Quantitative analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on ship visiting behaviors to ports- A framework and a case study

Identification and analysis of ship waiting behavior outside the port based on AIS data

Port congestion caused by ship detention is an important reason for the obstruction of the shipping supply chain. In this paper, a method of excavating the ship waiting behavior outside the port is proposed based on the automatic identification system (AIS) data and considering uncontrollable factors. Firstly, combined with the analysis of ship navigation behavior, the speed threshold of the ship waiting outside the port is defined through average speed. Secondly, the range of ships berthing in the port is distinguished, and the different waiting behavior of ships are clarified. Finally, the situation of different types and sizes of ships waiting outside the port is analyzed. The paper found that ships of different types and sizes have distinctive clustered waiting behavior, and there are significant differences in waiting time. At the ship type, bulk cargo ship have the highest number among ships waiting outside the port, followed by tanker and container ship; at the ship scale, basically, the number of ships waiting outside the port decreases with the increase of the scale, but the average waiting time is longer. It has an excellent practical promotion value for the application of AIS data and development of shipping.

Exploring a new development direction of the Belt and Road Initiative in the transitional period towards the post-COVID-19 era

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, its impacts have been envisaged in multi-dimensional ways, including global supply chains, international logistics, and transportation. Owing to a series of virus variants since 2020, several Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects have been halted along the Belt and Road (B&R), and their implementation progress has been affected. In addition, China, which initiated the BRI in 2013, has been facing challenges which are caused by its economic, socio-demographic, and international political structural changes. Moreover, growing conflicts and tensions in international trade and politics, such as the war between Russia and Ukraine, China-US trade conflicts, foreign companies' reshoring the production lines from China, and diplomatic disputes between China and Australia, have been interwoven with the impacts of COVID-19 on the supply chains, international trade, and transportation in the world. Having considered the above, this study explores a new research-driven approach to reignite the BRI momentum in the transitional period towards the post-COVID-19 era from a Chinese economic perspective. In doing so, this paper proposes nine research agendas, such as the optimization network of transportation and logistics distribution centers (LDCs) along the B&R, priority development and performance of LDCs, greening the B&R with green shipping corridors, revisiting port devolution continuum, humanitarian logistics in association with COVID-19, security and risk analysis of China's energy supply chains, and export of the 6th Generation Ports (6GP) model with smart ports to major container ports along the port supply chains. Each research agenda is addressed with its motivation, significance, and applicable and representative methods.

Impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic on carbon emissions from international shipping

The COVID-19 epidemic made the most countries to take strict lockdown measures, what has seriously caused an unprecedented impact in the shipping industries, whereas these measures have also played a significant impact to control carbon emissions from international shipping. Here, we try to use the threshold generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity and the exponential generalized autoregressive heteroscedasticity to investigate whether the fluctuations of the control variable on carbon emissions from international shipping are asymmetric or not. On this basis, the GARCH-MIDAS model is introduced to discuss whether the newly confirmed cases are independent of control variables and have an impact on the fluctuation of carbon emissions. From the results, we find that the information contained in the newly confirmed cases cannot be covered when adding the other control variables. In addition, the newly confirmed cases have a negative impact on the volatility of carbon emissions, while the other control variables significantly increase carbon emissions. This study provides a quantitative research method for the analysis of the volatility and impact factors on international shipping carbon emissions, which helps to formulate more reasonable emission reduction measures and promote the low-carbon transformations of the global shipping industry.