Jasmine Siu Lee Lam

Developments in Container Port Competition in East Asia

Abstract The ports of Hong Kong, Busan and Kaohsiung have long dominated container handling in East Asia. However, the emergence of new transhipment and gateway hub candidates, which include Shanghai, Shenzhen, Kwangyang and Qingdao, among others, will vie with these incumbents for a greater share of container traffic. Some might even unseat the incumbents. This study finds, through evidences from container shipping services connecting the region to major markets and trade routes between 1995 and 2001, that Mainland Chinese ports are increasingly attractive as direct ports of call for mainline services. The evidence also suggests that new services started by mainline operators calling at Mainland China are bypassing Japanese and Taiwanese ports. Nonetheless, these services continue to call at Hong Kong. Although the composition of containers handled at Mainland Chinese ports consists largely of gateway cargo, these ports are expected to handle a rising share of transhipment traffic.

An interpretation of inter-container port relationships from the demand perspective

Container ports serve as important conduits to facilitate the efficient flow of containerized cargo. As part of value-driven chain systems that intersect between hinterlands, efficiency gains that are generated within the container port will have a direct impact on the competitive advantage of its users and affect the economic potential of both the origin and destination hinterlands. As such, the paper proposes the usage of indifference analysis propounded in microeconomic theory as a useful means to examine inter-container port competition and complementarity. The framework presented can also be combined with Porters ‘Diamond’ model in order for inter-container port demand relationships to be quantified, measured and analysed in an holistic manner. Apart from analysing inter-port relationships from the standpoint of container ports, the framework can also be used to analyse inter-port relationships from the perspective of other key players in the value-driven chain system and modified accordingly to incorporate various indicators that are deemed to be relevant to these parties.

Environmental sustainability in seaports: a framework for successful innovation

Environmental sustainability in the port industry is of growing concern for port authorities, policy makers, port users and local communities. Innovation can provide a solution to the main environmental issues, but often meets resistance. While certain types of technological or organisational innovation can be satisfactorily analysed using closed system theories, in the case of seaports and in particular in the area of environmental sustainability, more advanced conceptual frameworks have to be considered. These frameworks need to be able to account for the multiple stakeholder nature of the port industry and of the network and vertical interactions that environmental sustainability calls for. This article investigates successful innovations improving environmental sustainability of seaports. The proposed framework builds in part on research concepts developed in the InnoSuTra EU FP7 project. From a methodological perspective, this article develops a method for quantifying the degree of success of innovation with respect to a set of specific objectives. Several case studies are used to test the framework against real innovation examples, such as onshore power supply, or alternative fuels. In this article, we argue that only those innovations that fit dynamically port actors’ demands and the port institutional environment stand a chance to succeed.

Port Hinterland Intermodal Container Flow Optimisation with Green Concerns: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

The closer link between ports and supply chain leads to a growing research area – port hinterland intermodal development. Focusing on the literature with mathematical models, the purpose of this paper is to categorise and analyse earlier research contributions on intermodal container flow optimisation, to identify the research trends and gaps, and to suggest future research directions. Results show that future research should focus on global intermodal container flow optimisation, addressing the approaches of ports integrating into such global intermodal chain taken green issues into account. There is substantial need for research addressing greening the intermodal network and sustainable development. Providing cost effective solutions alone in optimisation problem is rather traditional and one-sided. Those market players possessing commercially viable capabilities and also environmental responsibilities would gain a competitive advantage in future dynamic business environment. Bi-objective or multi-objective optimisation would be more suitable to actual situations.

Scenario analysis for supply chain integration in container shipping

Competition in the business world nowadays is largely between supply chains, rather than individual players only. The same situation exists in container shipping. The study looks into container shipping from an integrated perspective and investigates the nature and level of supply chain integration in container shipping. Based on empirical examinations of the worlds top 30 container shipping lines, a scenario analysis is conducted. The paper aims to present the scenario analysis for examining supply chain integration in container shipping. It also aims to formulate strategic recommendations for liners to create and sustain competitive advantage. The scenario analysis is designed to allow more complete consideration of alternative possible outcomes and their implications on the research topic. It involves an evaluation of past and present events and provides a plausible discussion of what might occur in the future. It depicts four scenarios of supply chain integration in container shipping, namely, low integration, partner-focused integration, activity-focused integration and high integration. On the whole, research findings suggest that market situations favour those scenarios representing higher level of supply chain integration. Importantly, with reference to the scenario analysis, shipping lines should position themselves in an appropriate scenario and formulate strategic plans accordingly.

Competition for transhipment containers by major ports in Southeast Asia: slot capacity analysis

Container ports in Southeast Asia accounted for an estimated 30.0% of the worlds transhipment traffic in 2004. The share of the regions transhipment trade was forecasted to increase to 32.5% in 2015. The potential offered by this large and expanding market encouraged major container terminal operators located in Port Klang, Singapore and Tanjung Pelepas to compete intensively for this business by attracting major container shipping lines that operated along key east–west sailing routes to hub at their terminals. This paper analyses the annual slot capacity connected to the three selected ports that was deployed by all the container shipping lines in 1999–2004. The data are computed and categorized based on shipping trade routes. The study aims to shed light on port competition in Southeast Asia for transhipment containers by an in-depth and quantitative analysis. The analysis finds that competition from Port Klang and Tanjung Pelepas had a negative impact on Singapores transhipment performance. Although Singapore continued to enjoy a dominant position as the premier transhipment hub in the region in terms of market share by both transhipment throughput and annualized slot capacity, the evidence suggested that its hold on the market appeared to be slipping, albeit gradually. Overall, Tanjung Pelepas is expected to pose the strongest challenge to Singapores transhipment hub ambitions. Managerial implications for the ports are drawn.

Modeling the Impacts of Tides and the Virtual Arrival Policy in Berth Allocation

To quantify the impacts of tides on seaside operations in container ports, this study reformulates the berth allocation problem by modeling their impacts on the entrance/exit of vessels into/from ports. Furthermore, to mitigate the tidal impacts, we borrow the so-called virtual arrival policy, whose potential for reducing bunker fuel consumption and vessel emissions is widely recognized by the shipping industry, and accordingly retrofit the berth allocation model. In the latter model, the state-of-the-art technique of second-order cone programming is adopted to handle the nonlinear intractability involved. We conduct extensive numerical experiments to evaluate the impacts of tides on the seaside operations in a tidal container port, and also to verify the competence of the virtual arrival policy in delivering win-win economic and environmental benefits for both the port and shipping lines. It is also intriguing to observe that the virtual arrival policy would be an applicable substitute for the costly approach of deepening the navigation channel in a tidal port.

Environmental sustainability of logistics service provider: an ANP-QFD approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology with systematic metrics for logistics service providers (LSPs) to develop their environmental sustainability performance in the context of green supply chain management. Design/methodology/approach – An integrated analytical approach which combines analytical network process (ANP) with quality function deployment (QFD) is proposed to develop LSPs’ environmental sustainability performance. In the approach, QFD is used to translate customer requirements (CRs) for “green” concerns into multiple criteria for LSP’s design requirements (DRs). ANP is used to analyze the inter-relationships among the various CRs and DRs. Findings – The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by applying it to a global LSP. A case study shows how the proposed “ANP-QFD” technique can be deployed to understand customers’ expectation for environment management and develop tactics and measures with the aim to achieve the desirable outcome for LSPs’ environm...

Maritime cluster evolution based on symbiosis theory and Lotka–Volterra model

Over the past few years, the concept of cluster has been regarded and adopted as a useful policy tool in analyzing maritime industry development. However, there is a lack of studies on the theoretical development of maritime cluster evolution in the existing literature. This paper aims to investigate the dynamic symbiosis derived from maritime cluster evolution. The research leads to a new path to investigate maritime cluster by employing the symbiosis theory in ecology and the Lotka–Volterra model. The paper first develops the concept of maritime cluster classification and evolution. Then, it analyses the compatibility and analogy of biotic community with maritime cluster. In order to study the interaction relationships among maritime sectors, the Lotka–Volterra model is introduced. The model is used to group the revenues of maritime sectors in pairs. These revenues are in turn grouped into a number of comparative pairs accordingly. The model is further advanced to forecast the trend of maritime clusters by studying the existence of an equilibrium point and its stability with the estimated functions. The original approach would deepen the understanding on maritime cluster and stimulate future research. The study also draws insights for policy makers in maritime nations.

Structure, conduct and performance on the major liner shipping routes 1

Market concentration on the major container shipping routes has the potential to reduce contestability, impede effective competition and, as a consequence, inhibit the positive relationship between trade and economic growth. This development could also hamper the ability of economic regions to realize their respective competitive and comparative advantages. Within this context, the structure-conduct-performance (SCP) framework is used to analyse liner shipping dynamics in the transpacific, Europe–Far East and transatlantic trade routes. The analysis finds no conclusive evidence that either the increased concentration of slot capacity or the attempts by shipping lines to boost potential slot capacity (mainly through collaborative arrangements) lead to improved financial performance. The paper concludes that, despite high and increasing concentration among carriers on each of the trade routes analysed, these markets remain contestable.