Ship Agents Research Articles

Assessment of Effects of Port Tariffs on Dar Es Salaam Port Cargo Traffic

The main objective of this study was to assess the effect of port tariffs on Dar es Salaam cargo traffic. Specifically, the study aimed to assess the current situation for cargo traffic at Dar es Salaam port, to assess the effect of port tariffs to importers and exporters of cargo, and to find out possible measure to mitigate the port tariffs challenges facing Dar es Salaam port. This study used descriptive layout to study, describe and record aspects of scenario as they arise in a given populace. The study was conducted in Dar es Salaam port, Shipping Company and Clearing and Forwarding agents of Dar es Salaam. The study employed the following respondents like Port officer, Importer, Exporter, Ship agents, clearing and Forwarding agents. Primary data were collected by using questionnaires, interviews and observations. Secondary data were also collected from various documentary sources, such as Annual Reports of TPA for five year back from 2016- 2020 but the primary data use to support secondary data. The research finding show that in assess the current situation for cargo traffic at Dar es Salaam port there is fluctuation of amount of cargo import and transshipment but cargo export increase for every year, in assess the effect of port tariffs to importers and exporter the number of ships call to Dar es Salaam port fluctuate. Also the possible measure to mitigate the port tariffs challenges facing Dar es Salaam port, the customer need port tariffs to be reviewed. Dar es Salaam port is the starting and ending point for maritime transport which links six surrounding land-locked countries. These countries depend on the port of Dar es Salaam for facilitating the passage of their exports and the importation of goods. The study recommends reviewing the port tariffs for at least for every two years for purposes of getting more customers which lead to increase government revenue and make Dar es Salaam port to be strong in competition of shipping business with other neighboring port.

ANALYSIS OF THE COLLABORATIVE MARKETING STRATEGY OF THE TOKOPEDIA AND TIKTOK SHOP PLATFORMS IN INCREASING SALES.

The Tiktok application itself has developed over time along with the development of technology, so that the use of Tiktok is not just about sharing information, but has become an online shopping platform. The reason is, Tiktok also presents new innovations in its own application, namely on April 17 2021 it introduced a new feature in the form of Tiktokshop. Then in September 2023, Tiktokshop was closed due to several conflicts and allegations of poor financial performance. in markets that monitor economic activity manually. Additionally, on December 11, 2023, we partnered with Tiktok to enable product sales between Tokopedia via the Tiktok application. Tokopedia and Tiktok Shop collaborate with large shipping agents in Indonesia to make it easy to check the status of goods delivery. The research method used is a qualitative research method, where this research method does not use data in the form of numbers, but data that comes from words and also from existing images. The goal of studying the results of a merger between two or more companies is to increase profitability between companies. Combining capital and assets will increase asset growth so that company profits increase. By carrying out a merger, the financial scale of a company or economic entity also becomes larger, because the business concerned becomes more productive, stronger, efficient and effective. Companies can also increase their market share by introducing new innovations and minimizing existing risks. Based on the results and discussion of the marketing strategy for the Tokopedia and Tiktok applications, it can be concluded that Tokopedia and Tiktok are effective social media in implementing marketing strategies. Advertisements implemented in the Tokopedia and Tiktok applications include advertisements, sales content, live streaming features, and others. with the aim of offering products and services to potential buyers, arousing purchasing interest and creating shopping transactions to increase sales

Enhancing maritime efficiency: Developing a next-generation Android App to review agent satisfaction level in sailing approval procedures

This research was conducted to develop a state-of-the-art Android application to measure the satisfaction of agents involved in the sailing approval process. The main objective is to improve the efficiency and satisfaction of ship agents during the process of issuing sailing permits at the Harbour Master and Port Authority, Teluk Bayur, Sumatera Barat, Indonesia. This research involves the design and development of an Android-based survey application, which has undergone expert validation and usability testing to ensure its effectiveness. This research used the Plomp development model and involved 21 people who made arrangements at the Port Authority office as research subjects. The results of the study show that the newly developed application is valid for assessing agent satisfaction in managing the services for issuing Sailing Permits, with a material validity of 0.87 and a media validity of 0.88. Furthermore, the results of the agents' evaluation show that the Android-based agent satisfaction survey is very practical, with a practicality rate of 93%. This study also outlines the limitations encountered during the research and proposes future recommendations to improve the research. In conclusion, this research highlights the practicality and validity of the developed Android-based Agent Satisfaction Survey application.

An autonomous coverage path planning algorithm for maritime search and rescue of persons-in-water based on deep reinforcement learning

The prevalence of maritime transportation and operations is increasing, leading to a gradual increase in drowning accidents at sea. In the context of maritime search and rescue (SAR), it is essential to develop effective search plans to improve the survival probability of persons-in-water (PIWs). However, conventional SAR search plans typically use predetermined patterns to ensure complete coverage of the search area, disregarding the varying probabilities associated with the PIW distribution. To address this issue, this study has proposed a maritime SAR vessel coverage path planning framework (SARCPPF) suitable for multiple PIWs. This framework comprises three modules, namely, drift trajectory prediction, the establishment of a multilevel search area environment model, and coverage search. First, sea area-scale drift trajectory prediction models were employed using the random particle simulation method to forecast drift trajectories. A hierarchical probability environment map model was established to guide the SAR of multiple SAR units. Subsequently, we integrated deep reinforcement learning with a reward function that encompasses multiple variables to guide the navigation behavior of ship agents. We developed a coverage path planning algorithm aimed at maximizing the success rates within a limited timeframe. The experimental results have demonstrated that our model enables vessel agents to prioritize high-probability regions while avoiding repeated coverage.

Pelayanan Jasa Keagenan Pengurusan Endorsement Dokumen Kapal dalam Rangka Kelancaran Berlayar

Agency services in handling ship document endorsements play an important role in ensuring that ships can operate properly and meet the requirements of applicable laws and regulations. Ship agents help manage this paperwork process efficiently, improving vessel smoothness and safety. The purpose of this study is to find out the procedures for clearance in and out services at shipping agents, know the process of handling ship document endorsements and also know the obstacles when handling ship documents that are no longer valid. This research was conducted at PT. Riandy Fiesta Ocean. This type of research is qualitative research with descriptive methods. Data collection techniques in this study use 4 data collection methods including: interviews, observations, documentation and literature studies. The result of this study is the procedure for clearence in and out services at shipping agents PT. Riandy Fiesta Samudera is required to be done appropriately and well, the ship document endorsement process requires good coordination and cooperation between agencies, port authorities, and other related agencies. Effective communication and timely exchange of information are essential to ensure the process runs smoothly. A deep understanding of regulations and requirements related to ship document endorsement is required by agency agencies. The process of handling ship document endorsements can be hampered if there is no quick response to requests or questions, or if there is a delay in completing documents.

Seafarers on the shore: issues raised by Australian doctors treating seafarers.

Seafarers on the shore: issues raised by Australian doctors treating seafarers.

Adaptive Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning for Fault Diagnosis in Internet of Ships

The recent appearance of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies applied in the maritime industry has introduced the Internet of Ships (IoS) paradigm. By leveraging IoS and deep learning (DL), various DL-based fault diagnosis methods have been proposed to improve shipping companies’ maintenance performance and reduce operational costs. However, the traditional centralized learning approach (CL), which centralizes the data resources of different shipping companies to a cloud server for model training, is restricted in real industrial scenarios due to privacy concerns and business competitions. In this article, we propose a novel adaptive privacy-preserving federated learning approach, named AdaPFL, for fault diagnosis in IoS, which can organize different shipping agents to collaboratively develop a model by sharing model parameters with no risk of data leakage. First, we use two common tasks as examples to demonstrate that a small part of the model parameters might reveal the shipping agents’ raw information. Based on this, the Paillier-based communication scheme is designed to preserve the raw information of the shipping agents. Furthermore, to deal with the harsh marine environment, a control algorithm is proposed to adaptively change the model aggregation interval during the training process for reducing cryptography computation and communication costs. Theoretical analysis and experiments prove the high effectiveness of the AdaPFL on a real nonindependent and identically distributed (non-i.i.d) fault data set.

A comparative analysis for emerging e-commerce business owners: Shopify & Amazon

The article examines the topic of Shopify and Amazon as COVID-19 and the emergence of new technologies ushers in a new era of online retail, B2B and B2C content. As a result, supply chain management has had to catch up. I believe that this is an important topic because our reliance on technology will continue to develop and COVID-19 has shown us that many solutions can be solved through technology. I want to address what this means, what the future holds in e-commerce, and what business owners should look out for when entering into the online space. For this essay, I interviewed four sources. The first is the co-founder of Commence, an online women’s apparel store with monthly profits of $3 million USD. Secondly, I interviewed the co-founder of Douhu, a shipping agent for both Amazon and Shopify with over 20 years of experience. I interviewed the Senior Regional B2B Director of Yuntu, which is one of the largest E-commerce cross-border logistic service providers in the world. Lastly, I spoke to Fiona Lin who has worked as a logistics specialist for companies under Shopify and Amazon.

The rise of emerging technologies: A quantitative-based research on “maritime single window” in Turkey

The maritime single window system (MSW) is a proliferation of integrated maritime reporting and information exchange network in lieu of traditional IT platforms in commercial shipping. It provides an efficient electronic reporting culture regarding to simplify clearance of ‘vessel, cargo, crew and passenger’ procedures in accordance with unified standard on ship arrival, stay and departure. The purposes of the system; simplification, standardization, harmonization and transparency of ship-clearance data originated in IMO FAL Convention, as a whole would facilitate burdening bureaucracy, delivering cargo secure, faster with less transaction cost and improving logistics activities fairer and more sustainable. This research draws up MSW environment of the ship clearance data submitted by the ship agents. In this research, the effects of MSW system on the implementation of marketing and logistics activities in Turkey have been researched. For this purpose, a survey was conducted (n = 232) with Turkey-based ship agencies. The results were analysed by SPSS. Through performing independent samples t-test, related sample t-test, ANOVA and Pearson Correlation Analysis, this research shows that the assessment has a significant positive relation between satisfaction, perceived benefit, labour productivity, process tracking and productivity perception towards market performance but there is no significant relationship between financial efficiency.

Various Clauses in a Cross-Border Commercial Representation Agreement

The paper is devoted to certain types of clauses in a cross-border commercial representation agreement. Particular attention is given to a non-competition clause, compensation clause, a clause on limiting the scope of the contract to a certain category of consumers, anti-corruption clause, applicable law clause, jurisdiction clause, arbitration clause. The paper examines the issue of the possibility of including certain clauses in a cross-border commercial representation agreement and the ratio of the conditions included in the agreement with the possibility of their execution within the framework of the legislation of the respective state. The analysis of the clauses was carried out on the basis of such documents as the Liner Agreement of the Federation of National Associations of Ship Brokers and Agents; Model Commercial Agency Contract Prepared by the International Chamber of Commerce; Baltic and International Maritime Council Dispute Settlement Terms 2016; General Agency Agreement prepared by the Federation of National Associations of Ship Brokers and Agents, etc.

A Novel Ship Collision Avoidance Awareness Approach for Cooperating Ships Using Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning

Ships are special machineries with large inertias and relatively weak driving forces. Simulating the manual operations of manipulating ships with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques becomes more and more common, in which avoiding collisions in crowded waters may be the most challenging task. This research proposes a cooperative collision avoidance approach for multiple ships using a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL) algorithm. Specifically, each ship is modeled as an individual agent, controlled by a Deep Q-Network (DQN) method and described by a dedicated ship motion model. Each agent observes the state of itself and other ships as well as the surrounding environment. Then, agents analyze the navigation situation and make motion decisions accordingly. In particular, specific reward function schemas are designed to simulate the degree of cooperation among agents. According to the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs), three typical scenarios of simulation, which are head-on, overtaking and crossing, are established to validate the proposed approach. With sufficient training of MADRL, the ship agents were capable of avoiding collisions through cooperation in narrow crowded waters. This method provides new insights for bionic modeling of ship operations, which is of important theoretical and practical significance.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE APPLICATION FOR REPORTING THE ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF SHIPS (SIKAPAL) AT THE CLASS I IMMIGRATION OFFICE OF TPI BENGKULU

Indonesia as a country that has many seaports makes immigration checkpoints used as traffic in and out of foreigners. As a result, the intensity of incoming and outgoing foreign ships becomes large. Bengkulu Immigration Office creates an innovative immigration service that facilitates the process of checking foreign ships. The arrival and departure reporting application (sikapal) was created to increase the productivity of the performance of immigration officers and ship agents in the process of submitting arrival and departure data for foreign ships at immigration checkpoints. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of using sikapal application in facilitating the work of immigration officers and the constraints on effectiveness in implementing the sikapal application. The type of method used is qualitative-descriptive, data collection techniques obtained from observations, interviews, and documentation. Data analysis techniques consist of data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing. The results of this study indicate that the sikapal application has so far been effective. This is based on the focus of research that uses indicators of effectiveness according to Sutrisno where the measurements include understanding the program, being on target, on time, achieving goals, and real changes. The obstacles in its implementation have not yet obtained the MRZ (Machine Readable Zone) scan permission, unstable network conditions, and the unavailability of the Website and IOS versions of the application.

Agent-based Intelligent Dispatching Model of Port Ships

As the hub of my country’s import and export trade, the port’s throughput has also grown rapidly in recent years with the rapid development of my country’s economy. Ship operations are an important part of port operations. At present, most ship operations in ports are based on planning and dispatching. However, in the actual operation process, the port is often disturbed by some unexpected situations, such as ship berthing time delay, quay crane failure, etc., resulting in the failure of the original plan to be implemented normally, resulting in passive waiting of ships and idle berths. As a result, terminal resources are left unused, affecting the efficiency of port ships, causing waste of port resources, and affecting port throughput. This paper proposes to establish an Agent-based intelligent port ship dispatch model to solve this problem. This model includes three types of agents: Quayside Crane Agent, Ship Agent and Master Control Agent. Each agent perceives the external environment in real time through the perception module, and can communicate with other agents through the communication layer to deliver real-time information and realize intelligent dispatch. This model can effectively solve the problem of low terminal utilization due to disturbance, improve the port’s operating efficiency, and then increase the port’s throughput.

Data-Driven Intelligent Port Management Based on Blockchain

This paper proposes a blockchain-based framework to improve the efficiency of ship traffic in port. In the framework, ship agents, terminals, tug company, pilot station, and government share information and the information is stored in a blockchain. Based on the shared information, we discuss three categories of data-driven models that can improve the operations management of the above five parties. The first category is decisions made by a single party. The second category involves decisions of at least two ship agents. The third category relates to multi-party decision-making under uncertainty. This study hopes to stimulate maritime practitioners to embrace blockchain technology and data-driven approaches to enhance the competitiveness of the industry.

Factors Affecting Learning Methods and Flipped Learning by Flipped Learning

The aim of this research is to analyze the concentration and deconcentration development of cruise ports in the Mediterranean area by utilizing the concentration ratio (CR), the Herfindahl– Hirschman Index (HHI), the Gini coefficient, and shift share analysis (SSA). The results of analysis indicated a concentration trend in the West Mediterranean. The cruise ports located in Venice, Piraeus, Naples and Livrno in Adriatic and East Med region lost cruise passengers, while the those in West Mediterranean gained the passengers and showed the trend of concentration. This paper providing the shifting passengers among cruise ports that indicates the competitiveness of cruise ports for industrial stake holders to better understand the cruise ports such as tourist boards, ship agents, and port agents.

Формалізація причинно-наслідкових зв'язків складових процесу виконання судном рейсу

Рейс судна, яким реалізується перевезення вантажів морем, є його основним виробничим процесом. Організація і реалізація перевезення вантажу морським судном багато у чому визначається чіткою координацією окремих процесів, якими ініціюється та супроводжується виконання судном рейсу. Початок та закінчення кожної складової рейсу забезпечується документооборотом та діями не лише перевізника, а і інших учасників процесу перевезення вантажів. З використанням операторів темпоральної логіки встановлено причинно-наслідкові зв'язки частин рейсу із процесами, які реалізуються фрахтово-брокерськими, агентськими, стивідорними та експедиторськими компаніями, та формалізовано процес виконання судном рейсу.

Ship Agent model for traffic flow simulation in inland waterway

Water traffic is a nonlinear complex system, which is difficult to be described by a mathematical model. Naturally, simulation has become an important method to study it. In the simulation system, how to establish a ship simulation model is very crucial. In this paper, according to characteristics of ship’s behaviour, the Ship Agent model for simulation in the inland waterway is constructed, and the Multi-Agent simulation system is composed of these Ship Agents. As a case, the simulation system is set up based on the Monte Carlo method. The conclusion can be drawn that this Multi-Agent system can imitate the ship’s behaviour, and achieve the basic operation, such as the ship’s free navigation, overtaking, turning, collision avoidance and so on.

Customer is king: promoting port policing, supporting hypercommercialism

ABSTRACTThis ethnography of everyday policing realities in the European ports of Rotterdam and Hamburg presents an understanding of policing spaces where protecting and supporting global commerce dominate (Eski 2016a). In undertaking this research, I participated in the daily activities of 85 participants in Rotterdam (N = 52) and Hamburg (N = 33), consisting of 30 operational port police officers, 31 security officers, 10 customs officers and 14 others involved in port security-related matters (e.g. shipping agents, port authorities, boatmen and maritime engineers). These participants were collectively responsible for protecting the vulnerability of the just-in-time logistics by becoming the intervention, through which they become the very local threat to global commerce itself. In their policing struggles with management, colleagues and multiagency partners, as well as with the maritime business community and dangerous others (Hudson 2009), they are fighting a (silent) fight against having to appear to police for commercialism. However, they merely promote port policing without feeling they actually support the flow of global commerce. Frontline staff that deals with profile-raising port policing and what kind of (resistant) attitudes results from it, may deliver a new (method of studying ethnographically) hope against neoliberal policing, from within.

Structural changes in the container liner shipping influencing shipping agent’s role

The article presents structural changes in liner shipping sector, as many global Container shipping lines are opening their own agencies and many independent shipping agents are consecutively closing down their activities, either via takeovers or by going out of business completely. The process of horizontal and vertical integration in shipping industry is re-shaping the entire logistics industry. Such changes put pressure on shipping agents to redefine their market role and develop services with added quality, and relationships with actual and new principals. They are forced to seek for new ways to make income therefore they are forced to perform additional roles, in order to satisfy carriers on one hand, and usually just a few clients, on the other. A market analysis in Slovenia has been performed among companies offering ship-port services, with focus on comparison between independent agents and Container Line offices. It has been ascertained that independent shipping agents must implement the new strategy which is closer to a forwarder’s mentality and market role.

Transportation of Organs by Air: Safety, Quality, and Sustainability Criteria

IntroductionThe outcomes of organ transplantation activities are greatly affected by the ability to haul organs and medical teams quickly and safely. Organ allocation and usage criteria have greatly improved over time, whereas the same result has not been achieved so far from the transport point of view. Safety and the highest level of service and efficiency must be reached to grant transplant recipients the healthiest outcome. ObjectivesThe Italian National Transplant Centre (CNT), in partnership with the regions and the University of Bologna, has promoted a thorough analysis of all stages of organ transportation logistics chains to produce homogeneous and shared guidelines throughout the national territory, capable of ensuring safety, reliability, and sustainability at the highest levels. MethodsThe mapping of all 44 transplant centers and the pertaining airport network has been implemented. An analysis of technical requirements among organ shipping agents at both national and international level has been promoted. A national campaign of real-time monitoring of organ transport activities at all stages of the supply chain has been implemented. Parameters investigated have been hospital and region of both origin and destination, number and type of organs involved, transport type (with or without medical team), stations of arrival and departure, and shipping agents, as well as actual times of activities involved. ResultsNational guidelines have been issued to select organ storage units and shipping agents on the basis of evaluation of efficiency, reliability, and equipment with reference to organ type and ischemia time. Guidelines provide EU-level standards on technical equipment of aircrafts, professional requirements of shipping agencies and cabin crew, and requirements on service provision, including pricing criteria. ConclusionsThe introduction in the Italian legislation of guidelines issuing minimum requirements on topics such as the medical team, packaging, labeling, safety and integrity, identification, real-time monitoring of temperature, and traceability of the organ during the logistics chain is deemed a valid response to the necessity of improving safety, reliability, and sustainability of organ transplantation activities in Italy.