Maritime Transport

Shipping Logistics and Operations

Ulla Tapaninen, Joel Andelin

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781789662467
• eBook ISBN: 9781789662481
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Transportation Industry
• Index: Business

Maritime transport is the transport of people or goods by water. It is the backbone of world trade and globalization. Twenty-four hours a day and all year round, ships carry cargoes to all corners of the globe.

Maritime Transport focuses on the operational side of this important industry, covering many topics such as sea traffic currents, passenger transport, short sea shipping and dangerous cargoes.

Parts one and two of Maritime Transport present the concepts, theory and background information, then part three presents more complex and deeper issues such as the maritime transportation of the future. It covers topics such as intelligent shipping, data exchange at sea and maritime security. In addition, the book includes fascinating case studies and examples, such as maritime transport in the Baltic sea, ship strategies in Norway and Greece and the benefits of slow steaming. At the end of each chapter there are questions that will help students to gain a deeper understanding of the many topics covered.

part One

Maritime transport

01

Global maritime transport

The basics of global trade

For centuries economists have tried to solve and explain the basic functioning of global trade, and have come to the conclusion that trade increases economic wellbeing in countries that take part in it. For example, if paper can be produced more cheaply and efficiently in Finland than in Poland, which in turn produces more coal than it consumes, Finland would be better off selling paper to Poland, while Poland concentrates its efforts on mining coal and selling it to Finland. Thus the trade would increase the wealth and wellbeing of both countries.

Even if one country can produce both products more cheaply and efficiently, it is still beneficial for each country to specialize in producing specific products, and trade with each other. Almost 200 years ago one of the first modern economists, David Ricardo (1772–1823), introduced an example where both Portugal and England both produce clothes and wine. Portugal produces both products more cheaply than England. However, the difference in productivity levels is bigger when it comes to wine production than cloth production. Thus Portugal should focus on wine production and leave cloth production to England, because Portugal has a significantly bigger comparative advantage in wine than in clothes compared to England. Portugal will be significantly wealthier if it focuses on producing wine and buys clothes from England, instead of producing both.

In addition to the production advantage, the structure of global trade is shaped by customs duties and other barriers to trade, as well as technological innovation and working culture in each country. The mainstream studies of economic geography often disregard transportation costs because of their complexity. Consequently, transportation has developed into its own research field, and that field is examined in this book. Special attention is paid to maritime markets and the complex formation of their costs.

Globalization and the increase in maritime transport

Maritime transport has grown as an industry around the world throughout known history, except during major global wars and recessions. It has been concluded that even though the liberalization of global trade has been a significant part of globalization, this development would not have happened without cheap transportation costs, and countries would not be trading with others located on the opposite side of the world.

Figure 1.1 shows that when general economic activity, ie gross domestic product, has increased, the level of maritime transportation has increased even faster. This is caused by the fact that the production of products is no longer carried out in a single country: instead, raw materials and intermediate products can be shipped from country to country multiple times. Raw materials are turned into intermediate products, and they are in turn shipped to another country for further processing, and the products will arrive to their end customer only after being loaded and unloaded multiple times. Thus, as the number of production phases increases, so does the transportation needed.

Figure 1.1 Growth of world GDP and ocean freight, 1990–2016

SOURCE UNCTAD, 2017

Figure 1.1 details

• The plot for global trade starts at (1990, 100) and steadily increases to (2008, 275), then dips to 240 in the year 2009, then increases to (2016, 340).
• The plot for global maritime transport starts at (1990, 100) and steadily increases to (2008, 200), then dips to 190 in the year 2009, then increases to (2016, 260).
• The plot for world GDP starts at (1990, 100) and steadily increases to (2008, 170), then dips to 165 in the year 2009, then increases to (2016, 200).
• The plot for OECD industrial production index starts at (1990, 100) and increases to (2008, 140), then dips to 125 in the year 2009, then increases to (2016, 150).

The figures in Figure 1.1 are global. Until 2003, Finnish foreign transport increased steadily, but growth has since slowed down and the total amount of shipping varies from year to year. This has been caused by the diversification of Finland’s industrial sector from being largely forestry-dominated to specializing in, among other things, chemicals and metals.

Figure 1.2 The transportation market is complex

SOURCE Ministry of Transport and Communications, Finland, 2010

Figure 1.2 details

The route is mapped from Kazakhstan to Turkey to Poland and Taiwan, then to Tunisia to Bulgaria to China to France to Germany.

The map in Figure 1.2 shows how many separate trips are required before the raw materials from Kazakhstan (1 on the map) are...

Table of contents

• Cover
• PRAISE FOR MARITIME TRANSPORT
• Titlepage
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• About the author
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part ONE Maritime transport
• 01 Global maritime transport
• 02 Maritime transport in the Baltic Sea
• 03 Maritime transport in Finland
• Part TWO Maritime transport and logistics
• 04 Logistics
• 05 Components of the maritime economy
• 06 Principles of maritime economics
• 07 The economics of shipping
• Part THREE Maritime transport operations
• 08 Shipping company operations
• 09 Port operations
• Part FOUR The outlook for maritime transport
• 10 The environmental impact of maritime transportation
• 11 Safety and social responsibilities in maritime transportation
• 12 Information flows in maritime transport
• Afterword
• References
• Glossary
• Index
• Copyright