Returns to scale are important in container shipping; service operators are continuing to increase the size of their vessels. Mr Seok-Min Lim's article 'Economies of container ship size' (Maritime Policy and Management, 21 (2) pages 149-160.1994) uses a sample of transpacific voyages to evaluate the effect of vessel scale on revenue and cost. Although the results are inconclusive, his study is…
This is an empirical analysis of the performance of the five major container ports of the East Coast of the United States: Boston, New York-New Jersey, Philadelphia. Baltimore and Hampton Roads. The data through 1978 indicate wide disparities in the productivity of these facilities. They also suggest that container ports exhibit signilicant returns to scale throughout the range of observation, …
This paper proposes a model to address the design problem of a regional logistics network. In the proposed model, the decision variables include the location and size of logistics parks. The interaction between the logistics authority and logistics users as well as the effects of economies of scale and CO2 emission taxes on the logistics network design are explicitly considered. The proposed mo…
In recent years, an increase in the size of the container ships could be observed. The question is how these larger ships will influence the total generalised costs from a port of loading to a destination in the European hinterland. The second question is whether a scale increase of the container ships on other loops, such as a loop from the United States to Europe, has the same impact on the g…
Very large container ships are being built with the theoretical justification that they will produce economies of scale. It is clear, however. that the immediate result of the mega-ship buildings is an overtonnaging of the world's major liner routes. As major operators have put newer and bigger ships in the water, they have significantly reduced the slot costs in the container trades to which t…
The paper examines an important player in the container industry: the container terminal. We evaluate how terminal efficiency operation is affected by the following factors: terminal type, operation type, scale efficiency and returns to scale. In so doing, we test how the typology and operation of terminals and the level of scale efficiency that a terminal can achieve, represent significant fac…
This paper investigated if differences of the profits of the Korean and other global shipping companies were affected by the shipping route specialization. A panel data model was applied to nine shipping companies during the 2009-2015 period, to determine to what extent freight rate, bunker fuel prices, scale economies and chartered vessel ratios affected the profits. The results showed freight…
Korean shipping companies have seriously contemplated on pursuing economies of scale in order to tap the potential that Korea can generate for the seaborne cargo volume and fleet capacity, despite of latent pros and cons associated with the economies of scale. This paper shows the concentration ratio of the top four liner shipping companies in Korea is well below that of the global counterpart.…
Conventionally, shipping companies have invested in large ships to achieve economies of scale. More recently, high speed ships have been proposed as a means of achieving timely service for customers and improving shipping performance. Yet another solution offered here is to boost the cargo handling speed at port allowing for a higher number of annual round trips. Both the cost efficiency and ti…
Ever since the 1960s, every 10 to 15 years, the size of ships has been upgraded by 1,000 TEU. This trend of upgrading has been maintained due to advances in ship manufacturer’s technologies, and in the carriers’ strategy. It is likely that this strategy will accelerate the trend for carriers to operate VLCSs far earlier than was previously expected. The main aims of using larger containersh…
Under the rapidly changing environment of the international economy, the shipping industry has been suffering from severe survival competition. Thus, this study attempted to identify the construct of the shipping service quality and measure it by expanding the research model of the logistics service quality into the shipping industry in order to conceptualize shipping services and to develop th…
This paper focuses on measuring the efficiency of container terminals in Europe using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Container terminals in Europe play an important role in the region’s economic development and, as the result of their geographic concentration, face fierce competition compared with the rest of the world. Despite this, studies of the efficiency of container termi…
Ever since the 1960s, every 10 to 15 years, the size of ships has been upgraded by 1,000 TEU. This trend of upgrading has been maintained due to advances in ship manufacturer's technologies, and in the carriers' strategy. It is likely that this strategy will accelerate the trend for carriers to operate VLCSs far earlier than was previously expected. The main aims of using larger containerships …