Water Transportation Industry Research Articles

A full-time deep learning-based alert approach for bridge–ship collision using visible spectrum and thermal infrared cameras

With the rapid development of transportation infrastructure and the growing water transportation industry, many bridges have been constructed across navigable rivers. However, collisions between ships and bridges remain a frequent occurrence, particularly under low illumination conditions. To address this issue, this paper proposes a full-time bridge–ship collision alert approach based on the combination of visible spectrum and infrared cameras. This approach includes the following steps: (1) capturing and identifying ships in the channel using a single visible spectrum camera is challenging in low illumination environments such as nighttime. To overcome this limitation, we propose the use of infrared thermal imaging technology, which can monitor ships at night due to their inherent emissivity of ship thermal radiation. By comprehensively analyzing factors such as the real-time lighting environment and comparing the advantages of visible spectrum cameras and thermal infrared cameras in object recognition under various illuminance levels, we determine the effectiveness of the decision-making method of the dual-channel camera for ships under different illumination conditions. (2) To detect and track ships in the channel, a deep learning-based automatic detection and tracking method is designed using visible spectrum and infrared thermal imaging cameras, providing early warning of dangerous trajectories of ships that threaten the piers. To address the real-time identification and positioning of ships by dual-channel cameras in different light environments, we adopt a target detection network and a displacement calculation algorithm for multi-target tracking. Analysis results demonstrate that this method can automatically assign visible spectrum and thermal imaging cameras as effective input sources in different illumination environments to detect and warn ships with dangerous trajectories, contributing to the safety of navigable ships and bridges in low illumination conditions.

Spatial evolution of water transportation industry based on multi-source data: understanding the structural consolidation and integration demand in coastal cities

Under the sustainability goals, how to promote the integration of port resources and reduce the ecological risks is important for the water transportation industry. Port cities in Jiangsu Province, a major coastal area in China, face a huge risk of resource waste. This paper aims to take Jiangsu as an example, understand the evolution of the spatial structure and the evolution of the water transportation industry, and explore the factors affecting development from the perspective of low-carbon development. Based on ArcGIS and multi-source data, methods such as Standard Deviation Ellipse (SDE) were used to understand the evolution, and the factors influencing the evolution at different stages were explored based on the green total factors such as industrial pollutions. It shows that the scale of the water transportation is expanding, but the industrial upgrading is not realized and has multiple agglomeration cores. The evolution was initially more affected by non-interventional factors such as geographical environment, while later the influence weakened significantly. The disordered development of water transportation industry has been worsening the current inefficient industrial structure and environmental risks. Further integration of industrial structure is needed, and strong administrative means are needed to help tap the unrealized spatial potential of resource integration.

Research on Carbon Emission Accounting of Water Transportation

The issues of "carbon peak" in 2030 and "carbon neutral" in 2060 have become hot issues in China and have attracted the great attention of the whole society. As an important part of economic development, transportation has become the "hardest hit" by carbon emissions. In response to this phenomenon, China should strengthen the quality of waterway transportation, reduce carbon emissions in transportation, improve economic efficiency, and reduce environmental pollution. Carbon emission statistics and accounting is an important foundation for the work of "carbon peaking" and "carbon neutral", and is an important basis for policy formulation, promotion, assessment, and negotiation for compliance. Therefore, it is urgent to study the carbon emission accounting method for water transportation enterprises that is suitable for China's national conditions and in line with international standards. It is necessary to systematically review and study the current development of carbon emission accounting in the field of water transportation, and provide a reference for the establishment of a carbon emission accounting system for water transportation. Combining the actual situation of the domestic water transportation industry and international policy requirements, this paper analyzes the key issues of carbon emission accounting for Chinese water transportation enterprises in terms of accounting boundaries and accounting methods and puts forward accounting suggestions.

Energy dissipation characteristics of an in-chamber longitudinal culvert system with three-layer side ports designed for a large-scale lock with 60m water head

With the rapid development of the water transportation industry in China, the scale of ships navigating in the inland waterway is increasing. However, the water head formed by dams is very high, especially for the hydroelectric projects constructed in the upper mountain river. Therefore, it is critically urgent to build several high-head and large-scale locks. Moreover, when the water head is increased to 60 m, huge water energy could be generated and then introduced into the corresponding lock chamber if the valve operating time is limited. This paper presented the in-chamber longitudinal culvert system with three-layer side ports to efficiently dissipate the water energy to ensure safe mooring conditions for ships during a lock operation. A three-dimensional CFD model for 1/4 local region of the corresponding chamber was developed to predict its hydraulic behavior. The numerical simulations were conducted to examine the effect of the vertical spacing between side ports on the energy dissipation result. Results showed that good energy dissipation performance was gained when the relative vertical spacing was set B/D=0.25 (B is the vertical spacing between side ports, D is the inner height of the culvert). Furthermore, the energy dissipation mechanism of this arrangement was presented based on the results of a three-dimensional hydraulic characteristic. In addition, the corresponding dissipation result of the present arrangement was compared with those of the single-layer and two-layer side ports. The dissipation performance of the present design was found to be the best if all the side ports’ cross-section area of each arrangement keeps the same.

Improved Ship Object Detection in Low-Illumination Environments Using RetinaMFANet

Video-based ship object detection has long been a popular research issue that has received attention in the water transportation industry. However, in low-illumination environments, such as at night or in fog, the water environment has a complex variety of light sources, video surveillance images are often accompanied by noise, and information on the details of objects in images is worsened. These problems cause high rates of false detection and missed detection when performing object detection for ships in low-illumination environments. Thus, this paper takes the detection of ship objects in low-illumination environments at night as the research object. The technical difficulties faced by object detection algorithms in low-illumination environments are analyzed, and a dataset of ship images is constructed by collecting images of ships (in the Nanjing section of Yangtze River in China) in low-illumination environments. In view of the outstanding performance of the RetinaNet model in general object detection, a new multiscale feature fusion network structure for a feature extraction module is proposed based on the same network architecture, in such a way that the extraction of more potential feature information from low-illumination images can be realized. In line with the feature detection network, the regression and classification detection network for anchor boxes is improved by means of the attention mechanism, guiding the network structure in the detection of object features. Moreover, the design and optimization of the augmentation of multiple random images and prior bounding boxes in the training process are also carried out. Finally, on the basis of experimental validation analysis, the optimized detection model was able to improve ship detection accuracy by 3.7% with a limited decrease in FPS (frames per second), and has better results in application.

Comprehensive evaluation method for site selection of LNG bunkering stations in Bohai Rim ports

With the introduction of emission peak and carbon neutrality strategy, green shipping has already become an urgent need for the development of water transportation industry. Using liquified natural gas (LNG)-powered ships is an effective way to deal with carbon emission, and more and more shipping companies are willing to choose it as the main ship type in the future. As the open cooperation portal to the Asia-Pacific region, the Bohai Rim region occupies an important position in China national shipping system. Focusing on the bunkering needs of LNG-powered ships in the future, ports in the Bohai Rim region should add LNG bunkering stations with reasonable layout and complete facilities. This paper constructs a comprehensive evaluation system for the site selection of LNG bunkering stations in coastal ports from five aspects: natural factors, infrastructure factors, economic factors, safety factors and policy factors, and conducts the evaluation on the alternative port areas. After comprehensive analysis, the Caofeidian Port Area of Tangshan Port is recommended as the location of LNG bunkering station.

Study on the application of natural gas to inland and coastal ships in China

In order to promote the green and low-carbon development of ships and promote shipping energy conservation and emission reduction. This paper systematically combed the development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) powered ships in China's inland ships, deeply studied and analyzed the development characteristics of China's new LNG powered ships and reconstructed LNG powered ships, so as to provided reference experience and lay a foundation for China to continue to promote the application of LNG in the water transportation industry in the future.

Research on Performance Evaluation of Beibu Gulf Port Development——An Empirical Study of 11 Years of Data

As an important infrastructure facility in our country, ports play a pivotal role in the water transportation industry. Whether the port logistics runs well or not has an important impact on the port customs, regional economy and even the national economy. Based on the three major ports in the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone (Beihai, Qinzhou, and Fangcheng Port), this paper constructs a comprehensive performance evaluation system for ports through a balanced score card, and then introduces data from Beibu Gulf ports, taking this as a case, and using the entropy method to calculate Develop the weights of various indicators in the comprehensive performance evaluation system, evaluate the comprehensive performance of the ports in the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone, and put forward suggestions for increasing the speed of infrastructure construction and focusing on port investment for the Beibu Gulf ports.

Research on Optimization of Full Frequency Conversion Intelligent Speed Regulation Algorithm for Bulk Cargo Terminal

In view of the operating conditions of the bulk cargo terminal, a bulk cargo terminal frequency conversion speed regulation control scheme and an intelligent full frequency conversion speed regulation algorithm are put forward, thestudy completes the intelligent speed regulation function of the belt conveyor according to the source material flow. This research solves the problems of low equipment efficiency and high unit energy consumption caused by uneven distribution of material flow and long-term no-load operation of belt conveyors under various operating conditions. Research on the optimization of intelligent speed regulation algorithms provides strong technical support for the construction of green ports and the completion of energy-saving and emission-reduction targets for the water transportation industry.

Study on Establishing Safety Standard System for Water Transport Engineering

Based on the present situation of safety standards for water transportation engineering in China, this paper comprehensively compares the advantages and disadvantages of domestic and foreign standards and standards system, and studies and builds the framework diagram of safety standards for water transportation engineering. Get to know and sort out the safety production standards for water transportation projects that have been issued in China. It discusses the new situation of the development of safe production in China, and the requirements of safety standards, safety standardization and safety standard system in the water transportation industry. The comparative study of water transport engineering standards and standards system at home and abroad is carried out. According to the requirements of relevant standards, this paper discusses the construction of the safety standard architecture of water transportation engineering, studies and proposes the safety standard architecture of water transportation engineering, which is composed of three dimensions: the type of water transportation engineering, the stages of the whole life cycle of the engineering, and the content involved in safety production, and analyzes the advantages of this architecture. This paper provides basic research for establishing the safety standard system table of water transportation engineering. The research results are of great significance to promote the establishment and perfection of the safety professional standard system, and to promote the construction of safety standardization in water transportation and port industry.

Port Logistics Cluster Effect and Coordinated Development of Port Economy Based on Grey Relational Analysis Model

Wang, J.-J. and Ma, Z.-R., 2019. Port logistics cluster effect and coordinated development of port economy based on grey relational analysis model. In: Gong, D.; Zhu, H., and Liu, R. (eds.), Selected Topics in Coastal Research: Engineering, Industry, Economy, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 94, pp. 717–721. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.With the acceleration of the global economic integration process, the global manufacturing division is more refined, the logistics industry, especially the water transportation industry, has revitalized, and the development of port economy has also ushered in new opportunities. This paper summarizes the concept of logistics cluster effect and the concept and characteristics of port economy, and finds that there is a mutual promotion relationship between the two; By combining the theoretical basis of the Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) model with the logistics cluster effect and the characteristics of port economy, this paper constructs a complete process and framework of the GRA model; With this model, the paper analyzes the role of logistics cluster effect in a city port in China, concludes the ranking of relevant indicators of logistics cluster effect on port economy indicators, and discovers key factors that play a major role in the development of port economy. The research results of this paper can provide certain advice and suggestions for the economic development of port cities at home and abroad.

Designing a business model from process perspective

The business model is a relatively new concept in entrepreneurship and strategic management literature. Thus, the growing body of business model literature contains qualitative research, especially case studies. The key reason business models are explained via case studies is that the business model concept is recorded in the literature from successful firms’ business model practices to business model theory and, as a result, different theories arise accordingly. Following the previous implications, the purpose of this article is to demonstrate how business models are developed and implemented. A case study of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s transportation strategy and implementation of a business model has been conducted in detail, followed by an explanation of the concept. To focus on the maritime industry and bridge the gap in Turkey’s water transportation, a business model development process for the water transportation industry was proposed and then applied to all industries. The evaluation of the business model concept from a process perspective led us to achieve a generalized model, indicating how a successful business model can be implemented by other firms. As a result, we found that a successful business model must be valuable, profitable and sustainable. In addition, a successful business model greatly contributes to the sustainability of any firm and offers a novel framework to firms which desire to get a competitive advantage.

A resilience perspective on water transport systems: The case of Eastern Star

The cruiser Eastern Star accident is a catastrophic accident in water transportation industry. The accident has originated from both natural and human-induced causes. This type of complex causation constitutes a pervasive threat to a broader range of water transport activities. The present paper offers an in-depth reflection on the Eastern Star accident through analysis by conventional methods. The first objective is to identify issues in the water transport system. A comparative study is performed to find how the different methods can help to improve safety in unexpected or unknown disruptions of the water transport system, steering towards the concept of resilience as more pertinent from the perspective of safety engineering. Difficulties and challenges in the current paradigms of risk and resilience are delineated at both the operational and theoretical levels, with respect to the specificities of water transport. To articulate the relationship between resilience and risk assessment, this paper proposes a resilience-modulated risk model for integration in the practice of water transport.

Shipping equity risk behavior and portfolio management

This paper investigates the dynamics of stock price volatility for different vessel-type segments of the U.S, water transportation industry. We measure market exposure by a portfolio of tanker, dry bulk, container, and gas stocks to examine tail behavior and tail risk dependence. The role of mixture distributions in predicting future volatility is studied from both statistical and economic perspectives. We further test for predictability in co-movements in the tails of sectors returns. Findings indicate that large losses are strongly correlated, supporting asymmetric transmission processes for financial contagion. Finally, using a non-parametric approach, we extend the model to the multivariate case and assess the value of volatility and correlation timing in optimal portfolio selection. The results can help to improve the understanding of time-varying volatility, correlation and tail systemic risk of shipping stock markets, and consequently, have implications for risk management and asset allocation practices, as well as regulatory policies.

Estimating the implied risk premium of U.S.-listed shipping firms

ABSTRACTWhile the water transportation industry is perceived as risk-laden, expected return estimates for shipping firms, based on the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), are found to be ‘remarkably low.’ We apply the implied cost of capital (ICC), defined as the constant discount rate that equates share prices and future cash flows, as an alternative means of shipping expected returns and use these estimates instead, as well as in conjunction with the CAPM to provide fresh evidence on the risk and return characteristics of the shipping industry. An aggregate measure of ICC reveals that the median risk premium of shipping firms between 1983 and 2013 is in the range of 0.94% to 0.08%. The expected return of shipping firms tracks a long-term moving average of the S&P 500 index; nevertheless, shipping returns are below the index return at similar, and at times lower, levels with the 10-year treasury yield. The expected equity premium of the shipping industry implied in the cross-section of ICC estimates and CAPM betas ranges between 1.4% and 0.2%. The persistence of a ‘shipping return paradox’ against a variant of expected return methodologies may indicate the pricing of higher moments in the return distribution of shipping firms beyond the mean-variance framework.

Shipping Equity Risk Behavior and Portfolio Management

This paper investigates the dynamics of stock price volatility for different vessel-type segments of the U.S, water transportation industry. We measure market exposure by a portfolio of tanker, dry bulk, container, and gas stocks to examine tail behavior and tail risk dependence. The role of mixture distributions in predicting future volatility is studied from both statistical and economic perspectives. We further test for predictability in co-movements in the tails of sectors returns. Findings indicate that large losses are strongly correlated, supporting asymmetric transmission processes for financial contagion. Finally, using a non-parametric approach, we extend the model to the multivariate case and assess the value of volatility and correlation timing in optimal portfolio selection. The results can help to improve the understanding of time-varying volatility, correlation and tail systemic risk of shipping stock markets, and consequently, have implications for risk management and asset allocation practices, as well as regulatory policies.

Environmental Protection in the Port Construction and Operation in China

Port environmental protection, with the rapid development of water transportation industry, attracts more and more attention. This paper, on the basis of introducing the development of port environmental protection in China, analyzed the problems of environmental protection in the port construction and operation, and suggested what should be improved in the future.

Competition at Work: Railroads vs. Monopoly in the U.S. Shipping Industry

This study primarily establishes two things: (1) that monopoly has been pervasive in the U.S. water transportation industry in both the 19th and 20th centuries and has led to prices above competitive levels and the adoption of inefficient technologies and (2) that the competition of railroads has greatly weakened this monopolistic tendency, leading to lower water transport prices and fewer inefficient technologies. The study establishes these points using standard economic theory and extensive historical U.S. data on the behavior of unions and shipping companies. These gains from competition have been ignored by researchers studying the contribution of railroads to U.S. economic growth. Researchers have assumed that if railroads had not been developed, the long-distance transportation industry would have been competitive. This study shows that it would not have been. The quantitative estimates of previous studies thus are likely to have significantly understated the gains from the development of railroads.

The Stock Market Perception of Industry Risk and Macroeconomic Factors: The Case of the US Water and Other Transportation Stocks

This paper attempts to uncover and compare the macroeconomic determinants of the stock returns of US listed water transportation companies to those of other transport sectors over the period July 1985 – June 1995; these involve air transportation, rail transportation and trucks. Other non-transport sectors such as electricity, gas, petroleum refining and real estate are also examined. This is done by relating cross-sectional differences in the returns of the companies in each industry to the stock market and to the following set of macroeconomic factors: (1) industrial production; (2) the term structure of interest rates; (3) oil prices; (4) consumption; and (5) inflation. Multivariate Least Square (MLSQ) regression methods are employed to estimate the above relationships. Important findings of this paper are: First, the effect of macroeconomic factors on stock returns varies among transportation industries and the other industries examined. Second, the stock market return influences the returns of all industries. Third, the market beta of the water transportation industry does not appear to be significantly higher, or lower, than the market beta of the remaining transportation, and non-transportation, sectors analysed.

Beta comparisons across industries—a Water transportation industry perspective

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the stock market perception of risk in US listed water transportation companies and seven other main sectors, air transportation; rail transportation; trucks; electricity; gas; petroleum refining; and real estate over the period July 1984–June 1995. This is done by employing the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) to model the stock returns of each industry and hence compare their betas (systematic risk). Multiequation Regression Models are used for estimation. The findings suggest that the water transportation industry exhibits significantly lower market risk than the average stock and the rail transportation industry, significantly higher systematic risk than the real estate industry, while its systematic risk is insignificantly different from the rest of the industries. These results are useful to investors basing their decisions on relative market exposures to risk in different industries.