptive grid system that efficiently explores nodes according to map grid deformation by latitude. It finds economical routes by minimizing the estimated time of arrival generated by machine learning through 16-way node exploration. For verification of the proposed method, the original A* algorithm and improved A* algorithm were compared through a case study.

As oil prices continue to rise internationally, shipping costs are also increasing rapidly. In order to reduce fuel costs, an economical shipping route must be determined by accurately predicting the estimated arrival time of ships. A common method in the evaluation of ship speed involves computing the total resistance of a ship using theoretical analysis; however, using theoretical equations cannot be applied for most ships under various operating conditions. In this study, a machine learning approach was proposed to predict ship speed over the ground using the automatic identification system (AIS) and noon-report maritime weather data. To train and validate the developed model, the AIS and marine weather data of the seventy-six vessels for a period one year were used. The model accuracy result shows that the proposed data-driven model has a satisfactory capability to predict the ship speed based on the chosen features.

Iran has faced US sanctions in one form or another since its invasion of the US Embassy in Iran in 1979. The 2007-08 period marked the initiation of heightened international sanctions on Iran imposed by the UN Security Council in reaction to Iran’s nuclear program. These sanctions were tightened in 2010, when the UN Security Council, the US Congress, and the European Union all implemented separate sets of sanctions targeting either the Iranian nuclear program or the energy and banking sectors. Under the Obama Administration the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) was signed in late 2013 and within months the United States and the EU took steps to waive specific sanctions. In 2015 the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed, which lifted nuclear-related sanctions by the UN, EU and US. The Trump Administration on May 8, 2018 announced the US withdrawal from the JCPOA and directed federal agencies to begin to take steps to re-impose the sanctions established under U.S. law that were lifted or waived in order for the United States to meet its commitments in the JCPOA. On November 5, 2018, all pre-JCPOA - U.S. sanctions on foreign firms that conduct transactions in all of Iran’s core economic sectors, including energy, banking, shipping, and manufacturing, went back into effect. These include sanctions on “petroleum-related transactions” and transactions by foreign banks with Iran’s Central Bank. In addition,700 Iranian and third country entities have again been designated by the United States as sanctioned entities, meaning that foreign firms that transact business with these entities could face virtual exclusion from the U.S. economy. With the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran, in 2018, the US finds itself as a lone player in a world where the EU, the PRC, Russia and a group of MENA countries have no intentions to comply with these re-imposed sanctions. The purpose of this paper, consequently, is to assess the spillover effects which can be expected to result from the US re-imposition of Iran sanctions on relevant MENA countries, the PRC, Russia and Turkey.

Presently, ships are organic assets to be co-managed at sea and on land together, going beyond the independent maritime structures. In addition, R&D on marine systems technologies is actively under way. Smart ship is cited as one of the key ship technologies responsible for the future along with economic ship routing and unmanned ship concepts. Conventional navigation and communication systems in ships were tools for distance communication. Recently, all the systems handling data and information are integrated into navigation and communication systems. Integrated management of navigation and communication systems on one platform is equivalent to integration of all information about a ship, and crucial for future system scalability and further development of ships. The core technologies on ships such as remote management, accident prevention, and security should be developed based on the navigation and communication systems. However, because of institutional and economic constraints, the navigation and communication systems have not been standardized yet. Too many types of cables are connected to the navigation and communication systems in very complicated ways. In this situation, the design and building costs, maintenance costs, and weight of vessels are rapidly increasing. This paper proposes a novel integrated system based on e-TMS for navigation and communication systems. The e-TMS makes the functions of navigation and communication systems shared with the integrated terminal equipment. This paper also proposes a method of integrating navigation and communication systems and analyzes its economic feasibility for reinforcing the competitiveness of ships. The proposed system outperforms the existing TMS system by 34.3% at shortening the processing time for typical types of alarm data used on ships.

Abstract The article presents an economic potential of the trade exchange between China and European Union using the new type of transport – basing on vacuum trains. This technology bases on transporting goods in a capsule. The capsule is moving inside an airtight tube, where the air pressure is decreased to about 100Pa. Owing to the low pressure, an air friction value is very low too, what is enabling to move the capsule inside the tube without meaningful energy loss from the air friction. The transport will provide a very fast and economical shipping of goods between China and Europe. It is expected, that the capsules can reach the speed about 1000 km/h. Taking all these factors into account, there are new opportunities for the trade exchange with China. It applies especially to the transshipment- industrial districts like Sichuan, Yunnan, Kweichow, and the Chongqing city. The potential of these provinces is a population about 200 millions people, a territory which is twice the size of France and quick economic growth – about 10%. In 2016, the train from Chengdu to Łódź have left 463 times, in 2017 there are 1000 trains planned. The economy of Sichuan is basing on: agriculture, hydropower, big resources of natural gas, heavy industry, and electronics. In Chongqing, there are mainly: automotive, heavy industry, electronics, and chemical industry. In Yunnan dominate agricultural processing, natural resources, and heavy industry. From the viewpoint of polish business, the Sichuan province and the Chongqing city are especially noteworthy. These two are firstly making use of developing Chinese economy. They are also contributing to the „New Silk Road” – OBOR project (One Belt and One Road Initiative) and aspiring to become the trade, financial, scientific-technological and telecommunication-transport center.

Abstract Weather ship routing has become a recognized measure to target safe, sustainable and economical ship activities. Academic research has focused the ship routing optimization through pathfinding algorithms which take into account the meteo-oceanographic forecasts (i.e. wind, waves or currents predictions). This contribution shows the results of the numerical simulations carried out during the development of a weather ship routing applied to a ferry service in the Mediterranean Sea: Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca. From a methodological point of view, the pathfinding A* algorithm is applied to optimize the travel time considering the wave action. Under severe weather conditions, a reduction of the 7% of the travel time is obtained comparing the optimized route and the minimum distance route. The results show also a non-significant correlation between the travel time reduction and wave height. In consequence the benefit of ship routing depends not only of the wave height but also in the spatial sequence of the storm.

The development of ship propulsion in the areas of Economic Operation, Environmental Protection and Ship Efficiency (Triple E - Economy, Environment, Efficiency) is the comparison standard of the manufacturers of contemporary ships. The standard is based on the application of a more modern design of the diesel engines, the wide use of waste heat and the efficient operation of the ship.In accordance with the Economic Operation, the need to evaluate the design of air conditioning systems has been identified in order to determine the possible savings, which are represented by a decrease in fuel consumption, as a result of: the significant impact of this consumption in the operation of the ship, the current high costs of this energy, the periodic increase in the price of the same, and the international policies for the reduction of emissions to the atmosphere and preservation of the environment.By means of the energy diagnosis of the air conditioning system it is possible to determine the possible opportunities of energy saving during the operation of the ship.The results indicate that the thermal load and the cooling capacity required by the air conditioned spaces have a difference between their maximum and average value of 14%. This justifies the need to use a conditioning system with a variable volume of air supplied to the air conditioned space.

° 요 약 ABSTRACT An economic ship routing means to sail a ship with a goal of minimizing the fuel consumption by utilizing weather forecast information, and there have been various systems which have been recently studied. For a successful economic ship routing system, it is needed to properly control an engine power or change a geographical path considering weather forecast. An optimal geographical path is difficult to be determined, though, because it is a minimal dynamic-cost path search problem where the actual fuel consumption is dynamically variable by the weather condition when the ship wil l pass the area. In this paper, we propose an geographical path-search algorithm based on evolutionary strategy to efficiently search a good quality solution out of tremendous candidate solutions. We tested our approach with the shortest path-based sailing method over seven testing routes and observed that the former reduced the estimated fuel consumption than the latter by 1.82% on average and the maximum 2.49% with little difference of estimated time of arrival. In particular, we observed that our method can find a path to avoid bad weather through a case analysis.

ABSTRACT The Arctic is an extremely vulnerable area for oil pollution. Because of global warming and the resulting retreating ice, new economic shipping and Exploration & Production activities are likely to develop in the coming years and decades. Both governments (e.g. Arctic Council) and the oil industry (e.g. Arctic Response Technology Joint Industry Programme) are preparing for increased oil spill response capabilities in the Arctic region, and are looking to join forces for more efficiency and effectiveness. In connection to oil spill response planning in the Arctic both onshore and offshore, attention should be given to oiled wildlife response preparedness in this region. The Arctic is characterized by unique ecosystems and biodiversity, either marine or terrestrial, with a large proportion of migratory species. So although species diversity is assumed to be low compared to other regions, Arctic wildlife is very sensitive to the effects of oil pollution. Additionally the Arctic is a remote and extreme area for setting up a wildlife response in the framework of an oil spill response. This paper explores what the limitations of an Arctic oiled wildlife response would be (physical/logistical, health & safety, environmental monitoring, ecosystems understanding, biodiversity data, sensitivity mapping, etc.), and identifies how current gaps in response preparedness could be filled. Special emphasis is laid on investments into the capabilities of specialised responders and their equipment, including creation of a specialised Arctic Wildlife Response Strike Team.

Increased sea transport with a constantly growing demand by ships for electric power means higher emission of pollu‐ Ɵons generated by ships to the atmosphere.To turn off automaƟc generator sets which are the main source of air pollu‐ Ɵon emissions by ships mooring in the port a ship has to be conne cted to the power land network. Quality of electric power supplied from the land is of a great importance connected with security of the work of naval systems and economical ship funcƟoning. Complicated computer steering systems more and more frequently used on ships are very sensiƟve to distur bances and require energy supply of a very high quality. In this arƟcle basic informaƟon about quality of electric power supplied to the ship from the land network and chosen ways of its improvement are presented.

The Yangtze River bulk shipping has a supporting role on economic development along the river. How to choose the most economic and reasonable shipping organization method is crucial to the maximization of ship utilization ratio. This paper established a logit model to solve the problem of shipping method choice, solving utility function by adopting possibility and satisfaction degree method rather than Delphi method, which is widely used in fuzzy evaluation. In the end, it conducted shipping method choice analysis in Wuhan to Shanghai leg in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The results indicate the model is reliable, effective and practical.

Determination of an economical shipping route considering the effects of sea state for lower fuel consumption