Evaluating economic and environmental value of liner vessel sharing along the maritime silk road

ABSTRACT

The Belt and Road initiative is a novel exploration of China towards strategic collaboration with Eurasia countries to an extent of a larger scale with higher and deeper level of cooperation. To meet the growing global demand of transportation, increasing numbers of liner shipping companies collaborate and form alliances to share vessel capacity and reduce capital costs. Effective liner shipping vessel sharing is essential for the Belt and Road initiative in terms of building efficient maritime transport networks. In promoting environmental development, shipping companies are required to attain higher environmental standards. However, limited literature relates vessel sharing to environmental performance. This paper studies the impacts of liner vessel sharing from the economic and environmental perspectives. Two container allocation models are developed for the two scenarios: with and without vessel sharing. The carbon emissions in transportation are calculated under both scenarios. Numerical studies are carried out using services along the China-Indochina Peninsula Economic (CIPE) Corridor. Liner shipping companies could benefit from vessel sharing in terms of significant profit improvement. Vessel sharing could also benefit the environment by reducing the CO₂ emissions dramatically.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental value
• carbon emission
• vessel sharing
• liner shipping alliance
• belt and road
• maritime silk road

Acknowledgments

“This article is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled “Evaluating Economic and Environmental Value of Liner Shipping Vessel Sharing in the Maritime Silk Road” presented at The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road for Transportation and Global Supply Chain Conference, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia; 1–2 December 2016.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a funded project at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, ref. M4061473 and a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China [Grant Number UGC/FDS14/B16/16].