International Container Transportation Network Analysis Considering the Post-Panamax Class Container Ship

摘要

In accordance with the growing market of international container transport, carriers are employing global strategies such as routing change, introducing huge container vessels, and making alliance, while shippers are making global logistic strategies by SCM. On the other hand, the port administrators are also making various efforts to invite cargo and carriers. However, no research can be seen to answer how effective their strategies are, and what will be the results of market. The present paper proposes a tool to answer these questions by introducing of network equilibrium analysis of the international container transport market. In the analytical model, the port administrator's strategies and O.D. cargo volume are assumed to be given a priori, and domestic shippers' strategy is formulated as to minimize their total transport cost by choosing the export and the import and assigning of their cargo to each port. The carriers' strategy is assumed to minimize the ship operation cost including the port and the cargo handling charge by choosing routes and vessel size of each of the route and controlling the tariff of each route. The analytical result is obtained by solving of the equilibrium state of the market under a given scenario of each port administrator. The present paper gives some numerical examples focusing on East Asian main ports, and particularly on Japanese shippers' behavior.