Maritime Networks Research Articles

An updatable and comprehensive global cargo maritime network and strategic seaborne cargo routing model for global containerized and bulk vessel flow estimation

The global maritime system provides the backbone of logistics operations for global supply chains and international trade. This paper aims to develop a unifying global network representation and strategic, system-wide decision model, the Strategic Cargo Routing Model, incorporating both liner and bulk shipping markets to estimate real-world traffic flows and study traffic patterns at the global scale. Specifically, taking a shipper's perspective, containerized and bulk movements are jointly modelled within a mixed-integer linear program that includes inbound, outbound, and transshipment cargo flows at ports. An iterative approach that combines heuristic Gradient Descent and Relax-and-Fix Decomposition methods is proposed for the calibration and solution of the Strategic Cargo Routing Model over a proposed joint liner and bulk services Global Cargo Shipping Network representation. The Global Cargo Shipping Network contains 161 seaports covering 52 countries. It is created from updatable, publicly available, data sources, and all data needed for the network representation are made available. Sufficient network details, as well as data sources and methods for extracting needed inputs, are given to allow others to use and update the network. Using the developed maritime network, mathematical model and calibration-solution methodology, 2018 global maritime traffic flow patterns were estimated. The estimates were found to achieve a 91% fit overall to real-world average annual port throughputs. This strategic model provides support to evaluate future, real-world, worldwide changes, such as increased seaborne trade demand, new routes, shipping infrastructure expansion, and transport policies.

The port of Valencia maritime network: an analysis of centralities and tree-optimisation

This paper analyses the maritime network of the port of Valencia (Spain), which is the specific part of the global network that uses the port of Valencia. Four metrics of centrality are used to identify the ports that occupy crucial positions in the network. Then Kruskal's algorithm is used to obtain the minimum spanning tree (MST) that highlights the main maritime corridors to/from the western Mediterranean via Valencia. Our findings are important from the perspective of the Port Authority, which can use the outcomes of the research to strengthen cooperation with other ports through twinning agreements. In addition, this article can serve as a valuable reference for liner operators interested in the design of liner services to/from the western Mediterranean area.

Ο πολεμικός ροδιακός στόλος και τα υφάσματα του τυπικού εξοπλισμού

The Rhodian military fleet and the textiles of the standard equipment of the navy of Hellenistic Rhodes. The island of Rhodes is one of the Greek islands with the longest naval tradition and the Rhodian navy of the Hellenistic period was the most powerful Greek navy after the Athenian one. This paper presents the results of a research project, entitled HISTIA, studying the production, maintenance, and administration of a neglected area of research, namely the sails, rope and any textile equipment needed for the military ships of Rhodes. By focusing on this previously unstudied field of naval studies, this project, not only aims at breaching a significant research gap, but also establishes a new field of textile archaeology that studies textiles intended for the ships, bringing together the fields of ancient history, naval history, and textile archaeology. Based on similar studies carried out for the Athenian navy, as well as research on the naval power of Rhodes, HISTIA project investigates evidence and research questions related to the types of ships used in Classical and Hellenistic Rhodes, the facilities of the Rhodian harbors, the maritime networks of Rhodes and the navy stations, and the ship’s equipment in textiles and rope; the basic type of ship being the trireme, a significant source of information for the establishment of the requirements in textiles and rope were the naval catalogues of Piraeus listing the triremes and their equipment. The project also studies the materials required for this production, the possibility of local cultivation, as well as the trade of raw materials and finished products; similarly, the production process, information about workshops, workforce, as well as different trades necessary to meet the constant requirements of the navy in textiles and rope. Moreover, as was also the case in Athens, in Rhodes too this material required constant and specific maintenance in storehouses with special conditions in order to be safely stored and be useful for a long period of time.

Identifying Port Calls of Ships by Uncertain Reasoning with Trajectory Data

Considering that ports are key nodes of the maritime transport network, it is of great importance to identify ships’ arrivals and departures. Compared with partial proprietary data from a port authority or shipping company, approaches based on compulsory Automatic Identification System (AIS) data reported by ships can produce transparent datasets covering wider areas, which is necessary for researchers and policy makers. Detecting port calls based on trajectory data is a difficult problem due to the huge uncertainty inherent in information such as ships’ ambiguous statuses and ports’ irregular boundaries. However, we noticed that little attention has been paid to this fundamental problem of shipping network analysis, and considerable noise may have been introduced in previous work on maritime network assessment based on AIS data, which usually modeled each port as a circle with a fixed radius such as 1 or 2 km. In this paper, we propose a method for identifying port calls by uncertain reasoning with trajectory data, which represents each port with an arbitrary shape as a set of geographical grid cells belonging to berths inside this port. Based on this high-spatial-resolution representation, port calls were identified when a ship was in any of these cells. Our method was implemented with around 14 billion AIS messages worldwide over 8 months, and examples of the results are provided.

QoS Priority-Based Mobile Personal Cell Deployment with Load Balancing for Interference Reduction between Users on Coexisting Public Safety and Railway LTE Networks

The Republic of Korea has played a leading role in the development of next-generation long-term evolution (LTE) public safety networks. The LTE-based public safety (PS-LTE) network, the LTE-based high-speed railway (LTE-R) network, and the LTE-based maritime (LTE-M) network use the same 700 MHz frequency band. That results in severe co-channel interference (CCI), so there is a dire need for practical research into resolving the CCI issue. Moreover, unplanned deployment of the mobile personal cell (mPC) generates serious user-association issues owing to its movement, which leads to severe co-channel interference in coexisting PS-LTE and LTE-R networks. Indeed, it is important to satisfy users’ quality of service (QoS) requirements during resource allocation in specific public safety situations. Therefore, we address the CCI issues through wise deployment of the mPC for user association and load balancing in overlapping PS-LTE and LTE-R networks. In this paper, we propose a QoS mPC deployment (QoS_mPCD) scheme for priority-based load balancing and interference reduction in coexisting PS-LTE and LTE-R networks. The proposed scheme efficiently manages the user-association and load-balancing problems, and allocates the best resources to high-priority users based on defined service priority levels. Moreover, we employ an enhanced inter-cell interference coordination (eICIC) scheme that further reduces the interference with the users offloaded onto an mPC. System-level simulations are performed to evaluate the proposed QoS_mPCD scheme by considering important performance matrices such as user equipment (UE) throughput, UE received interference, and UE outage probabilities.

Revisiting port system delineation through an analysis of maritime interdependencies among seaports

A port system is a system of two or more ports, located in proximity within a given area. In literature, various geographical and functional scales have been identified ranging from complete coastlines to the notions of a ‘range’ and a ‘multi-port gateway region’. Not only does the spatial scale create confusion on the true functional delineation of port systems, but it also complicates a clear understanding of the relational mechanisms at stake within these port systems. This paper revisits existing approaches to and empirical delineations of port systems. Maritime network analysis techniques are deployed to understand hierarchies and interdependencies among nodes of container port systems and sub-systems in North Europe and Northeast Asia. The results provide additional insights on how ports interact from a maritime services’ perspectives and demonstrate whether or not ports which are traditionally considered as belonging to the same port system can in reality be considered forming a fully integrated port system.

Data-Driven Analytics for China’s Overseas Construction Projects in the Contexts of the Maritime Silk Road and Global Maritime Network

The Belt and Road (BR) Initiative (BRI) is usually examined in geopolitics perspectives, while the studies ignored the consistency of the BRI with the world economy and China’s historical international business. This study developed a maritime big data system to analyze global interactions upon the global maritime network generated from the system. The BR is coupled with Chinese overseas construction projects (COCPs) in the context of the global maritime network by data-driven analytics methods. A network is developed by extracting the spatial interactions among maritime ports, and time and spatial analyzing methods are used for vessel flows among maritime ports. Then, nine analytical experiments are conducted to examine the relations between COCP and BRI. The figure of the BR emerges from COCP and the maritime network. The BR region and especially the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) had emerged as a definite shape ten years ago. The BRI creates additional opportunities in developing the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the connectivity between BR and the world. The policy implications considering China, regions, and global communities are further be studied. The BR is investigated by using the big data coupled with the COCP other than just depicting from geographical and economic views.

Cognitive Routing in Software-Defined Maritime Networks

Due to the constantly changing sea surface, there is a high risk of link fragility caused by sea waves when different marine users are intended to establish stable links for communication. To ensure stability with less delay, finding a stable route is one of the crucial aspects of maritime networks. In order to achieve this aim, we propose a routing protocol for cognitive maritime networks based on software-defined networking (SDN). This SDN-based cognitive routing protocol provides stable routes among different marine users. To provide the global view of the whole network, a main controller is placed close to the seashore, whereas the localized views are provided by the cluster heads. Autonomous surface vehicles are used as gateways under sparse network conditions to collect and transport data among clusters, and to and from the main controller. This is an SDN-based ship-to-ship communication scheme where two ships can only establish a link when they not only have consensus about a common idle channel but are also within the communication range of each other. We perform extensive simulations to test the proposed scheme with different parameters and find better performance in comparison with both SDN-based and non-SDN-based schemes in terms of end-to-end delay, packet delivery ratio, and routing overhead ratio.

Technology, adaptation, and mobility in maritime environments in the Philippines from the Late Pleistocene to Early/Mid-Holocene

Archaeological research in the Philippines has significantly intensified over the past 20 years and is producing useful insights into the Prehistory of this diverse archipelago that is of relevance for entire Island Southeast Asia (ISEA). Variability in landscape formation, sea level and landmass influenced mobility, subsistence strategies and behavioural advancement of past human populations since the Late Pleistocene. The archipelago's proximity to Borneo, Sulawesi and Taiwan provided a favourable position to facilitate movements of people, material culture, technologies and innovations across Mainland and Island Southeast Asia. From this perspective, this paper reviews current research on human adaptation and interaction in the maritime environments of prehistoric Philippines and provides an update on ongoing research particularly on Late Pleistocene and Early/Mid-Holocene sites in Mindoro Island. It discusses the associated technological innovations, the efficient exploitation of a diversity of marine and terrestrial resources, an increase in plant use and processing, open sea faring and the establishment of maritime connections that spanned from the Southeast Asian Mainland across Island Southeast Asia and into Near Oceania. This connectivity between populations enabled the dissemination of information and ideas as evident in the dispersal of obsidian and shell tool technology as well as complex burial rituals. Such a widespread maritime network was established and utilized long before the arrival of early farming populations in the Late Holocene.

Port specialization and connectivity in the global maritime network

ABSTRACT While ports of the world are more or less diversified, the influence of traffic diversity on the global port hierarchy and maritime network is not yet well understood. This research uses a complex network approach to analyze the interplay between no less than 20 shipping traffic types connecting more than 1,600 ports. A database covering about 155000 daily movements of 24000 vessels in 2008 is used to construct a global matrix of inter-port shipping flows. Main results show that the global network is highly dependent on more diversified nodes, which in turn catch the most traffic and exhibit higher connectivity. It also underlines the role and nature of specific shipping segments as layers of an all-encompassing maritime system.

Performance assessment of alternative SSS networks by combining KPIs and factor-cluster analysis

Performance assessment is a fundamental tool to successfully monitor and manage logistics and transport systems. In the field of Short Sea Shipping (SSS), the performance of the various maritime initiatives should be analyzed to assess the best way to achieve efficiency and guide related policies. This study proposes a quantitative methodology which can serve as a decision-support tool in the preliminary assessment and comparison of alternative SSS networks. The research is executed via a Mediterranean case study that compares a hypothetical Mediterranean ro-ro SSS network developed in the framework of a past Euro-Mediterranean cooperation project with the network of existing ro-ro liner services operating in the area. Performance benchmarking of the two networks is performed using a set of quantitative Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and applying a factor-cluster analysis to produce homogeneous clusters of services based on the relevant variables while accounting for sample heterogeneity. Quantitative results mostly confirm the overall better performance of the prospective network and demonstrate that using KPIs and factor-cluster analysis to investigate the performance of maritime networks can provide policymakers with a preliminary wealth of knowledge that can help in setting targeted policy for SSS-oriented initiatives.

The Maritime and Riverine Networks of the Eurotas River Valley in Lakonia

Abstract Lakonia is remembered in Homeric epic as the locale where Queen Helen was abducted to Troy, becoming the face that launched 1,000 ships. In Bronze Age reality (ca. 3000–1200 BCE), Lakonia was one of the earliest areas on the Greek mainland to be influenced by Minoan civilization, achieve social complexity, and progress toward Mycenaean statehood. We examine how these cultural developments were supported by Lakonia's riverine topography. The perennial Eurotas River connected intervisible Bronze Age sites in the Spartan Plain with coastal port cities, thereby facilitating flows of ideas, people, and trade, particularly with Minoan Crete via the island of Kythera. We argue that Minoan interest in Lakonian raw materials resulted in the acquisition of finished prestige goods and specialized knowledge by Lakonian elites and contributed to emerging Lakonian social complexity. We conclude that Lakonia's riverine landscape was an important factor in its early development toward Mycenaean statehood.

Research on the shipping network structure under the influence of Arctic routes

Arctic routes represent changes to the exsisting liner network for container shipping between Asia, Europe and North America, because they have significant potential for commercial navigation. It is necessary to analyse the changes in shipping networks under the influence of Arctic routes. This paper focuses on the analysis of the evolution of shipping networks that are affected by Arctic routes, based on building an improved complex growth network model. This model is verified by its applications to existing shipping networks. This model is applied to the shipping networks with Arctic routes, and the main findings obtained are as follows: (1) The network nodes gradually increase and the average degree of network nodes shows an upward trend. In addition, the closeness of internal links in the maritime network increase, the network tends to be in an orderly state, and the network scale is even more uneven. (2) The hub ports of the existing shipping network, which are located in East Asia, Northwest Europe and North America, show that the effects of the Arctic routes are more important. The states of some of the other ports are improved because of their superior geographical locations. (3) Then, the network in which the ports are indirectly connected to the Arctic routes is extracted. The extracted network has the largest number of ports in East Asia and Northwest Europe. In the network, from the perspective of the ports along the Arctic routes, the value of the Northeast Passage ports are generally higher than those of the Northwest Passage ports. The ports of Murmansk, Sabetta, and Reykjavik in the Northeast Passage have the highest values, and the port of Iqaluit is the Northwest Passage port with the largest value.

Perspektif Jaringan Pertukaran Maritim terhadap Sumber-sumber Pangan di Pulau-pulau Kecil Kabupaten Wakatobi Sulawesi Tenggara

This article analyzes the sources of foods in small islands from the maritime exchange network perspective. The location of the research was a group of small islands in Southeast Sulawesi. This research found that resources of food in the small islands came from the other region as part of the process of exchanges maritime networks, especially from the Wallacean line connection and other main islands of Indonesia. Process and its form become local culinary, were other a part of the creative process, and the expression of its citizens. Some supporting tools for processing resources of food also identified as an invention from the local society have been fully health standards. To support that argument, the authors identifying the origins of food resources, processing, and preserving strategies. Knowledge about the food resources on the small islands contributes to the understanding of the globalization connections in small Islands, a wider world at the local level.

Climate disaster and the resilience of local maritime networks: Two examples from the Aegean Bronze Age

This paper investigates changing patterns of maritime small-world networks among the Cycladic islands of the southern Aegean Sea in the context of two climate disasters in the Bronze Age (ca. 3200 BCE - 1100 BCE): the 4.2 ka event at the end of the Early Bronze Age and the eruption of Thera in the late 17th century BCE in the Late Bronze Age. The 4.2 ka event is a period where changing environmental conditions — including landscape degradation, deforestation, and increased drought — correlate with drastically reduced maritime connectivity and increased settlement isolation. Previous archaeological study of the eruption of the Theran volcano (Santorini) has shown the persistence of regional-scale communication networks for a period of up to a century after the eruption. This paper examines the effect of the eruption on local-scale maritime networks. The archaeological study of both climate events is complicated by chronological discrepancies and, in the case of the 4.2 ka event, reliance on indirect environmental data.This paper addresses the questions: a) what effect did these two climate disasters have on small-world maritime networks in the Bronze Age Cyclades, and b) how did the island inhabitants adapt within a context of disruptive environmental phenomena? GIS modeling reveals that small-world networks in the Early Bronze Age Cyclades were substantially altered in the face of the 4.2 ka climate event, while in response to the eruption of Thera, small-world networks were resilient. Variables influencing the differing network responses include the temporality of the climate disasters, the availability of the sail as a technology of resilience, and varying environmental and social vulnerabilities.

AI-Empowered Maritime Internet of Things: A Parallel-Network-Driven Approach

As one of the key technologies for realizing a fully digitalized world, the Internet of Things (IoT) requires ubiquitous connections across both land and sea. However, due to lack of infrastructure such as optical fibers and base stations, maritime communications inevitably face a highly complex and heterogeneous environment, which greatly challenges the connection reliability and traffic steering efficiency for future service-oriented maritime IoT. With the recent burgeoning application of artificial intelligence (AI) in many fields, an AI-empowered autonomous network for maritime IoT is envisioned as a promising solution. However, AI typically involves training/learning processes, which require realistic data/environment in order to obtain valuable outcomes. To this end, this article proposes the parallel network, which can be regarded as the "digital twin" of the real network and is responsible for realizing four key functionalities: self-learning and optimizing, state inference and network cognition, event prediction and anomaly detection, and knowledge database and snapshots. We then explain how various AI methods can facilitate the operation of the parallel- network-driven maritime network. A case study is provided to demonstrate the idea. Research directions are also outlined for further studies.

Intelligent Maritime Networking With Edge Services and Computing Capability

Maritime networks (MNs) typically cover tens to hundreds of kilometers, which can perform global oceanic observations via the support of maritime low-latency applications. However, current research on MNs with 5G related robust network optimization technologies, has not been progressed in line with the rapid development of terrestrial communication networks. To explore the oceanic informatics resources in the 5G or upcoming 6G eras, this work provides a method for intelligent maritime networking by conducting analysis, and investigation on maritime communication scenarios, probabilistic ship density, and MN connectivity. The edge-based MN services, and the edge computation capability based on a cognitive big data platform are thoroughly analyzed. The developed theory is extensively simulated, the real-world-trace based results further confirm the validity of the proposed method.

Shipbuilding and maritime activity on the eve of mechanization: Dendrochronological analysis of the Akko Tower Shipwreck, Israel

The 19th century was an era of increasing mechanization and globalization, which transformed maritime networks and shipbuilding in and beyond the Mediterranean. Shipwrecks offer valuable physical evidence of such maritime connectivity and evolving shipbuilding techniques but must be dated within a high-resolution timeframe to be synchronized with, and thereby enhance, historical records. We focus here on high-resolution dating of the Akko Tower Shipwreck, the remains of an Ottoman merchant brig found inside the harbor of Akko, Israel. We use dendrochronology, 14C wiggle-matching, and Bayesian chronological modeling to determine that the ship was likely constructed in the mid-1850s, and therefore called at Akko’s harbor after the town’s 1840 bombardment, a period of decline traditionally under-studied in Ottoman historical narratives. Using dendroprovenancing methods, we find that the ship’s hull used timbers from the Anatolian Black Sea region, although it was built in the French construction tradition, and used British metal rigging and fasteners, which reflect shifting Anglo-French influence and socioeconomic interconnections with the Ottoman Empire during the 19th century.The Akko Tower Shipwreck is the first shipwreck from Israel to be dendrochronologically dated and provenanced. Our results show how dendrochronology and Bayesian chronological modeling can be used successfully not only for high-precision dating, but also for untangling the shipbuilding processes and the socioeconomic networks that made ship construction possible. We also re-evaluate East Mediterranean oak sapwood datasets and develop an approximate new sapwood model that provides more robust estimates of felling dates for tree-ring analysis of this region’s oak wooden cultural heritage.

Settlement and Landscape Change in the Hebridean Archipelago: Late Medieval Colonsay

THROUGHOUT THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD, the Inner Hebrides (Scotland) were subject to continual societal change and varying degrees of upheaval. This was a society defined by familial allegiances and bound by the geographies of their local world. Its islands, however, were not peripheral places but were instead situated in a wider seascape, where maritime networks and communication facilitated trade and connectivity. By the 15th century the island of Colonsay was held by the MacDonalds and granted by them to the MacDuffies. The landscape and cultural practices of the MacDuffies were reflective of a wider, confident Gaelic society re-asserting itself from the late 15th century onwards. This minor clan did not build any significant castellated structure but did continue to provide patronage to the important monastic establishment on Oronsay. Theirs was a society built on historic memory, the commemoration of their warrior elite and maritime expertise. By the middle of the 16th century this was a place and society under threat from an expansionist Crown in Edinburgh and the ambitions of mainland families. The island community clearly perceived themselves to be under threat and retreated into the island’s uplands, where their houses are largely hidden. As the century closed the island clans became embroiled in decades of conflict which was to signal the end of the medieval Gaelic order.

Securing Plan for PS-LTE wide-area maritime communication area

정부는 재난 관련 기관의 유기적 상호소통을 위한 전국 단일의 재난안전통신망(PS-LTE) 구축사업을 진행하고 있다. PS-LTE 기지국 구축은 자가망 방식을 선택하였으나, 비용 등의 이유로 철도망(LTE-R), 해상망(LTE-M), 상용 이동통신망을 상호연동(RAN-Sharing)하는 방식이다. 이 연구는 해상이라는 특수한 지리적 특성으로 재난안전통신망이 광역해상에 이르기까지 발생할 수 있는문제점들을 예측하고, 개선 방안을 찾고자 하였다. LTE-M은 해상에서 최대100km까지 10Mbps의 통신이 가능하지만, 100km를 넘어서는 광역해상에서 사고가 발생했을 경우는 LTE-M으로는 PS-LTE와 상호연동할 수 없다. 따라서이 연구는 광역해상에서 PS-LTE 연동을 위한 선박형 이동기지국에 초점을 두었다. 광역해상에서 선박형 이동기지국으로 운용될 해양경찰 경비함정의 위성통신망(KOSNET) 운용 현황을 조사한 결과, 현장 영상전송 및 각종 업무시스템의 활용으로 이미 할당된 대역폭이 부족한 실태였다. 재난안전통신망을 운용하기 위해서는 많은 예산을 들여 위성대역폭을 증설하는 것이 단기적 과제였다. 그러나 해양경찰 위성통신망으로 운용 중인 무궁화 5A호 위성대역폭 증설에는한계가 있었으며, 결국, 광역해상에서 PS-LTE 연동을 위해서는 차세대 공공복합재난위성이 필요함을 확인하였다. 이 연구가 재난안전통신망 광역해상 통신권 확보를 위한 정책에 반영됨으로써 소중한 국민의 생명과 재산을 보호할 수있기를 기대한다.The government is carrying out a project to establish a single nationwide public safety communication network (PS-LTE) for the organic mutual communication of disaster-related organizations. PS-LTE base stations were chosen by the municipal method, but RAN-Sharing system was selected among the railway network (LTE-R), maritime network (LTE-M), and commercial mobile communication network for cost reasons. This study was intended to predict problems that could arise from the public safety network to the wide-area sea due to the special geographical characteristics of the sea. LTE-M can communicate with 10Mbps up to 100 kilometers from the sea, but LTE-M cannot interconnect PS-LTE in the event of an accident in wide-area waters exceeding 100 kilometers. Therefore, this study focused on ship-type mobile base stations for PS-LTE linkage in wide-area waters. According to a survey of the operation status of the satellite communication network (KOSNET) of Korea Coast Guard patrol ships that will be operated as ship-type mobile base stations in wide-area waters, there was a lack of bandwidth already allocated due to on-site video transmission and the use of various business systems. It was a short-term task to spend a large budget to expand the satellite bandwidth in order to operate the public safety communication network. However, there was a limit to the expansion of the Mugunghwa 5A satellite bandwidth operated by the Korea Coast Guard satellite network, and it was confirmed that the next-generation satellite for public complex disaster was needed to link PS-LTE in wide-area waters. It is hoped that this research will be reflected in policies to secure wide-area maritime communication rights for public safety networks, thereby protecting the lives and property of the people.