Divergent effects of container port choice incentives on users' behavior

Port choice decisions are often considered to be based on unambiguous choice criteria. The authors examine how port users' evaluation of these criteria can differ and how this may affect actors' incentive structure and decision making, and ultimately port performance. Apart from ports' physical characteristics, the paper considers port policy and freight market conditions as components of actors' incentive structures. As port users interact, each actor's decision making has consequences for the incentives offered to others – with an important role for strategic behavior. The aggregate of port users' decisions affects a port's throughput, cargo composition, and value added, and has implications for handling efficiency. This paper combines these insights within an overarching framework linking port characteristics, policy, and freight market conditions to port user choice behavior and the consequences for ports. The paper explores various facets of this framework using the case of how the Port of Rotterdam competes along the Hamburg–Le Havre range, drawing on port throughput data on various levels of detail and in-depth interviews with a representative selection of port stakeholders. It shows that there is a downside to ports being particularly attractive to carriers, in that the port that offers the most incentives to carriers disproportionately attracts relatively low-value activities: inefficient calls and a large share of empty containers, along with a strong import/export imbalance. Interview findings contextualize the findings from the data and elaborate further on the mechanisms underpinning these observations. Most importantly, the attractiveness of a port for carriers does not always translate into attractiveness for shippers. The challenge for port policy is to balance the port's positioning toward its different categories of users and achieve a congruent value proposition for all port users

Identifying Dominant Stakeholder Perspectives on Sustainability Issues in Reefer Transportation

Driven by global climate concerns, seaports have formulated sustainability goals, which also require sustainability gains in the fast growing temperature-controlled logistics market—increasing energy e ciency, reducing waste, and streamlining logistics processes. This, however, requires cooperation and buy-in from a wide range of stakeholders. To explore the barriers and facilitators of such a transition, we map the interests and attitudes of cold chain actors in the Port of Rotterdam regarding sustainability issues in reefer transportation and cold chains. We identify a limited number of broadly shared perspectives using Q-methodology—a survey-based method to study subjective viewpoints (originating from psychology) that has been used only rarely in the freight transport field. The analysis yields four ‘dominant’ perspectives that together account for 46% of the variation among stakeholder viewpoints. We label these perspectives “sustainability as part of strategy”, “short term constraints”, “optimistic about technology, limited role for policy”, and “long run willingness under risk avoidance.” These perspectives are characterized by multiple factors, including the evaluation of organizational capabilities, expectations from policymakers and technology, and the time horizon stakeholder organizations consider regarding sustainability concerns. From the findings, we derive recommendations for managers and policy makers to facilitate stakeholder dialogue and possibly convergence and coalition building

A top-down methodology to calculate the CO2-footprint for terminal operations; the 6-step approach

There is an increasing need for green and effective operations at terminals and in port due to existing and upcoming stricter air quality standards and regulations. At the same time there is an increasing awareness of the need to reduce energy consumption of ports and terminals and to focus on the carbon footprint which is dependent not only on equipment and operations, but also the energy mix and the management of energy consumption. This is an important objective for the terminals but also for a wide variety of stakeholders, such as port authorities and transport service clients. Sustainable terminal operations require a good insight in terminal configurations, the use of equipment and the availability of reliable data about the energy consumption on the terminal. This information is in many cases not available for a variety of reasons, such as the very competitive environment and the competition between terminals, sometimes simply because the information is not known. In this deliverable an innovative top-down approach is presented to calculate the CO2-emissions of terminals. This methodology is named ‘the 6-step-approach’. This approach can be considered as an easy applicable tool to get a brief and coherent overview of the total energy consumption of a terminal. The 6-step approach is a standardised methodology which is coherent with CEN standard CEN 16258 “Methodology for calculation and declaration of energy consumption and GHG emissions of transport services (freight and passengers)”. The CEN standard contributes to the standardisation, comprehensiveness, transparency, consistency, generalization and predetermination. __The methodology consists of 6 steps:__ 1- the operations on the terminal (what is actually happening?) 2- the construction of an analytical model of activities 3- the development of an algorithm based on the analytical model 4- application of the model (preferably with real data, presently mostly based on estimations) 5- valorisation of the outcomes of the model 6- policy recommendations In coherence with the consumption scheme based on the GHG Protocol or to ISO 14064 standard and the CEN EN 16258 standard, the methodology concentrates on three domains of energy consumption: the terminal operations and related equipment, the consumption of reefers and the lighting of the yard. These three elements cover more than 95% of all energy consumption at a terminal. An important contribution of the 6-step approach to the port community is the fact that the model delivers outcomes that can function as the basis for tailor made recommendations that cover almost all activities. Therefore the main objective of the tool is that it can function as a benchmark tool for companies, port authorities, E.U., WorldBank/IMF/OECD, etc. (policy investment). Furthermore the application of tool can be considered as a basis for evaluation (rising awareness and motivation to use energy competently and thoughtfully), organizational investments (modifying operations to increase productivity versus energy consumption), technical modification investments (modifying equipment and systems to reduce consumption/increase productivity), technical purchase investments (put new equipment/systems into operation). But overall, the 6-step approach is a source for inspiration, it gives structure to process and the methodology recognizes the new challenges: to apply the model as a a pro-active methodology that addresses the economic (profit), environmental (planet), and social objectives (people) in one coherent strategy. By doing this, the 6-step approach offers an opportunity for cooperation and interaction between the private firms su

Theory for incongruent crystallization: application to a ZBLAN glass

Equations which describe incongruent nucleation and subsequent crystal growth are derived. A ZrF4-BaF2-LaF3-AlF3-NaF (ZBLAN) glass was used to test the validity of these equations. Nucleation rate measurements were fitted to theory and some growth rate measurements were in reasonable agreement with theor. predictions. Both nucleation theory and crystal growth theory were used for computer simulations of the crystn. behavior during heat treatments. Some heat treatments were performed in a DSC app. to verify the theories. The exptl. results were in good agreement with the numerical data. Using these theor. results it is possible to est. fiber scattering losses due to crystn. Depending on drawing temp., estd. losses can vary from 0.014 (310 Deg) to >=25 decibel/km (320 Deg). [on SciFinder (R)

Z-scores of fetal bladder distention for the antenatal differential diagnosis of posterior urethral valves and urethral atresia

Objective: To construct reference values for fetal urinary bladder distension in pregnancy and use Z-scores as a diagnostic tool to differentiate posterior urethral valves (PUV) from urethral atresia (UA). Methods: This was a prospective cross-sectional study in healthy singleton pregnancies aimed at constructing nomograms of fetal urinary bladder diameter and volume between 15 and 35 weeks' gestation. Z-scores of longitudinal bladder diameter (LBD) were calculated and validated in a cohort of fetuses with megacystis with ascertained postnatal or postmortem diagnosis, collected from a retrospective, multicenter study. Correlations between anatomopathological findings, based on medical examination of the infant or postmortem examination, and fetal megacystis were established. The accuracy of the Z-scores was evaluated by receiver-operating-characteristics (ROC)-curve analysis. Results: Nomograms of fetal urinary bladder diameter and volume were produced from three-dimensional ultrasound volumes in 225 pregnant women between 15 and 35 weeks of gestation. A total of 1238 urinary bladder measurements were obtained. Z-scores, derived from the fetal nomograms, were calculated in 106 cases with suspected lower urinary tract obstruction (LUTO), including 76 (72%) cases with PUV, 22 (21%) cases with UA, four (4%) cases with urethral stenosis and four (4%) cases with megacystis-microcolon-intestinal hypoperistalsis syndrome. Fetuses with PUV showed a significantly lower LBD Z-score compared to those with UA (3.95 vs 8.83, P < 0.01). On ROC-curve analysis, we identified 5.2 as the optimal Z-score cut-off to differentiate fetuses with PUV from the rest of the study population (area under the curve, 0.84 (95% CI, 0.748–0.936); P < 0.01; sensitivity, 74%; specificity, 86%). Conclusions: Z-scores of LBD can distinguish reliably fetuses with LUTO caused by PUV from those with other subtypes of LUTO, with an optimal cut-off of 5.2. This information should be useful for prenatal counseling and management of LUTO