1,721,114 research outputs found
Economic Analysis Report
No full textAs a part of the RCMS project, the present document aims at discussing the economic analysis of the studied solutions. The analysis is applied to the two project’s case study terminals in Gdansk (Poland) and Koper (Slovenia), in order to ultimately evaluate the strengthens of the RCMS in relation to the other two investment alternatives (i.e. RMG and RTG) and considering not only financial factors. In order to achieve its purpose, the current document discusses the assumptions and the hypotheses used in the development of the economic analysis, showing main considered elements. In order to perform the economic assessment, a simplified Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) has been developed. Among the main hypotheses, an evaluation time period of 25 year is used, with a different set of discount factors (using a base scenario that includes a social discount factor equal to 5%). In comparison with previous deliverables, a different cost aggregation process - due to the needed hypotheses on the cost items, such as a different consideration of the VAT- lead to different values. Similarly a different time scale for the revenues has been used. Thus the first part of the report is dedicated to the explanation of the process that leads to the different aggregation of the various elements and to the discussion of the simplification needed in order to perform the CBA (e.g. consideration of the revenues as proxy for part of the benefits). Within this part, the peculiarities of the port investments are underlined in order to better understand the effects of a different set of hypotheses on the main elements characterising the CBA
Port activity and technical efficiency: determinants and external factors
No full text\ua9 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.Port efficiency and terminal productivity are two key aspects of current market development. Modern advancements in port technology have introduced several operational solutions, such as automation, to increase terminal productivity. While such solutions offer the possibility of achieving increased outputs (e.g. movements per hour), high fixed costs, managerial challenges, and different legislations are hurdles that slow their introduction down. Moreover, few studies have clarified the actual impact of different handling technologies and other external factors (e.g. port location) on overall terminal efficiency. In fact, several academic and industry studies have demonstrated that these varying conditions can impact terminals’ output in different ways. With this in mind, the current study discusses preliminary results on the impact of automation technology on port efficiency using a two-step approach (i.e. Data Envelopment Analysis and statistical regression) to understand whether automated terminals guarantee heightened efficiency. Our results show that membership of certain port ranges is a more important factor than heightened automation, though technological advances do represent a viable second option
Port policies and private investments: insights from Latin America and Caribbean countries
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Blockchain: How shipping industry is dealing with the ultimate technological leap
No full text\ua9 2020 Elsevier Ltd. Despite its historical resilience to innovation, several novel technologies (e.g. IoT, AIS data, and automation) have recently been introduced in the maritime sector: the majority of them represents incremental changes in respect to current practice. Nevertheless, a few of these novel solutions could represent radical game changers for the whole shipping business. Among the latter category, blockchain registers a particular role, given the possibility for smoothening administrative problems, providing new ways to achieve secure and frictionless transactions at a global level. Despite the importance of such innovation, most of the published studies have just focused on technical aspects, while the adoption and implementation processes are far to be clarified since there is not a clear understanding on the potential effects of blockchain on shipping and logistics actors, especially at local level. The proposed study aims at filling this gap, providing insights that might help to better understand: i) which are the actors that impact the most on the blockchain implementation (and related potential frictions), and ii) the difference among alternative initiatives currently present on the market. In order to achieve these twofold aim, the study uses a triangulation approach, mixing literature and media reports research with both web-based research on main initiative characteristics and expert opinions. The proposed study defines that regulators and public authorities might potentially represent the main barrier to the full implementation of the block chain technology, especially due to a missing market standard
Port Terminal Concessions. Towards a Dynamic Concession Fee
No full textPorts are key nodes of the transport networks and their efficiency is strategic for regional competitiveness. Port operations are performed by a heterogeneous group of market players — in the landlord system, stevedore activities are performed in public port spaces that have been used
exclusively by operators for several decades. Within this framework, several authors have discussed how differentiated rules within the concession agreements might contribute to increasing terminal performance. Despite this, few authors discuss the introduction of performance clauses in the
concession agreements. Current research introduces a dynamic concession fee evaluation method and applies it to a case study
Covid-19 and seaborne trade: The Italian perspective
No full textCovid-19 pandemic impacted on all major trade flows, shuffling global value chains and pushing major industries to re-think their procurement strategies. While long term impacts are still subject to speculation, the immediate response of local industries need to be evaluated in order to target relevant policy interventions and to understand which economic players have been hit the most. Current paper tries to fill such gap, using the Italian Custom Agency database for verifying which trade sectors and ports suffered the most from the Covid-19 first wave. In order to achieve the research goal, all containerized import and export flows have been collected for the period 2012–2020, comparing historical patterns with the one observed in the first semester 2020. Results aim at contributing to the current understanding of the crisis’ impact and they will be used for driving future recovery plans
Understanding the impact of demand shocks on the container port industry
No full textThe Covid-19 pandemic has severely impacted the world economy, generating an unprecedented shock that pushed carriers to adapt to the collapse of demand. Most of the related adaptation actions (e.g., blank sailings) appear as temporary initiatives being insufficient to reach a long run equilibrium. Moreover, while carriers managed to adjust their own supplied capacity to the ongoing crisis, the port sector has been greatly impacted by the fall in transport demand, not being able to counteract the demand shortages as effectively as the carriers. Against this backdrop, the paper introduces a model for assessing the effects of demand shocks (e.g., due to the pandemic) on the integration strategies of carriers. We focus on the possible initiatives that demand shocks may trigger on the horizontal and vertical integration among the actors of the shipping industry. In doing so, the present study provides useful insights for better understanding potential future market modifications and their impact on social welfare. Using non-cooperative games, profit-maximising strategies, in case of such integrations, are compared in order to study how carriers and terminal operators might react to demand shocks in the medium and long run
Merger waves and alliance stability in container shipping
No full textRecently, the container shipping industry has been witnessing a wave of new mergers and reshuffling of cooperation agreements (alliances), which have heavily affected the market. This development has also taken place among vertically integrated carriers, thus affecting not just the shipping side of the business, but the different supply chains as well. By using non-cooperative merger control games, featuring carriers involved in strategic alliances and competition authorities, this paper analyses the impact of the vertical integration of carriers and terminal operators on the stability of alliances. Starting from a benchmark set-up where carriers and stevedores are separated, we first find that when the integration concerns merging carriers only, alliance stability is undermined because non-merging allied carriers are more likely to register losses due to market share reductions and possibly higher terminal tariffs. However, by assuming that alliance agreements are extended to terminal operations, for all the allied partners, we show that alliances might be more stable, since non-merging carriers are vertically integrated as well and can internalize terminal charges. Given the on-going trends of consolidations in container shipping, this last hypothesis implies that merger waves might still occur without the breaking down of alliances, as long as landside cooperation among carriers along the supply chain, is also considered
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