Schedule Reliability in Liner Shipping: A Study on Global Shipping Lines

Due to the complex structure of the transportation systems, disruptions in transport operations may occur from time to time. In liner shipping, it is seen that shipping lines frequently deviate from the transit times announced in their vessel schedules, and this leads to schedule unreliability. This leads to schedule unreliability and affects all stakeholders. Based on actual transportation data, this study aims to evaluate the transit time reliability performance of shipping lines and the factors that may affect transit time reliability to investigate schedule reliability in liner shipping. To evaluate the transit time reliability of shipping lines’, transit time deviations were calculated based on observations containing 5080 transport data of shipping lines and current performances are discussed. Hypotheses were tested with independent sample t-test and Welch’s ANOVA to examine the factors affecting transit time reliability. Tamhane’s T2 post-hoc test was used to determine the difference between groups. Results show that transit time reliability of shipping lines is low. It has been observed that the type of service, season, vessel age, and TEU capacity of the vessel factors affect the transit time reliabillity. With this study, shipping lines can evaluate their reliability performances according to the competition. At the same time, lines can use these results to understand, evaluate and manage factors that affect their transit time reliability. In this direction, suggestions have been made to the shipping lines to contribute to improving transit time reliability and service quality. This article is regarded to close the gap in evaluating transit time reliability in liner transportation because it relies on actual transportation data

Influential Article Review - Multifaceted Analysis of the Efficacy of a Liner Shipping Network

This paper examines logistics. We present insights from a highly influential paper. Here are the highlights from this paper: This paper deals with multidimensional examination of performances of a trunk line/route of liner container-shipping network serving an intercontinental supply chain by the conventional (Panamax Max) and mega (ULC - Ultra Large Container) ships. The trunk line/route of the network includes the supplier and the customer seaport of freight shipments consolidated into containers (TEU (Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit)), and the container ships operated by liner shipping carriers and/or their alliances providing transport services between them. The supplier and the customer seaport can be either the main seaports of the line or the hubs of the H&S (Hub-and-Spoke) network of particular liner container-shipping carriers. The multidimensional examination implies defining and developing the analytical models of indicators of the trunk line’s infrastructural, technical/technological, operational, economic, environmental, and social performances and their application to the selected real-life case. The infrastructural performances relate to the characteristics of infrastructure (berths) and container terminals in the seaports at both ends of the line. The technical/technological performances reflect the characteristics of facilities and equipment for loading/unloading and storing TEU shipments in these terminals, and that of the container ships transporting them. The operational performances include the transport service frequency, size, transport work and technical productivity of the deployed container ship fleet while serving a given volume of TEU flows during the specified time. The economic performances contain the inventory, handling, transport, and external costs of handling the TEU flows. The environmental performances relate to the fuel consumption and consequent emissions of GHG (GreenHouse Gases). Finally, the social performances in terms of impacts generally refer to noise, congestion, and safety. The models of indicators of performances have been applied to the liner container-shipping trunk line/route connecting East Asia and North Europe operated exclusively by two above-mentioned categories of ships according to the “what-if” scenario approach. The results have indicated the very high sensitivity of all considered indicators of performances to the category of deployed ships under given conditions. As well, they have shown to be dependent on each other – the operational on the technical/technological, and the economic, environmental, and social on the technical/technological and operational. For our overseas readers, we then present the insights from this paper in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German