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This paper introduces a macro traffic flow model of carbon dioxide emissions from container ports. As long as both the throughput and the transshipment rate of the port are available, any port in the world can use it to estimate emissions. Initially, two Japanese container ports are used as reference points to derive the equivalent units of carbon dioxide per TEU for application to other ports. Then macro traffic flows within a container port are defined. Finally, carbon dioxide emissions from different container ports are estimated using the macro estimation procedure introduced in this paper. The results of trial estimations for selected ports among different countries highlight that the impacts of container ports on global warming are serious. This issue will be intensified if competition is increased by the larger container ports aspiring to be international mega hubs.

Recently emerged Packaging-as-a-Service (PaaS) systems adopt aspects of access-based services and triadic frameworks, which have typically been treated as conceptually separate. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implications of blending the two in what we call “access-based triadic systems,” by empirically evaluating intentions to adopt PaaS systems for takeaway food among restaurants and consumers.

We derived relevant attributes of PaaS systems from a qualitative pre-study with restaurants and consumers. Next, we conducted two factorial survey experiments with restaurants (N = 176) and consumers (N = 245) in Germany to quantitatively test the effects of those system attributes on their adoption intentions.

This paper highlights that the role of access-based triadic system providers as both the owners of shared assets and the operators of a triadic system is associated with a novel set of challenges and opportunities: System providers need to attract a critical mass of business and end customers while balancing asset protection and system complexity. At the same time, asset ownership introduces opportunities for improved quality control and differentiation from competition.

Conceptually, this paper extends research on access-based services and triadic frameworks by describing an unexplored hybrid form of non-ownership consumption we call “access-based triadic systems.” Empirically, this paper addresses the need to account for the demands of two distinct target groups in triadic systems and demonstrates how factorial survey experiments can be leveraged in this field.

This present study uses political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental (PESTLE) analysis and the strategic management theory to examine how external factors, namely the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the industrial revolution (IR) 4.0 technologies, the fuel price crisis and Sultanate of Oman Logistics Strategy (SOLS) 2040, affect the performance of container terminals in Oman.

A hybrid decision-making method that combined the analytical hierarchy process technique and Bayesian network model was used to achieve the objective of the present study.

The COVID-19 pandemic (54.60%) most significantly affected the performance of container terminals in Oman, followed by IR 4.0 technologies (19.66%), SOLS (17.00%) and fuel price crisis (8.74%). Container terminals in Oman were also found to perform “moderately,” considering the uncertainty of external factors.

This study enriches existing literature by using PESTLE analysis to assess the impact of the external business environment on firm performance in the context of the maritime industry as well as highlights how challenging external environmental factors affect the performance of container terminals in Oman.

This study contributes to developing novel study models and determining the performance level of container terminals in Oman considering integrated uncertainties and external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, IR 4.0 technologies, the SOLS 2040 and the fuel price crisis.

When port authorities or terminal operators set the free time or increase storage density, the decision is often made without a clear understanding of their effects on throughput and rehandling productivity. This is partly because practical methods that deal specifically with the effect of dwell time on throughput and productivity are limited in the literature; hence the motivation for this work. This paper introduces simple methods to evaluate the effect of container dwell time and storage policies on import throughput, storage density, and rehandling productivity. The analysis considers two import storage strategies 1) non-mixed - no stacking of new import containers on top of old ones, and 2) mixed - stacking of new import containers on top of old ones. The results highlight the effect dwell time has on throughput and rehandling productivity. For the non-mixed storage policy, the increasing container dwell time lowers throughput and average stack height - resulting in an increase in rehandling productivity. On the other hand, for the mixed storage policy, the increasing container dwell time raises throughput and average stack height - resulting in a decrease in rehandling productivity. Using the presented methods, port authorities and terminal operators are able to assess and quantify the benefits of their decisions regarding container free time and subsequently make an informed decision.

Due to the globalization of trade, hundreds of millions containers pass every year through world ports. Such a situation is extremely challenging in terms of securing freight transport operations. However, costs and lead-times are still very important components of supply chains' performance models. Therefore, the drive for enhanced safety and security cannot be made at the expense of these other two factors of competitiveness, and the processes implemented by the global supply chain links, including the maritime port one, should tend to a joint optimization of trade facilitation and operational safety / security.

The research on which this paper feeds back falls within the frame of this mixed performance requirement. More specifically, the paper presents a decision-support system dedicated to managing the risks associated with land and maritime container transportation; this system is based on the modeling of the knowledge of a group of experts, and covers the three phases of risk identification, assessment and avoidance / mitigation.

This paper analyses container throughput developments in the East Asia container port system. Throughput evolutions and concentration/deconcentration patterns in the multi-range container port system of East Asia are analysed. The paper also provides a more in-depth qualitative analysis of the reasons underlying the observed trends and results. It is demonstrated that the East Asian port system is undergoing major structural shifts in cargo patterns and is witnessing a cargo deconcentration trend as a result of the rise of the Chinese ports and the relative stagnation of the Japanese range.

Since the 1980s the economic development of countries in East Asia has had a marked impact on the world port community, particularly in container transport. This paper analyses changes in the competitive environment of the world container port sector using some standard tools of market concentration. Initially, this paper reviews the competitive position of world container port system and then examines the East Asian economic environment. Both ordinal and cardinal measures of port system inequality are used to demonstrate both the rankings and levels of container throughput have been diverging in the world's major economic blocs. Conversely, East Asian countries during the 1990s have shown a trend towards convergence. Measures of dispersion suggest that ports in East Asian countries have become more competitive in their levels of container throughput.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) provides a useful tool for the prescreening or detection of goods and containers moving across the border and for controlling the trade of illicit materials and preventing or mitigating the effects of terrorism. Although anti-terrorism measures are important in today’s dangerous world, RFID tools, if misused, may violate the WTO trade rules. Whenever goods or container control measures using RFID are proposed, their contents, objectives, and rationale must be published, and WTO members must be notified through the WTO Secretariat and allowed to make comments. WTO members should not take such measures that are designed or applied in a discriminatory manner and those measures must be adopted only under necessary situations and to the extent necessary. These measures must reduce the incidence and complexity of import and export formalities, and there should not be substantial penalties for minor breaches of the requirements under the measures. If the measures require country-of-origin information in RFID tags, they must apply in the same way to like products, and they must not cause unnecessary inconveniences or unreasonable cost. If the measures deal with containers in international transit, they must be reasonable, consider the conditions of the traffic, and guarantee transit through the most convenient routes for international transit.

A container control measure designed to restrict the flow of fissionable materials or their derivative materials, traffic in arms, ammunition, and implements of war, or traffic in military supply goods and materials may be justified, even if it violates some of the GATT rules. In addition, a measure established in time of war or other emergency in international relations or based on the United Nations Charter and designed to maintain international peace and security can also be justified. As a last resort, WTO members may request a waiver from GATT and TBT Agreement obligations for container control measures that include RFID.

Superpowers must be careful not to use RFID to practice power politics and create regulations to deal with national security and anti-terrorism issues that do not conform to international law. The key question is how to maintain a balance between the two inalienable values of free trade and national security in this era of globalization, harmonization, and terrorism .

This paper presents a case study on the problem of loading air containers in air express carriers motivated from DHL and Air Hong Kong. The problem is to determine the containers to be loaded and the locations of the loaded containers in an aircraft while maintaining stability of the aircraft. The objective of the problem is to maximize the revenue obtained from delivering containers. We present an integer programming model to represent and optimally solve the problem. Computational experiments done on a number of randomly generated test instances show that the integer program can be a viable tool for generating loading plans in the companies since optimal or near-optimal solutions for the test instances are obtained within a reasonable amount of computation time.

The importance of container transportation has increased due to the globalization of the world economy. The purpose of this research is at proposing a framework to enhance the container terminals performance through evaluating efficiency and competitiveness.

The researchers used data envelopment analysis to assess the efficiency and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to measure competitiveness of container terminals. The proposed framework captures key performance indicators to evaluate the container terminals' performance and identify areas that need improvement. It was applied to the Egyptian container terminals from the period of 2015–2019 as an empirical study.

Findings highlights the highest utilization of resources of Alexandria port while more attention should be given to the level of service provided. On the other hand, El-Sokhna should focus on more utilization of the available resources. The performance evaluation showed that the rest of Egyptian terminal ports should improve both competitiveness and efficiency at different levels based on their performance ranking.

The developed framework can be used as an evaluation tool to evaluate the performance of container terminals in other countries, and can be utilized as a performance benchmark tool to compare the performance of container terminals of competing ports.

The developed framework can help policymakers to assess efficiency and competitiveness based on both quantitative data and experts' judgement in order to help in formulating government logistics strategy.

The research provides a comprehensive framework to measure and evaluate competitiveness and efficiency of container terminals based on both quantitative data and experts' judgement.