Seaports during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Terminal Operators’ Tactical Responses to Disruptions in Maritime Supply Chains

The impact of COVID-19 on maritime pilots: Evidence and lessons

The COVID-19 pandemic led to port congestion and disruption to global logistics and supply chains. While previous research has examined the impact on port performance and economics, social issues, such as the impact on port personnel (including pilots), have been overlooked. In this context, this paper examines the challenges experienced by Chinese pilots during the pandemic through in-depth interviews with 28 pilots. It shows that the draconian pandemic control measures adopted in China, rather than the pandemic itself, impaired pilots' physical and mental health, reduced their availability, and introduced new safety hazards, which curtailed both the port's capacity and ability to provide efficient and safe pilotage and resulted in sub-standard services. The findings suggest that there is a serious issue regarding the absence of effective mechanisms for pilots to raise their health and safety concerns and how these might be addressed by port administrators and/or local authorities. Worker participation and involvement in occupational health and safety management was problematic. These findings have implications for pilot station management at both company and government administrative and legislative levels.

Digital transformation, technological innovation, and operational resilience of port firms in case of supply chain disruption

To investigate how the digital transformation of port firms improves their operational resilience, we design methods to measure their digital transformation grade (DTG), technological innovation capacity (TIC), and port operational resilience (POR) respectively. Based on 3586 samples retrieved from 334 Chinese port firms from 2011 to 2021, their relationships are statistically described and preliminarily regressed by an ordinary least-squares model and a fixed-effect model. After testing the effects of supply chain disruption, endogeneity, and robustness, we reveal that digital transformation improves firms' competitiveness and operational resilience by coordinating human resources, information, and technology. We confirm that TIC plays an intermediate role and an adverse event has an enhancement effect. An inverted-U curve between DTG and POR proves that port firms often suffer growing pains at the initial stage and their POR will be promoted by continuous digital inputs, but the leading port firms would gain fewer marginal benefits.

Assessing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the financial and economic structure performance of Turkish sea freight transport sector

The impact of Covid-19 on the global economy's functioning and the long-term growth of supply chains was first reported in Türkiye in March 2020. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the financial and economic structure performance of Turkish sea freight transport sector, as well as how the sector has adapted to the new reality brought on by Covid-19. In this regard, the consolidated financial statements of 997 companies for the year 2020 were studied using ratio analysis, and the results were compared to the financial outputs of the 2008 global financial crisis and the European sovereign dept crisis. As a result of the study, it was determined that the sector's response to crises in different time periods varied. In order to avoid debt default during the pandemic, the capital structure restricted short-term resources while increasing long-term resources. Despite the pandemic conditions, it has been noticed that there are no barriers to accessing money market instruments in the sector, that the working capital structure has been enhanced, and that a balanced financing plan has been established to ensure the continuity of cash flows. This is the first study that analyses the sector as a whole, reveals the financial and economic repercussions of the pandemic on the sector, and compares these effects to those of recent financial crises. In addition, authorities of the maritime transport industry in other countries will find this helpful research for conducting comparative analyses, and the findings can be generalised.

Analysis of a maritime transport chain with information asymmetry and disruption risk

Maritime transport chain is facing huge information asymmetry after the outbreak of major emergencies, such as COVID-19 epidemic. The previous literature has proved that information investing and information sharing are two effective tactics to relieve information asymmetry between supply chain nodes, and help them improve the performance of the supply chain. This paper assumes random demand disruption is the main cause of the information asymmetry in a maritime transportation chain. To explore how the random demand disruption and channel competition jointly impact operational decisions in a dual-channel maritime transport chain composed of one port, two carriers and shippers, we construct a game-theoretical basic model, and proposed two strategies, i.e., information investing and information sharing. Several significant managerial insights are derived. First, we find that inaccurate disruption information leads to inaccurate decisions and huge losses; Second, investing in precise information benefits the port only if the chain members are optimistic about the market, and improves the revenue of the carrier who invested in information if the investment cost is reasonable; Third, accepting information sharing benefits the port only when the precise disruption and the distortion of information are relatively large, as well as the misappropriate rate is relatively small; and only when the port is pessimistic about the market or the channel competition is weak, sharing information may hurt the carrier who invested in information. Finally, the strength of the channel competition will enhance the impact of information inaccuracy on the maritime transport chain.

The dynamic interaction between COVID-19 and shipping freight rates: a quantile on quantile analysis

This study determines the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that has been prevalent since the year 2019, on the shipping freights. This task has been undertaken by using the wavelet quantile on the quantile approach. The results of the study affirm that the pandemic has in fact affected the shipping freight costs, primarily due to the lower demand for energy and raw materials, and the unavailability of the vessels. In addition to this, the spread of COVID-19 has had a positive impact on the Baltic Dry Index in the high quantiles and is deemed to be more responsive in the long run. Also, the COVID-19 infection has had a negative effect on the Baltic Dry Tanker Index and the Baltic Clean Tanker Index in the medium to high quantiles, particularly in the short and the medium run. The positive impact of COVID-19 on the Baltic Clean Tanker Index has been recognized in the long term in the high quantiles. These findings support the theoretical model which states that the spread of COVID-19 and the shipping freights are closely related. The results suggest that the degree of the effect is more causal in the short. Therefore, the shipping industry must ideally pay special attention to the detection of abrupt changes in the freight rate dynamics, and the specific regulations regarding these intricacies are critical.

Supply chain management in times of crisis: a systematic review

Complexities of crises force supply chains managers to formulate crisis-induced strategies, which contrast with the conventional strategies that give precedence to competitive priorities. Recent crises, such as the coronavirus outbreaks, large-scale product recalls, and financial crises, underscore the increasing regularity and severity of crises with imperatives for introspective and retrospective socio-economic insights on the contexts, priorities, and themes of supply chain management in times of crisis. The purpose of this article is to review the literature on supply chain management in times of crisis, systematically coalescing the related body of scholarly work; outlining current methods applied by researchers; capturing strategic priorities and themes of complexities in research studies; and highlighting potentials for future studies. Using a systematic review of 250 journal articles published between 1996 and 2021, the review finds four dimensions for restorative priorities that reflect operations strategy during crisis: (i) critical supplies with essential services, (ii) timely response with recovery, (iii) safety with security, and (iv) traceability with transparency. The review also finds that operational complexities during crises originate from network configurations and business cycle complexities, optimal selections and provisioning system complexes, and complex learning processes and demand predictions. Insights from the review aid in the proposal of build-to-cycle, organic capabilities, and operational mindfulness framings for supply chain management in times of crisis. The article concludes by recommending future research studies on supply chain upgrades, diagnosis, solidarity, mapping, temporariness, and thresholds, as well as optimal selection problems on linking crisis systems investments with liabilities and on linking crisis network allotments with cross-functionalities.

Study on Comparing the Performance of Fully Automated Container Terminals during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Major ports worldwide suffered from various problems such as labor shortage, port congestion, and global supply chain disruptions during COVID-19. To ensure stable operations of ports in such scenarios, one option is to adopt fully automated terminals. This study aimed at evaluating the performance of fully automated terminals compared with that of non-fully automated ones during the disrupted logistics due to coronavirus. Four ports that simultaneously operate both fully and non-fully automated terminals were selected. The performance of the target terminals was measured based on quantitative factors: throughput, number of ship arrivals, and berthing time. The results showed that the fully automated container terminals present better operational performance than the non-fully automated terminals. The former achieved large increments in the throughput, small decreases in the berthing time per ship, and increases in the number of ship arrivals. Moreover, there were economic benefits, revealing that the total terminal profit at the fully automated terminals was significantly increased, whereas that at the non-fully automated ones decreased based on berthing times. Therefore, fully automated terminals can be considered as alternatives for responding flexibly and stably during crises such as COVID-19.

Sustainable Development Programming of Airports by Identification of Non-Efficient Units

This article concerns the identification of inefficient airports and the exploration of spatial autocorrelation for programming sustainable development. The first research question was: do domestic airports cooperate by shifting passenger service and traffic to the geographically closest airport to respect the idea of sustainable development (in view of the rationalization of energy consumption)? The second question was: do they excessively compete for passengers and the carriers serving them? The aim was to identify ineffective units (taking into account energy consumption, airplane traffic, and passenger movement) and to evaluate the spatial autocorrelation between national airports, which shows whether airports cooperate or compete with each other. The study was conducted on 12 airports. An innovative extension of the data envelopment analysis method using methods in the field of spatial econometrics (including two-dimensional Moran I statistics and local LISA statistics) and artificial intelligence was applied. It was verified that ineffective airports have a non-rationalized structure of inputs to outputs. Based on the map-graph of connections, airports have been identified to which part of airplane traffic service can be transferred. Based on Moran statistics and local LISA statistics, it was confirmed that airports compete with each other. There was a strong polarization of efficient airports.