MARITIME TRANSPORT VII

Editors:

MARITIME TRANSPORT VII

Editors: Francesc Xavier Martínez de Osés y Marcel·la Castells i Sanabra
Francesc Xavier Martínez de Osés
Marcel·la Castells i Sanabra

Departament de Ciència i Enginyeria

Nàutiques

1
 7th INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE
ON MARITIME TRANSPORT

Technological, Innovation and Research

MARITIME TRANSPORT ‘16

Editors:
Francesc Xavier Martínez de Osés
Marcel·la Castells i Sanabra
With the support of:

Sponsored by:

First edition: June 2016

© The editors, 2016

© Iniciativa Digital Politècnica, 2016
Oficina de Publicacions Acadèmiques Digitals de la UPC
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ISBN: 978-84-9880-591-8
 PREFACE

PREFACE

Sea transport of goods and passengers is constantly undergoing a meaningful rise due to
the globalisation of economy, thus provoking a trade speeding up and the specialization
of ships and port terminals, with the support of the concept of co modality and even the
synchro modality, and its environmental face ecomodality.
Ports, are the decisive and needed node in the transport chain, must serve the maritime
transport as an infrastructure providing a smooth change between modes of transport,
providing added value and net working among marine stakeholders. These aspects shall
be framed by the quality and environment-friendliness criteria that administrations and
society require.
In this regard, protection of the port environment, safety and security have become key
points for the development of modern maritime transport. In addition, the influence of
human factor on board the ships has to be strongly considered as a decisive element for
safe, secure and clean operations.
The MT'16 Conference is the last edition of a successful saga of congresses initiated in
the year 2001 ibn its first edition, followed by further editions. This event is an
opportunity to meet researchers, scientists, academics, professionals, entrepreneurs, and
all people involved in shipping and also in maritime training from any country. In its
2016 edition, administrations, institutions and companies will find a forum to meet, to
exchange and to discuss their own achievements. With the back scenario offered by the
Barcelona city and its enormous offer in touristic, cultural and gastronomic issues.
Welcome to the 7th International Congress on maritime Transport

3
MARITIME TRANSPORT VII

DIRECTORS

Francesc Xavier Martínez de Osés,

Director
Department of Nautical Science & Engineering
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona TECH

Marcel·la Castells i Sanabra

Academic Secretary
Department of Nautical Science & Engineering
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona TECH

Santiago Ordás Jiménez

Dean
Nautical Faculty of Barcelona
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona TECH

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Jordi Mateu Llevadot

Department of Nautical Science & Engineering
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-Barcelona TECH

Montse Margalef Calventus

Department of Nautical Science & Engineering
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-Barcelona TECH

4
 INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

 Adam Weintrit Gdynia, Maritime University, Poland
 Ana Bocanegra, Universidad de Cádiz, Spain
 Andrés Rafael Ortega Piris, Universidad de Cantabria, Spain
 Andrzej Bak, Akademia Morska, Szczecin, Poland
 Andrzej Felski, Polish Naval Academy in Gdynia, Poland
 Antoni Isalgué Buixeda, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 Beatriz Blanco Rojo, Universidad de Cantabria, Spain
 Boris Svilicic, Faculty of Maritime Studies, Croatia
 Durmus Ali Deveci, Maritime Faculty, Turkey
 Elen Twrdy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
 Francisco Piniella Corbacho, Universidad de Cádiz, Spain
 Iñaki Alcedo Momoito, Universidad del País Vasco, Spain
 Inmaculada Ortigosa Barragan, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 Itsaso Ibáñez Fernández, Universidad del País Vasco, Spain
 Jaime Rodrigo de Larrucea, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 Jesús E. Martínez Marín, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 Joaquim Blesa Izquierdo, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 José Magín Campos Cacheda, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 José Manuel de la Puente Martorell, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 Julio García Espinosa, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 Kjell Ivar Øvergård, Vestfold University College, Norway
 Olja Cokorilo, University of Belgrade, Serbia
 Ölçer Aykut, World Maritime University, Sweden
 Pau Casals Torrents, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 Pero Vidan, Faculty of Maritime Studies, Croatia
 Piotr Treichel, Maritime University of Szczcin, Poland
 Reynaldo Montes de Oca, Universidad del Caribe, Venezuela
 Rosa Mary de la Campa Portela, Universidad de la Coruña, Spain
 Rosana Salama, Universidad del Caribe, Venezuela
 Ryszard Wawruch, Gdynia Maritime University, Poland
 Sanja Bauk, University of Montenegro, Montenegro
 Sergio Iván Velásquez Correa, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
 Vladislav Maras University of Belgrade, Serbia

5
 INDEX

INDEX

MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Clasification societies rules for cold ironing. Comparison and current situation.
S. Espinosa, P. Casals, R. Bosch. UPC, Spain. .............................................................. 13

Risk driven semantic interoperability in the maritime surveillance domain. F.S.B. Dias,
J.E. Martínez, O. Delgado, E. Madariaga, G. Arriaga, UPC, Spain ..............................42

Digital maritime regulations: applications to ships and ports. M.Hagaseth, P.

Lohrmann, A. Ruiz, F. Oikonomou, D. Roythorne, S. Rayot, MARINTEK,
Norway ............................................................................................................................59

Maritime museum section – An innovative tourism product for Shkodra. M.

Bala, B.dionizi. University of Shkodra “Luigj Gurakuqi”, Albania ............................... 82

Transport logistics in South Cone of South America. G. de Melo, R. Garcia.

UPC, Spain ...................................................................................................................... 92

MARITIME EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Particularities of the maritime higher education system as part of the maritime
transport engineering studies. K. Lapa, A. Dukaj, E. Aliko, University “Ismail
Qemali”, Albania .......................................................................................................... 111

Scientific and pedagogical support of distance maritime education.

I. Makashina, Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University, Russia ............................ 118

Innovative way of teaching COLREGs. M. Djani, B. Mate, M. Robert, Faculty

of Maritime Studies Rijeka, Croatia ..............................................................................125

Additional MET programs for the masters on board LNG carriers. A. Gundić, D.
Ivanišević, D. Zec, University of Zadar, Croatia .......................................................... 131

HUMAN ELEMENT
Application of the ISM code on passenger ships and impact on the loss of human
lives at sea over the past 35 years. A. González, F. Padrón, A. Dionis, J.I Gómez,
M. C. adrián, J.M. Calvilla, Universidad de la Laguna, Spain ....................................141

7
MARITIME TRANSPORT VII

On cross cultural communication on a mixed crew. I. Smirnov, A. Kondratiev,

Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University, Russia .................................................... 149

Methods of developing intercultural competence in maritime English teaching.

A. Kondratiev, I. Smirnov, B. Dokuto, Admiral Ushakovn Maritime State
University ......................................................................................................................157

Working conditions on maritime transport: comparative survey between

Galician professionals and Spanish shipping companies. J. Louro, R.M. de la
Campa, R. Freire, Universidad da Coruña, Spain ........................................................ 165

Development of modern and harmonized training for seafarers. T. Brcko, M.

Perkovic, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia .................................................................. 185

SHIPPING NAVIGATION AND ROUTING

Technical and economic analysis between diesel and dual-fuel propulsion
engine. D. Patriot. Maxima Maritima, Indonessia ........................................................ 199

Cleaning of hydrographic data for determination the seabed of waterways. A.

Makar, Polish Naval Academy, Poland ........................................................................213

Towards new technology in valve maintenance. A. Varela, E. Montseny, . Grau,

UPC, Spain .................................................................................................................... 220

Ship routing applied at short sea distances. M. Grifoll, UPC, Spain ............................ 240

Partial structural analysis of the ECDIS EHO: Research: depth parameters and
the safety contour. S. Žuškin, D. Brčić, S. Kos, University of Rijeka, Croatia............. 246

MARITIME ENVIRONMENT AND ELECTRONICS AND HUMAN

INTERFACE
Protection from pollution in inland navigation in the Republic of Serbia. N.
Tomić. University of Belgrade, Serbia .......................................................................... 265

Marine litter pollution from nautical tourism in the Adriatic sea. M. Slišković, G.
Jelić-Mrčelić, Helena Ukić. University of Split, Croatia .............................................. 273

Oil spill response cost-efectiveness analytical tool (OSRCEAT): application in

the Canary Islands. J.M. Calvilla, J.R. Bergueiro, J.I. Gómez, F. Padrón, A.
González, P. Quintero. Universidad de la Laguna, Spain ............................................ 283

Optimal water supply related to water production capabilities on board-ship

management. S. Krile, M. Krile, L. Chybowski. Unviersity of Dubrovnik, Croatia ..... 290

Methanol as an alternative fuel for marine use to reduce the atmospheric

pollution. G. De Melo, I. Echevarrieta. UPC, Spain..................................................... 300

8
 INDEX

SAFETY AND SECURITY

Analysis and proposals on the operations of vessels to reduce accidents in

fishing craft from Spain. A. Torné, A. Isalgué, F.X. Martínez. UPC, Spain ................. 311

Evaluation of stability for a passenger ship in inland water in Koman Lake in

Albania. K. Lapa, B. Xhaferaj. University “Ismail Qemali”, Albania.......................... 319

Polish national maritime safety system – Objectives of the establishment,

structures and tasks. R. Wawruch, A. Krolikowski. Gdynia Maritime University,
Poland............................................................................................................................ 329

The automatic identification system (AIS): a data source for studying maritime
traffic. A. Serry. University of Le Havre, France .......................................................... 346

PORTS AND TERMINALS MANAGEMENT I

Technical viability and implications of shiprepair activity in the port of Santa

Cruz de Tenerife. New perspectives. F. Padrón, A. Dionis, M.C. Adrián, A.
González, S.R. Luis, A. Peña. Universidad de la Laguna, Spain .................................. 363

Scouring processes in harbor basins during the docking and undocking

manoeuvring: laboratory experiments. A. Mujal, X. Gironella, A. Sánchez. UPC,
Spain .............................................................................................................................. 374

Modeling an offshore container terminal: the Venice case study. A. Baldassara,

B. Bevivino, C. Marinacci, S. Ricci. Sapienza University of Rome, Italy...................... 386

Croatian maritime ports capacity, services and development plans. N. Kavran, N.

Perko, D. Žgaljić. Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, Croatia. ....................... 398

The influence of ports for Catalonia’s development. J. Olivella, V. García, F.

Solé. UPC, Spain ........................................................................................................... 407
Drafting maritime policies in developing countries – The case of latin-american
countries – coherency between national economic policies and maritime policy
writing objectives. Dr. German de Melo Rodriguez, UPC; Capt. Rodrigo
Garcia Bernal, GIZ.......................................................................................................416

SHIPPING BUSINESS

Strategy assessment in investment of a dry bulk tanker. S. Zamparelli, M. Catalani.

University of Molise, Italy............................................................................................433

Analysis and strategy of Barcelona’s port int he project Horizon 2020. E. Sáenz, J.E.
Martínez, E. Madariaga, L.M. Vega, UPC, Spain.......................................................443

9
MARITIME TRANSPORT VII

Risk management in maritime business: a qualitative study on managerial

decision making of ship owning company managers. H. Akpinar, D. Özer.
Dokuz Eylül University, Turkey ...............................................................................458

Spanish merchant marine and cargo movments at the port of Barcelona in

1875. L. Carbonell. UPC, Spain ...............................................................................474

Cruise traffic seasonality on western Mediterranean ports. J. Esteve, A. García,

J.E. Gutiérrez. Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Spain.....................................489

PORTS AND TERMINAL MANAGEMENT II

Adriatic motorways of the sea analysis. N. Kavran, A. Jugović, Z. Kavran.

Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, Croatia ...................................................507

Hoteling cruise chip’s power requirements for high voltage shore connection
installations. S. Espinosa, P. Casals, M. Castells. UPC, Spain ...................................516

Cross-border cooperation on water transportation, between region of Shkodra

and Montenegro. A. Hasaj, E. Krymbi, D. Kruja. University “Lugj Gurakuqi”,
Albania .........................................................................................................................535

Northern Adriatic port system – Competition and collaboration among

container terminals. E. Twrdy, M. Batista, M. Zanne. University of Ljubljana,
Slovenia .......................................................................................................................545

Management structures and ownership models of the Adriatic, Aegean and

Black sea ports. S. Šekularac. University of Montenegro, Montenegro .....................555

Port worker's safety monitoring by RFID technology: a review of some solutions

S. Bauk, R. Dzankic. University of Montenegro, Maritime Faculty, Montenegro,
A. Schmeink. RWTH Aachen University, Germany......................................................570

10
MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES
 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

CLASSIFICATION SOCIETIES RULES FOR COLD IRONING.

COMPARISON AND CURRENT SITUATION

Sergi Espinosa Sanes (I)

Pau Casals-Torrens, PhD (II)
Ricard Bosch Tous, PhD (III)
(I) Barcelona School of Nautical Studies (FNB), Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya. BarcelonaTech (UPC). Corresponding author and presenter.
sespinosasanes@gmail.com
(II) Department of Electrical Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
BarcelonaTech (UPC). ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0464-3831
(III) Department of Electrical Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
BarcelonaTech (UPC).

Abstract

The current paper pretends to offer a global vision about the actual situation of the
regulations and requirements applied to high voltage shore connection systems, also
known as cold ironing. To develop the entire study, the following Classification
Societies rules have been consulted:
• ABS - High Voltage Shore Connections
• BV - High-Voltage Shore Connection System
• DNV - Electrical Shore Connections
• DNV-GL- Rules for classification of ships
• LLOYD’S REGISTER - Rules and regulations for the classification of ships
• RINA - Rules for the classification of ships

In the way to accomplish the proposed objective, the mentioned rules have been used to
develop a comparison including all their aspects and regulations related with “the
shore side” of the entire installation. These requirements are also compared with the
international standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005-1 High voltage Shore Connection (HVSC)
Systems and show the grade of accuracy provided by each Classification Society
against that standard.

Finally, the results of the comparison show that many of the studied rules focus their
rules just on the ship side of the installation or just provide some general
recommendations for the shore side. According to that, the shore side is considered
such as not part of the ship and consequently is not considered in their rules.

Key words: High Voltage Shore Connection, Power demand, Cold ironing, cruise ships, air
pollution from ships;

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

1. INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, many important ports are developing new technologies aiming to reduce or
suppress emissions from ships. These technologies, among others, consist basically on
the possibility of connecting ships on port, and substitute their main power source,
generators, for a power source provided from the shore by a shore to ship connection,
also known as high voltage shore connection or cold ironing.
The maritime sector, particularly ship’s design and construction, is always over the
control of Classification Society’s rules. They provide many rules about any area they
consider important for ship’s safety. When that rule becomes outdated they refresh it
with new regulations or modifications based on their experience. But, when new
technologies start to rise importance within the sector their related rules use to be poor.
Then, they try to refresh them as soon as they can, trying to rise their accuracy on its
design.
The main objective of this paper is to provide a clear idea of the current situation of
Classification Society’s rules for high voltage shore connection. Aiming to achieve the
proposed purpose, the following Classification Societies and their rules are going to be
analysed:

• American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) – High Voltage Shore Connections

(November 2011);
• Bureau Veritas (BV) – High-voltage shore connection system (January 2010);
• Det Norske Veritas (DNV)* – Electrical Shore Connections (July 2014);
• Det Norske Veritas & Germanischer Lloyd – Rules for classification of ships,
Part 4, Chapter 8 (January 2016);
• Lloyd’s Register (LR) – Rules and regulations for the classification of ships,
Part 7, chapter 13 (July 2014);
• RINA Services (RINA) – Rules for the classification of ships, Part F, chapter13,
section 15 (January 2015);
To increase the value of the present paper, DNV-GL rules have been considered for the
comparison. After analysing the whole rules, it has been noticed that this rule does not
provide specific requirements for that the studied technology. Because of that, DNV
rules, published before DNV-GL merger have been considered too such as informative
data. In the way to introduce a difference between that rule which is not applicable for
new constructions and the others, during all the paper it is going to be mentioned such
as DNV*.
In addition, the international standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005-1 (2012), called such as
“High Voltage Shore Connection (HVSC) Systems – General requirements” is going to
be studied and contrasted with the mentioned rules provided by Classification Societies.
Then, the listed rules are going to be compared between them and with the International
standard too.

2. METHOD

Aiming to make the organization clear and understandable, all the components or parts
of the complete installation are going to be isolated aiming to study them with their own

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

additional requirements and rules. Comparisons included in the following sections are
commonly developed in table shape. According to the mentioned shape, shortening all
Classification Societies names have been necessary. For that reason, all of them are
represented by their initials. The international standard ISO/IEC/IEE is mentioned with
the following initials “STND”.

2.1 INSTALLATION’S MAIN COMPOSITION REQUIREMENTS

From a simplified point of view, and according to the International Standard

IEC/ISO/IEEE 80005-1, any system shall be designed in accordance with a generic
architecture showed in the next block diagram:
Figure 1 - Main composition of the installation; from ISO/IEC/IEEE
80005-1;

The international standard and Bureau Veritas are the unique parties that provides
layouts and some useful diagrams for designing shore connection installations.
Particularly, Bureau Veritas provides more than the typical legend and include some
notes about the versatility of each element against a good compatibility with the major
part of world’s fleet. The layout is mainly equal to the standard’s one. The rest of the
checked rules do not include any visual source for general installation’s composition. In
addition, complementary requirements for high-voltage shore connection systems are
provided in the annexes of the international standard for some type of ships that are
going to use the shore connection.

The importance of these sources in any rule is very important because it provides a
generic idea about the composition, preventing at the same time big design mistakes and
not wasting time developing incorrect designs.

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

2.2 GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

The international standard for High voltage (HV) shore supply establishes that, in order
to standardize this type of installations and link nominal voltages in different ports, high
voltage shore connections shall be provided with a nominal voltage of 6,6 kV A.C and/
or 11 kV A.C. Otherwise, if some ships use to repeat itinerary at the same ports and
their dedicated berths, other IEC voltage nominal values may be considered. Bureau
Veritas agrees with the international standard regarding to that each ship is to be
provided with a dedicated high voltage shore supply installation which is galvanically
isolated from other connected ships and the shore power.
Moreover, according to the standard, at the connection point looking to the
socket/connector face, the phase sequence shall be L1-L2-L3 or A-B-C or R-S-T
and the system shall be balanced. Phase sequence rotation diagram shall be fixed at
its location and phasors must rotate counter clockwise in reference to fixed
observer.
In that section, corresponding to general requirements, only the standard and Bureau
Veritas provide requirements or recommendations. The other Classification Societies do
not pronounce their selves about any particular voltage or frequency. Bureau Veritas
add a particular note in which advertise that additional requirements and/or restrictions
may be imposed by the National Administration or Authorities within whose
jurisdiction the ship is intended to operate and/or by the Owners or Authorities
responsible for a shore supply or distribution system. Moreover, it includes that the
connection, must not adversely affect the availability of ship’s own power sources, in
order to allow them to restore power.
As regard to power supply’s capacity, Bureau Veritas provides that the rating of the
supply system is to be adequate for the normal continuous electrical load of the vessel at
quay. In particular, the external supplies are to be sufficiently rated to supply the
following services:

• Essential services normally required in port

• Services required to ensure ready availability of non-operating main and
auxiliary machinery
• Services required to prevent damage to cargo of stores
In case that propulsion machinery is intended to be used to maintain the vessel at
quay because of heavy weather, the whole shore supply system is to be sized
accordingly.

2.3 POWER’S QUALITY

The energy supplied from shore to ships shall be able to maintain certain quality
parameters, such as voltage, frequency and harmonic distortion. After checking all the
rules, only the international standard, Bureau Veritas, and Lloyd’s Register cover
power’s quality by their own requirements. DNV-GL provides some requirements for
that field but they are included in its general rules for electrical installations. According
to their specific rules for high voltage shore connection, Bureau Veritas is the most
complete one because they provide many tolerances for each situation and parameter.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Lloyd’s is, as well as Bureau Veritas, very complete, but the extracted data for power’s
quality has to be consulted in its general part for electrical engineering. That
classification society, is the only one that not provides particular tolerances for
harmonic distortions, it provides an equation to calculate the total harmonic distortion
(THD) depending on the frequency, fact which is very interesting. All these
requirements are provided in the next tables:

Table 1 – Power’s quality requirements. Continuous tolerances

comparison

Continuous tolerances STND. BV DNV-GL LR

Voltage
Voltage tolerance at the terminals of the shore connection +2,5% +2,5% 6%
Χ
switchboard according to IEC 600092-301 (1980) -2,5% -2,5% -10%
Voltage unbalanced tolerance including phase voltage
Χ 7% Χ Χ
unbalance as a result of load according to IEC 600092-201

Phase to phase voltage unbalance Χ 3% Χ Χ

Voltage cyclic variation deviation Χ 2% Χ 5%
Voltage tolerance at the point of the shore supply connection (%
6% Χ 6% +6%
of nominal voltage), for no-load conditions
Voltage tolerance at the point of the shore supply connection (% 6%
-3,5% Χ Χ
of nominal voltage), for rated load conditions -10%
Frequency
Frequency tolerance (continuous) between no load and nominal +5% +5% +5% +5%
rating; according to IEC 600092-301 (1980) -5% -5% -5% -5%
Frequency cyclic variation tolerance (continuous) Χ 0,5% Χ Χ

Table 2 - Power’s quality requirements. Transient tolerances

comparison

Transient tolerances STND. BV DNV-GL LR

+20% +20% +20% +20%
Voltage
-15% -20% -15% -20%
Max. Max.
Voltage transient recovery time Χ Max. 1,5s
1,5s 1,5s
+10% +10% +10% +10%
Frequency
-10% -10% -10% -10%
Max.
Frequency transient recovery time Χ Max. 5s Χ
5s
The response of the voltage and frequency at the shore
connection when subjected to an appropriate range of step
√ √ Χ Χ
changes in load shall be defined and documented for each HV
shore supply installation;
The maximum step change in load expected when connected
to a HV shore supply shall be defined and documented for √ Χ √ Χ
each ship.

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Table 3 - Power’s quality requirements. Harmonic distortion and

global variation tolerances comparison

Harmonic distortion and global tolerances STND. BV DNV-GL LR

Voltage individual harmonic distortion tolerances, for no-
3% 3% 5% 3%
loads conditions
Voltage total harmonic distortion tolerances, for no-loads
5% 5% Χ 5%
conditions
Voltage total variation tolerances
Χ 20% Χ Χ
(continuous + transient variations)
Frequency total variation tolerances
Χ 12,5% Χ Χ
(continuous + transient variations)

2.4 COMPATIBLE ASSESSMENT BEFORE CONNECTION

Before connecting any ship to shore HV supply, a compatibility checking shall be

performed to verify the possibility of connection between both parts. That assessment,
which is a common requirement in all the studied rules, is not covered by all of them.
Only ISO/IEC/IEEE standard, RINA, BV and Lloyd’s, include the compatibility
checking procedure. In addition, according to Lloyd’s Rules, the owner is the main
responsible of doing the compatibility assessment before arriving to an enabled shore
connection port. Then, just Lloyd’s Register rules provide a responsible for
compatibility assessments. In the following source, table 4, a comparison between the
different checking aspects from the mentioned rules has been developed:

Table 4 - Compatibility assessment, requirements comparison

Compatibility requirements STND. LR RINA

Compliance with the requirements of the IEC/ISO/IEEE standard and any
√ Χ Χ
deviations from the recommendations;
Minimum prospective short-circuit current; √ Χ Χ
Maximum prospective short-circuit current; √ √ √
Nominal ratings of the shore supply, ship to shore connection and ship
√ √ √
connection;
Any de-rating for cable coiling or other factors; √ Χ Χ
Acceptable voltage variations at ship switchboards between no-load and nominal
√ Χ √
rating;
Steady state and transient ship load demands when connected to a HV shore
√ Χ √
supply, HV shore supply response to step changes in load;
System study and calculations; √ Χ Χ
Verification of ship equipment impulse withstand voltage; √ Χ √
Compatibility of shore and ship side control voltages, where applicable; √ √ √

Compatibility of communication link; √ √ √

Distribution system compatibility assessment (shore power transformer neutral
√ √ √
earthing);
Functioning of ship earth fault protection, monitoring and alarms when
√ √ √
connected to a HVSC supply;
Sufficient cable length; √ Χ √

18
 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Compatibility of safety circuits, in accordance with the rule; √ √ √

Total harmonic distortion (THD); √ Χ Χ

Consideration of hazardous areas, where applicable; √ Χ √

Consideration of electrochemical corrosion due to equipotential bonding; √ Χ Χ

Utility interconnection requirements for load transfer parallel connection; and
√ Χ √
equipotential bond monitoring;
Emergency Shut-Down requirements; Χ √ Χ
Rated current or apparent power; Χ √ Χ
Quality of power supply; Χ √ √
Minimum supply apparent power or current Capacity; Χ √ Χ
Isolation; Χ √ Χ

As a result of that comparison, a compatibility assessment based on all the analysed

rules had been developed trying to include all the important aspects that some of them
may not pay attention on. In addition, the redaction of each point had been done with a
clear and understandable vocabulary and if it were necessary, with a higher extension.
That complete assessment shall include

1. Minimum and maximum prospective short-circuit current;

2. Nominal ratings of shore supply, ship to shore connection and ship connection,
including frequency, voltage, quality of power supply and rated current or
apparent power;
3. Any de-rating for cable coiling or other factors;
4. Acceptable voltage variations at ship switchboards between no-load and nominal
rating;
5. Steady state and transient ship load demands when connected to a HV shore
supply, HV shore supply response to step changes in load;
6. System study and calculations mentioned in a previous section;
7. Verification of ship equipment impulse withstand voltage;
8. Compatibility of communication link;
9. Distribution system compatibility assessment (shore power transformer neutral
earthing) and equipotential bond monitoring;
10. Functioning of ship earth fault protection, monitoring and alarms when
connected to a HVSC supply and compatibility of safety circuits;
11. Sufficient cable length;
12. Total harmonic distortion (THD);
13. Consideration of hazardous areas, where applicable;
14. Consideration of electrochemical corrosion due to equipotential bonding;
15. Utility interconnection requirements for load transfer parallel connection;
16. Emergency Shut-Down requirements;
17. Isolation;
Bureau Veritas, as it was mentioned previous to the comparison, provides that an
overall compatibility assessment is to be carried out, but it does not provide details
about assessment’s range and extension.

19
MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

2.5 CONVERSION EQUIPMENT

For transformer’s and equipment’s design, the requirements are more complete than
other components or fields of the system. For semiconductors converters, requirements
have not been developed further than construction in order to be in compliance with the
respective IEC rule. The comparison between the implicated rules is showed in table

Table 5 - Conversion equipment, requirements comparison

Conversion equipment requirements STND. BV DNV* RINA

Transformers shall be of the separate winding type for primary and
secondary side. The secondary side shall be star-configuration with √ Χ Χ Χ
neutral bushings (Dyn).
The temperature of supply-transformer windings shall be monitored. In
the event of over temperature, an alarm signal shall be transmitted to √ Χ Χ √
the ship using the data-communication link.
Short circuit protection for each supply transformer shall be provided
by circuit-breakers or fuses in the primary circuit and by a circuit √ Χ Χ Χ
breaker in the secondary.
Overload protection shall be provided for the primary and secondary
circuit. In the event of overload, an alarm signal shall be activated to √ Χ Χ Χ
warn relevant duty personnel.
Where provided, converting equipment for connecting HV shore
supplies to a ship electrical distribution system shall be constructed in
√ √ Χ Χ
accordance with IEC 60076 for transformers and IEC 60146-1 series
for semiconductor convertors.
The protection for electrical equipment shall be in accordance with IEC
√ √ Χ Χ
61936-1, as applicable.
A cooling system shall be installed for transformers on shore. Whether
by air or with liquid, an alarm shall be initiated when the cooling √ Χ Χ Χ
medium exceeds a predetermined temperature and/or flow limits.

The transformer shall include overvoltage protection, Χ Χ √ Χ

If necessary, means are to be provided to reduce transformer current in-

rush and/or to prevent the starting of large motors, or the connection of Χ Χ Χ √
other large loads, when an HV supply system is connected.
The effect of harmonic distortion and power factor is to be considered
Χ √ Χ Χ
in the assignment of a required power rating.

To sum up the last chart, conversion equipment requirements that shall be considered at
the design statement are basically divided in four types:

1. Constructive requirements based on IEC international standards:

2. Main requirements of the transformer (Type and configuration):
3. Transformer equipment:
4. Protections and safety requirements:

All of them are provided by the international standard, excluding isolated requirements
that each Classification provides in that field. In addition to these last four basic groups
of requirements, alarm and data communication system shall be considered. It is only

20
 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

completely covered by the international standard which requires a data communication

system between the ship and the shore. By this system, alarms from onshore protection
equipment shall be transmitted to the ship. Related with transformers, shore transformer
high-temperature alarm shall be transmitted.

In the ABS rules, onboard transformers are well covered, but not onshore transformers.
The unique requirements about onshore transformers are very generic recommendations
without big utility. That is because the ABS rule does not cover onshore systems
furthermore than interface equipment.

2.6 GALVANIC ISOLATION

Safety measures are always important in all the electrical installations. A galvanic
isolation is such a good measure or system to increase that safety. In particular, only the
international standard, BV, DNV* and RINA mention in their rules some regulations
for that aspect. The comparative between them is showed below in table 6:

Table 6 - Galvanic isolation, requirements comparison

Regulations and requirements STND. BV DNV* RINA

Galvanic separation is to be provided between the on-shore and on- √ √ √ √
board systems.
Each ship shall be provided with a dedicated HV shore supply
installation which is galvanically isolated from other connected ships
√ √ √ Χ
and consumers. This may not be required where a HV shore supply is
dedicated to supply only ships which have galvanic isolation on board.
When the isolation is performed by a transformer, this shall have
Χ Χ √ Χ
separate windings for the primary and the secondary side.
It is recommended that If a power transformer is installed on shore, the
transformer shall include overvoltage protection, protecting the vessel Χ Χ √ Χ
against lightning impulse over voltages.

Summarizing last chart, main requirements that are going to be considered for galvanic
isolation are:

1. Providing a galvanic separation between each ship and each power supply on
shore.

2. If that isolation will be performed by a transformer, this shall have:

a. Separate windings for the primary and the secondary side
b. Overvoltage protection.

2.7 NEUTRAL EARTHING RESISTOR

The earthing resistor is one of the most important safety systems within the installation.
The unique rules that include some requirements for this protection system are the
international standard, BV and DNV*. In table 7 their requirements are compared:

21
MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Table 7 - Neutral earthing resistor, requirements comparison

Requirement or regulation STND. BV DNV*

The neutral point of the HVSC system transformer feeding the shore-
to-ship power receptacles shall be earthed:

a) through a neutral earthing resistor; or

√ √ Χ
b) where frequency conversion of the shore supply is required, either
through a neutral earthing resistor or through an earthing transformer
with resistor on the primary side that provides an equivalent earth
fault impedance.
If the system is earthed through a neutral earthing resistor, its rating in
amperes shall not be less 1,25 times the preliminary system charging √ Χ Χ
current. The rating shall be minimum 25 A continuous.
Where an equivalent earth fault impedance is chosen when frequency
conversion of the shore supply is required, studies should be √ Χ Χ
conducted to verify effectiveness.
The continuity of the neutral earthing resistor shall be continuously
monitored. In the event of loss of that continuity the shore side circuit √ Χ √
breaker shall be tripped.
An earth fault shall not create a step or touch voltage exceeding 30 V
√ Χ Χ
at any location in the shore to ship power system.

The vessel is not to be permitted to establish shore power connection

Χ √ Χ
with an earth fault present in the high voltage system on both sides.

The main requirement extracted from the comparison is that the neutral point of the
Shore power feeding transformer shall be earthed through a neutral earthing resistor.
According to Bureau Veritas, the neutral point treatment on the shore supply must be
able to adapt to various grounding philosophies. In that way, the system will be able to
supply a wider range of ships.
In case frequency conversion of the shore supply would be required, it can be earthed
though the same system or using an earthing transformer with resistor on the primary
side that provides an equivalent earth fault impedance to the system. Such as numerical
requirements, the following summarized requirements are important to be considered:

• Neutral earthing resistor rating shall not be less than 1,25 times the preliminary
current in amperes.
• An earth fault shall not create a step voltage exceeding 30 V at any location of
the system.
One very important requirement provided by the International standard and DNV*, is
that the neutral earthing resistor shall be continuously monitored to verify the bonding
between shore and ship. If it would be any loss of bonding or continuity of the system,
the shore circuit breaker shall be activated.
The international standard provides additional requirements with higher accuracy for
some particular type of ships such as cruise ships that are included in its annexes. As an
example of that for cruise ships, it includes that the shore side transformer star point

22
 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

shall be earthed, through a neutral earthing resistor of 540 ohms continuous rated, and
bonded only to the shipside.

2.8 EQUIPOTENTIAL BONDING

The maintenance and monitoring of the equipotential bonding between shore earthing
electrode and ship’s hull is a very important aspect of the design statement. That aspect
is only directly covered by the following rules, which are compared in table 8:

Table 8 - Equipotential bonding, requirements comparison

Regulations and requirements STND. ABS RINA BV

An equipotential bonding between the ship’s hull and shore
√ √ √ √
earthing electrode shall be established.
An interlock is provided such that the HV shore connection
cannot be established until the equipotential bonding has been
established. An interlock arrangement is to be provided such Χ √ √ Χ
that the loss of equipotential bonding is to result in the
disconnection of the HV shore power.
Arrangements are to be provided so that when the shore
connection is established, the resulting system grounding
onboard is to be compatible with the vessel’s original
Χ √ √ Χ
electrical system grounding philosophy. Integrity of the
equipotential bonding is to be continuously checked as a part
of the ship shore safety system.
The voltage rating of electrical equipment insulation materials
is to be appropriate to the system grounding method, taking
into consideration the fact that the insulation material will be Χ √ Χ Χ
subjected to 3 times higher voltage under single phase ground
fault condition.

As a result of that comparison, a complete requirement guide based on all the analysed
rules had been developed trying to include all the important aspects that some of them
not include. The complete requirements for equipotential bonding shall be:

1. An equipotential bonding between the ship’s hull and shore earthing electrode
shall be established
2. An interlock is provided such that the HV shore connection cannot be
established until the equipotential bonding has been established. Interlock
arrangement is to be provided such that the loss of equipotential bonding is to
result in the disconnection of the HV shore power.
3. Arrangements are to be provided so that when the shore connection is
established, the resulting system grounding onboard is to be compatible with the
vessel’s original electrical system grounding philosophy.
4. Integrity of the equipotential bonding is to be continuously checked as a part of
the ship shore safety system.
5. The voltage rating of electrical equipment insulation materials is to be
appropriate to the system grounding method, taking into consideration the fact
that the insulation material will be subjected to 3 times higher voltage under
single phase ground fault condition.

23
MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

2.9 SHORT CIRCUIT PROTECTION ONSHORE

Interlocking some protection measures is basically to guarantee personal’s safety in all

the port’s environment. That is the main reason why paying attention on this step is very
important. Including short circuit protections such circuit breakers is basic in design
statement. All the requirements collected from all the previous mentioned rules, are
compared in table 9, which is showed next:

Table 9 - Short circuit protection, requirements comparison

Regulations or requirements STND. DNV* ABS BV RINA

The prospective short-circuit contribution level

from the HV shore distribution system shall be √ Χ Χ Χ Χ
limited by the shore side system to 16 KA rms; (for
general ships)

Electrical system/equipment shall be rated for √ Χ Χ Χ Χ

minimum of 16 kA rms for 1 s, and 40 kA peak.

The rated short-circuit making capacity of the

circuit breaker is not to be less than the prospective
peak value of the short-circuit current. The rated Χ Χ √ √ Χ
short-circuit breaking capacity of the circuit
breaker is not to be less than the maximum
prospective symmetrical short-circuit current.

All circuit breakers and cables used for the

electrical shore connection shall be rated for the Χ √ Χ Χ Χ
prospective short circuit currents that may appear
at their location in the installation.

Interlocks shall be provided in switchboards

against simultaneously feeding from the ship’s own
generators and the electrical shore connection Χ √ Χ Χ Χ
when the parallel connected short circuit power
exceeds the switchboards' short circuit strength.

A short time parallel feeding as a “make before

break” arrangement is accepted when arranged Χ √ Χ Χ Χ
with automatic disconnection of one of the parallel
feeders within 30 s.

Shore connection HV circuit breaker is to be Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ

equipped with low voltage protection (LVP).

In calculating the maximum prospective short-

circuit current, the source of current is to include
the maximum number of generators which can be
simultaneously connected the shore supply Χ Χ Χ Χ √
contribution and the maximum number of motors
which are normally simultaneously connected in
the system.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Protection against short-circuit currents is to be Χ Χ Χ √ Χ

provided by circuit- breakers or fuses.

The calculations may take into account any

arrangements that:

• prevent permanent parallel connection of high

voltage shore supply with ship sources of electrical Χ Χ Χ Χ √
power and/or,
• restrict the number of ship generators operating
during parallel connection to transfer load,
• restrict load to be connected.

After analysing all these rules it is easy to conclude that each rule or each classification
society tries to cover short circuit protection in a basic way. The truth of it, is that only
the international standard covers in an accurate way this section providing concrete
values for short-circuit current among others. As it can be seen in the chart, the
ISO/IEC/IEEE standard has some regulations for generic ships contained in the main
body of the rule. In addition, it contains some concrete requirements for some type of
ships such as cruise ships. For example, in the next table a comparison between general
requirements of the international standard for that section and the specific ones for
cruise ships provided in its annex C is developed to emphasize that the standard and its
regulations depend on the ship.

Table 10 - Comparison for short circuit protection numerical

requirements between general type of ships and cruise ships

Rate Generic ships Cruise ships

Prospective short-circuit contribution level shall be
16 KA rms 25 kA rms
limited by the shore side system to:
Short-circuit current shall be of: 16 kA / 1 s Χ
Minimum
Peak short-circuit current shall be of: 40 kA Χ

Short-circuit current shall be of: Χ 25 kA / 1 s

Maximum
Peak short-circuit current shall be of: Χ 63 kA.

The remaining rules, are only covering short-circuit aspects in their general electric
rules but not in the specific shore power rule or guide. Some of them are only including
short and general rules that are not enough meaning by their own self.

2.10 CIRCUIT BREAKERS AND SAFETY INTERLOCKS

Circuit breakers and switches, the mainly protection devices, shall be designed with
accuracy and with a guarantee that they would work and would be activated in the exact
situation. The next chart shows a comparison between all the rules and its requirements
about circuit breakers and switches:

25
MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Table 11 - Circuit breakers and safety interlocks, requirements

comparison
Requirements STND ABS BV DNV* LR RINA
In order to have the installation isolated before it
is earthed, the circuit-breaker, disconnector and
√ √ √ √ √ √
earthing switch shall be interlocked in accordance
with the requirements of IEC 62271-200.
HV shore connection circuit breaker is to be
√ √ Χ Χ Χ √
remotely operated.
The rated making capacity of the circuit breaker
and the earthing switch shall not be less than the
√ √ Χ √ Χ Χ
prospective peak value of the short-circuit current
(IP) calculated in accordance with IEC 61363-1.
The rated short-circuit breaking capacity of the
circuit-breaker shall not be less than the
maximum prospective symmetrical short-circuit √ √ Χ √ Χ Χ
current (IAC(0,5T)) calculated in accordance with
IEC 61363-1.
Short circuit protection for each supply
transformer shall be provided by circuit-breakers
√ Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
or fuses in the primary circuit and by a circuit
breaker in the secondary.
The continuity of the neutral earthing resistor
shall be continuously monitored. In the event of
√ Χ Χ √ Χ Χ
loss of the continuity the shore side circuit
breaker shall be tripped.
The HV circuit-breaker on the secondary side of the transformer shall open all insulated poles in the
event of the following conditions:
a) overcurrent including short-circuit, √ √ √ √ √ √
b) over-voltage/ under-voltage √ Χ √ Χ √ √
c) reverse power √ Χ √ Χ √ √
d) over frequency √ Χ Χ Χ Χ √
In order to satisfy the last requirement, at least the following protective devices, or equivalent
protective measures, shall be provided:
synchrocheck (25) or voltage sensing
d) √ Χ Χ Χ Χ √
device (84) (for dead bus verification)
e) undervoltage (27) √ Χ √ √ Χ √
f) reverse power (32) √ Χ √ √ Χ √
load unbalance, negative phase sequence
g) √ Χ Χ √ Χ Χ
overcurrent (46)
h) instantaneous overcurrent (50) √ Χ √ √ Χ √
i) phase time overcurrent (51) √ Χ Χ √ Χ √
j) earth fault overcurrent (51G) √ Χ √ √ Χ √
k) overvoltage (59) √ Χ √ Χ Χ √
l) directional phase overcurrent (67) √ Χ Χ √ Χ √
m) Phase sequence voltage (47) Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ √
n) Overload (49) Χ Χ √ Χ Χ √
o) Frequency (under and over) (81) Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ √
(Standard device designation numbers are shown in brackets above, as per IEEE Std C37.2™)

26
 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

The protection systems shall be provided with

battery back-up adequate for at least 30 min.
Upon failure of the battery charging or activation √ Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
of the back-up system, an alarm shall be
communicated to the ship.
Arrangements shall be provided so that the circuit-breakers cannot be closed when any of the
following conditions exist:
one of the earthing switches is closed
a) √ Χ Χ √ Χ √
(shore-side/ship-side);
b) the pilot contact circuit is not established; √ √ Χ √ Χ √
c) emergency stop facilities are activated; √ √ Χ √ Χ √
ship or shore control, alarm or safety
d) system self-monitoring diagnostics detect √ Χ Χ √ Χ √
an error that would affect safe connection;
the communication link between shore and
e) √ Χ Χ √ Χ √
ship is not operational, where applicable;
the permission from the ship is not
f) √ √ Χ Χ Χ Χ
activated;
g) the HV supply is not present; √ √ Χ Χ Χ √

equipotential bonding is not established (via

h) √ √ Χ Χ Χ Χ
equipotential bond monitoring relays)

An error within the HV connection system

i) that could pose an unacceptable risk to the Χ √ Χ Χ Χ √
safesupply of shoreside power to the vessel;

j) An earth fault; Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ √

Summarizing the content of that comparison, we can conclude that circuit breaker and
switches rules can be very complete such as the international standard or RINA, or very
incomplete. Incomplete rules provide requirements for these systems, but not in their
specific rule. They make reference to their general electric rules for classification of
ships.

2.11 INTERFACE EQUIPMENT

2.11.1 Sockets and plugs

The interface equipment is very important within onshore power installations. The huge
amount of power that is going to be supplied to a ship, is very dangerous because of its
high voltage. This is the main reason why the connection equipment shall be able to
guarantee the safety of the personal who manipulate the interface elements, the safety of
the ship and the safety of onshore equipment. In that way, the requirements for
connection and interface equipment are generally covered in different levels of
accuracy, by all the rules due to guarantee high safety levels during the power supply
and at the procedures of connection and disconnection.
The first elements to consider are the mainly interface equipment, the plug and the
socket. These elements are going to be the main contact systems between the ship and
the shore. Requirements for plug and socket have been compared in table 12:

27
MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Table 12 - Sockets and plugs, requirements comparison

Requirements STND. ABS BV DNV* LR RINA

Plugs and sockets are to be protected from dust, √ √ Χ Χ Χ Χ

moisture and condensation while not in use.
The minimum protection rating of plugs and Χ √ Χ Χ Χ Χ
sockets is to be IP66.
The plug and socket system shall be of a type Χ Χ Χ √ Χ Χ
tested design, suitable for marine use.
Plugs and socket-outlets shall be in accordance to
IEC 62613-1 and IEC 62613-2 or a relevant
National Standard.

(IEC 62613: Plugs, socket-outlets and ship √ √ Χ

Χ √ Χ
couplers for high-voltage shore connection
systems (HVSC Systems): Part 1: General
requirements; Part 2: Dimensional compatibility
and interchangeability requirements for
accessories to be used by various types of ship.)

Plugs and socket-outlet connection shall be in

areas where personnel will be protected in the
event of an arc flash as a result of an internal fault √ Χ √ Χ √ Χ
in the plug and/or socket-outlet by barrier and
access control measures.
Each plug shall be fitted with pilot contacts for √ √
Χ √ Χ Χ
continuity verification of the safety circuit.
The plug and socket-outlet arrangement is to be
fitted with a mechanical securing device that
locks the connection in engaged position. In √ Χ √ Χ Χ √
addition, they are to be designed so that an
incorrect connection cannot be made.
The shore-side of the connection cable is to be
fitted by plug(s). The plug body is to protect all Χ Χ √
Χ Χ Χ
contacts. Cable connections may be permanently
connected on shore to suitable terminations.
The shipside of the connection cable is to be fitted
with connector(s). Cable connections may be Χ √
Χ Χ Χ Χ
permanently connected on board to suitable
terminations.
Cable extensions are not permitted. Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ √

The earthing contacts are to make contact before Χ √

Χ √ Χ Χ
the live contact pins do when inserting a plug.
Plugs are to be designed so that no strain is
transmitted to the terminals and contacts. The
contacts are only to be subjected to the √ √
Χ √ Χ Χ
mechanical load which is necessary to ensure
satisfactory contact pressure, also when
connecting and disconnecting.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Each plug and socket-outlet is to have a

permanent, durable and readable nameplate with
the following information:
• Manufacturer's name and trademark; Χ √
Χ Χ Χ Χ
• type designation;
• applicable rated values;
The nameplates are to be readable during normal
service.

After analysing all these requirements, the accuracy degree and the coverage depends
on which rule is considered. As it can be seen in the last chart, the international
standard, BV and RINA have a very good coverage, having similar criteria between
them.
Moreover, Bureau Veritas provides an extended and very detailed section about type
tests on power connection plug and socket-outlets. It includes that High Voltage plugs
and sockets are to be type tested and its corresponding reports must be submitted.
Aiming to make it easier, the section is composed by two test areas that shall be
checked in the following order, first electrical and then mechanical.
All the compared requirements have been unified in the next summary aiming to make
their application clear and emphasizing the most important points. Plugs and sockets
shall be in accordance with the next summarized requirements:

• Protection; plugs and sockets are to be protected from dust, moisture and
condensation while not in use. The minimum protection rating of plugs and
sockets is to be IP66.

• Construction and dimensioning; Plugs and socket-outlets shall be in

accordance to IEC 62613-1 and IEC 62613-2.

• Location; plugs and socket-outlet connection shall be in areas where personnel

will be protected in the event of an arc flash.

• Pilot contacts; Each plug shall be fitted with pilot contacts for continuity
verification of the safety circuit.

• No additional strains; Plugs are to be designed so that no strain is transmitted

to the terminals and contacts.
• Security device; plug and socket-outlet arrangement is to be fitted with a
mechanical securing device that locks the connection in engaged position.

• Nameplate; Each plug and socket-outlet is to have a permanent, durable and

readable nameplate with the following information:

o Manufacturer's name and trademark;

o Type designation;
o Applicable rated values;

• Connection contact; earthing contacts are to make contact before the live
contact pins do when inserting a plug.

29
MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

It is important to analyse graphic sources of each rule to make a better idea of how
complete they are. Only two of them provide us with useful visual sources about plugs
and sockets: ABS and the international standard.
ABS, shows the following diagram for socket’s outlet arrangement:

Figure 2 - Socket’s arrangement by ABS

In addition, they provide figure 3 for dimensions:

Figure 3 - Socket’s dimensions by ABS

On the other side, the international standard, 80005-1, particularly the annex C for
cruise ships, provides us with a similar diagram about the socket and its components.

30
 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

The rule requires that general arrangement of that connector shall be in according to the
next source, represented on figure 4:
Figure 4 - Connector pin assignment by the standard 80005-1

Moreover, it provides extra requirements for determined type of ships.

Joining both sources, the idea that the requirements pretend to regulate is clearly
understandable. Graphic sources are very important for plugs and sockets. That is why
the specific IEC rules for plugs and sockets are mentioned by Lloyd’s Register in its
own rule.

2.11.2 Cable

Cable requirements are basically a group of regulations that use to be different between
classification societies. They use to approve their own type of cable and its
characteristics. Requirements for cables from each classification society are compared
in table 13, which is showed next:
Table 13 - Cable, requirements comparison

Requirements STND. ABS BV DNV* LR RINA

Non-fixed HV cables are to be constructed and
tested to recognized standard acceptable to ABS. Χ √ Χ Χ Χ Χ

A flexible shore connection cable can be arranged

either on board the vessel or situated at key. Χ Χ Χ √ Χ Χ

High voltage cables are to be readily identifiable

by suitable marking. √ √ Χ √ Χ Χ

The flexible cable shall be terminated close to the

ship’s side, and not be used as a part of the fixed Χ Χ Χ √ Χ Χ
cable installation in the vessel.

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

All cables installed on board shall be DNV type

approved. Χ Χ Χ √ Χ Χ

Cables shall be at least of a flame-retardant type

in accordance with the requirements given in IEC √ Χ √ Χ Χ √
60332-1-2.
The outer sheath shall be oil-resistant and
resistant to sea air, seawater, solar radiation (UV) √ Χ √ Χ Χ √
and shall be non-hygroscopic.
The temperature class shall be at least 90 °C,
insulation, in accordance with Annex A.
√ Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
The maximum operating temperature shall not
exceed 95 °C, taking into account any heating
effects (e.g. as a result of cable coiling).
The insulation temperature class is to be at least
Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ √
85°C.
Correction factor for ambient air temperatures
above 45 °C shall be taken into account (see IEC √ Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
60092-201:1994, Table 7).
Control and monitoring cables shall be at least of
a flame retardant type in accordance with the
requirements of IEC 60332-1-2.
The environmental requirements for the sheath √ Χ √ Χ Χ Χ
shall be the same as described for the ship to
shore connection cable.
Size, quantity and rating of cables shall be
sufficient to meet the maximum power rating and √ Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
voltage that the terminal can supply to the ship.
Connection Equipment power cables are to be
Type Approved in accordance with LR’s Type
Approval System Test Specification Number 3 or,
alternatively, surveyed by the Surveyors during
Χ Χ Χ Χ √ Χ
manufacture and testing to assess compliance
with the particular section of the rules, and
application of an acceptable quality management
system.
Power, control and monitoring may be based on a
single cable or cables in bunch. Χ Χ √ Χ Χ Χ

As it was known before analysing last chart, requirements for cables are very diverse, in
order to summarize requirements about cable type or cable characteristics, a new chart
was developed. That source is showed below such as table 14:

Table 14 - Summary of type requirements for cable

Rule Type Outer sheath Temperature class

Oil-resistant, resistant to At least 90 °C isolation.
At least of a flame-
sea air, seawater, solar The maximum operating
ISO/IEC/IEEE retardant type (IEC
radiation (UV) and shall temperature shall not
60332-1-2).
be non-hygroscopic. exceed 95 °C.

ABS Constructed and tested to recognized standard acceptable to ABS.

32
 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Oil-resistant, resistant to
At least of a flame-
sea air, seawater, solar
BV retardant type (IEC Χ
radiation (UV) and shall
60332-1-2).
be non-hygroscopic.

Type Approval Programme No. 6-827.13: Flexible Electrical Cables for ships/high
DNV*
speed, light craft and naval surface craft

LR In accordance with IEC publications.

Oil-resistant, resistant to
At least of a flame-
sea air, seawater, solar
RINA retardant type (IEC At least 85 °C isolation.
radiation (UV) and shall
60332-1-2).
be non-hygroscopic

Once again, the international standard is the most complete rule for covering cables in
an onshore power installation. For cable requirements published by classification
societies, RINA and BV are the most complete one. They show very similar criteria in
comparison with the international standard.
Such an informative note from 2009, the international standard provides that cruise
ships typically utilize four power 3-phases couplers, each rated 500 A, and one neutral
single pole connector rated 250 A. Likewise, BV provides that power, control and
monitoring may be based on a single cable or cables in bunch.

2.11.3 Cable handling

The flexible cable that shall be used for the connection cannot be managed such a rope.
It is very important to handle the cable during the connection to avoid extra strains over
it and develop a correct use. In addition, the effectiveness of that system will help on
maintenance, making it easier and cheaper. Handling requirements are compared in
table 15.
Table 15 - Cable handling, requirements comparison

Requirements STND ABS BV DNV* LR RINA

A cable handling system must be arranged. Χ Χ √ √ Χ Χ

The cable management system is to allow

extending cable and retracting cable without √ √ √ Χ Χ Χ
causing undue stress to the cable.

There shall be installed equipment enabling

Χ Χ Χ √ Χ Χ
efficient cable handling and connection.

The cable management system shall give alarm at

high cable tension to a manned position. At high
high tension, the shore connection shall be Χ Χ √ √ Χ Χ
automatically disconnected. Automatic release of
the plug and socket connection is not required.

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Handling of plug and socket outlets shall be

possible only when the associated earthing switch √ Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
is closed.
Connection Equipment cable reels, cranes and/or
gantries used to manage, handle or adjust
connection cables, plugs and/or socket-outlets, are
Χ Χ Χ Χ √ Χ
to be designed and manufactured in accordance
with applicable LR Rules or a marine standard
acceptable to LR.
The ship to shore connection cable installation and
operation are to be arranged to provide adequate
movement compensation, cable guidance,
Χ Χ √ Χ Χ √
anchoring and positioning of the cable during
normal planned ship to shore connection
conditions.
Connection Equipment support and management
arrangements, including those for control
engineering arrangements, are to be arranged not to
apply damaging forces or tension to correctly Χ Χ √ Χ √ Χ
applied equipment. Support arrangements are to
ensure that the weight of connected cable is not
borne by cable end terminations or connections.
Cable management system, cables are to be
physical protected against heavy seas and Χ Χ √ Χ Χ Χ
mechanical damages

After comparing all the requirements for handling, a summary have been developed for
practical application:

• A cable handling system must be arranged.

• It shall allow extending cable and retracting cable without causing undue stress
to the cable.
• The cable management system shall give alarm at high cable tension to a
manned position.
• Connection Equipment cable reels, cranes and/or gantries used to manage,
handle or adjust connection cables, plugs and/or socket-outlets, are to be
designed and manufactured in accordance with applicable LR Rules or a marine
standard acceptable to LR. About these elements, only Lloyd’s Register
mentions some construction and design requirements.
• Be sure that the handling system is supporting all the weight loads that were
considered during its design.

2.11.4 Management

Cables, plugs and sockets shall have a management system to assist the connection
procedure. That system is going to include safety procedures, management equipment
and protection systems such as switches and interlocks. The regulations aiming to
guarantee the safety of operation are compared in table 16 which is showed next:

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Table 16 - Interface management, requirements comparison

Requirements STND. ABS BV DNV* LR RINA

Socket-outlets and inlets shall be interlocked with
the earth switch so that plugs or connectors
√ Χ Χ Χ Χ √
cannot be inserted or withdrawn without the
earthing switch in the closed position.
The current-carrying capacity of the earth contact
shall be at least equal to the rated current of the √ Χ Χ Χ Χ √
other main contacts.

The power plugs as well as the neutral plug shall

be fitted with fail-safe limit switches that are
activated only when the plug and socket-outlet are
properly mated.
√ Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
These fail safe limit switches shall be part of, and
activate the emergency shutdown, if the plug is
moved from the mated position while live.

Connection between the neutral and ship’s hull

√ Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
shall be robust and durable for proper bonding.

Interlock between the plug and the shore

connection circuit breaker is to be provided such √ √ √
Χ Χ Χ
that the plug can be disengaged only after the
shore connection circuit breaker has been opened.

Connections with external electrical power supply

arrangements are to be designed to prevent
damage to the ship structure or Connection
Equipment cable reels, cranes and/or gantries as a Χ Χ Χ Χ √ Χ
result of the connections separating in the event
of the ship leaving a berth inadvertently or as a
result of high cable tension for other reasons.

Interlocking with earthing switches is to be

arranged to ensure that the HV power contacts
remain earthed until:
• all connections are made,
√
• the communication link is operational, Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
• self-monitoring properties of ship or shore
alarm, control and safety systems detect that no
failure would affect safe connections, and
• the permission from ship and shore is activated.

Each plug shall be fitted with pilot contacts for √ √ √

Χ Χ Χ
continuity verification of the safety circuit.
An interlock, which prevents plugging and
unplugging of the HV plug and socket outlet
√ √ √ Χ Χ Χ
arrangements while they are energized, is to be
provided.
Opening, or release, of the plug and socket may √ √
Χ Χ Χ Χ
be a manual operation.

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Classification societies are, once again, not well covering this type of equipment with
the exception of RINA. The requirements about safety measures and the interface
equipment are basically to guarantee the safety of the connection procedure and the
personal. In particular, the interlocking system to prevent plugging and unplugging
while the connection is energized, is very curious, because some rules require an
interlock without specifying which type and others specify which type of interlock, a
circuit breaker.
After analysing all the requirements, the summary for designing these systems are:

• Earth switch; plugs or connectors cannot be inserted or withdrawn without the

earthing switch in the closed position. In addition, RINA amplify the situations
on which that switch shall remain closed until the connection is made, the
communicational link is operational, there are not any failures and the
permission from ship and shore is activated.
• Earth contact capacity; shall be at least equal to the rated current of the other
main contacts.
• Fail-safe limit switches; that will be activated only when the plug and socket-
outlet will be properly mated. If the plug will be moved from the mated position,
it will activate the emergency shutdown.
• Interlocking protection;
o A Circuit breaker shall be installed between the plug and the shore. The
plug can be disengaged only after the shore connection circuit breaker
has been opened.
• Pilot contacts; plugs shall be fitted with pilot contacts for continuity verification
of the safety circuit.
• Plug actions; Opening, or release, of the plug and socket may be a manual
operation.

2.12 LOCATION AND CONSTRUCTION

Due to increase safety in onshore installations, the major part of the rules, mention some
requirements to be in account of about location and installation. These requirements are
compared in table 17:

Table 17 - Location and construction, requirements comparison

Requirements STND. ABS BV LR DNV* RINA

HVSC equipment shall be installed in
√ √ √ Χ Χ √
access controlled spaces.
When determining the location of the
HVSC system, the full range of cargo,
bunkering and other utility operations
shall be considered, including:
√ Χ √ √ Χ √
1. The cargo handling and mooring
equipment in use on the ship and shore,
and the areas that must be clear for their
operation;

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

2. Traffic management considerations; √ Χ √ √ Χ √

3. Personnel safety measures, such as

physical barriers to prevent unauthorized
√ √ √ √ Χ √
personnel access to HVSC equipment or
the cable management equipment;

4. Presence of hazardous areas √ Χ √ Χ Χ √

If some of the equipment cannot be

located in a non-hazardous area, then it is Χ Χ √ Χ Χ Χ
to be certified of a safe type.

The shore connection switchboard is to be

located in a compartment that is sheltered
from the weather. HV shore cables are to
Χ √ √ Χ Χ Χ
enter this compartment through a
temporary opening with weather tight
arrangements

Higher voltage equipment is not to be

combined with low voltage equipment in
Χ √ Χ Χ Χ Χ
the same enclosure, unless safety
measures are taken.

High voltage cables are to be installed on

cable trays or equivalent when they are
provided with a continuous metallic
sheath or armor which is effectively Χ √ Χ Χ Χ Χ
bonded to earth; otherwise, they are to be
installed for their entire length in metallic
casings effectively bonded to earth.

Appropriate arrangements are to be

provided for storage of removable HVSC Χ √ √ Χ Χ Χ
equipment when not in use.

At all locations from where the electrical

shore connection or cable management
system may be controlled, the following
alarms and controls shall be available:
—high tension of the flexible cable Χ Χ Χ Χ √ Χ
— loss of shore power
— emergency disconnection
— activation of protective functions as
earth fault, overcurrent and short circuit

Ship equipment is to comply with the

applicable requirements of IEC 60092-101 Χ Χ √ Χ Χ Χ
and IEC 60092-503.

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2.13 SYSTEM’S STUDY AND DESIGN

The shore-connected electrical system shall be evaluated in many points of its complete
working behaviour during design statement. These are the main and the first important
requirements on which all the international standards are based. These points or these
calculations are only covered in an extended way by the international standard
ISO/IEC/IEEE for shore side and ship side, and by Lloyd’s Register Rules only for ship
side. In addition, Bureau Veritas provides that all the functions are to be designed on the
fail-safe principle. The ISO/IEC/IEEE design aspects mentioned for shore side are
included in table 18 which is showed next:

Table 18 - System study and calculations, requirements comparison

Design aspect ISO/IEC/IEEE

The electrical load during shore connection; √
For shore supply installations, a maximum and minimum prospective short
√
circuit current for visiting ships shall be defined and used for calculations.

For ships, a maximum and minimum prospective short circuit current for visiting
√
ships shall be defined and used for calculations.
The calculations may take into account any arrangements that prevent parallel
√
connection of HV shore supplies with ship sources of electrical power;
The calculations may take into account any arrangements that restrict the number
√
of ship generators operating during parallel connection to transfer load;
The calculations may take into account any arrangements that restrict load to be
√
connected;
System charging (capacitive) current for shore and ship; √
This system charging current calculation shall consider the shore power system
√
and the expected ship power including the on line generator(s);
Shore power transformer neutral earthing resistor analysis and earth fault limiting
√
requirements for earthed high voltage connections;
Transient overvoltage protection analysis; √
Connections, including control, alarm and safety systems and data
√
communication links;
Emergency Shut-Down requirements; √
Nominal ratings of the shore supply, ship to shore connection and ship
√
connection;
Reference to protection system design, including protection characteristics for the
√
Connection Circuit-Breaker;
Minimum supply apparent power or current capacity; √
Isolation; √

These calculated values shall be used to select suitably rated shore connection
equipment and to allow the selection and setting of protective devices. The final results
of these calculations shall be made available to all involved parties. Documented
alternative proposals with the objective to limit the parallel connection to short times
may be considered where permitted by the relevant authorities and the parties involved.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

2.14 PROTECTION AGAINST MOISTURE AND CONDENSATION

Such as a general requirement, effective means shall be provided to prevent

accumulation of moisture and condensation, even if equipment is idle for appreciable
periods. That requirement shall be applied to all the shore equipment, and it is very
important applied to the connection equipment.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

After developing the main sections of the current paper, the general results of the
analysis can be summarized by the interaction between the studied rules.
First of all, as it can be seen in all sections of the chapter, the international standard
IEC/IEEE/ISO 80005-1 is the most complete document to take notice before designing
a shore to ship system at any port. It provides good and specific requirements for this
type of systems and what is most important, the recognition from the major part of the
Classification Society rules such as a valid rule to be approved by their standards. Then,
designing a Shore Power installation under the mentioned international standard is a
guarantee to be approved by some Classification Societies, but not all of them consider
the standard as a valid rule.
Classification Societies use to consider shore power installations such as additional
classes and, as a result of that, additional class approval is needed. Moreover, their
rules use to cover only the installation onboard ships. Some of them provide some
requirements which are a little bit confusing owing to their relativity. These few
requirements about onshore are related to the limit between shore installation and ship’s
installation. That is the most confusing aspect in Classification Societies rules, the
interface between both sides.
That confusion is normal. The major part provides initial notes about the range of
application of their rules in which the uncovering of shore side installation is
mentioned. Otherwise it is hard to provide requirements about interface equipment,
because of its presence in both sides, within mention shore side.
Moreover, all these general facts about the compared rules, individual commentaries for
each rule can be mentioned excluding the already mentioned IS0/IEC/IEEE standard.
The compared rule that provides less requirements was developed by DNV*. In terms
of class notation, all the rules provide a particular and extended chapter or section for
covering the shore power additional class and its notation.
DNV-GL does not provide a specific rule or additional class for High Voltage Shore
Connection. The Classification Society does not make differences between that
technology and its general rules for Electrical Installations. The considered rule by
DNV*, published before the merger, provides specific requirements for that technology.
According to the developed comparison, the most complete requirements provided by
Classification Societies, are provided by RINA. Lloyd’s Register and Bureau Veritas
rules are very complete, but just according to ship side and interface equipment, and that
is why they are ranked such as the second and the fourth rule.

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All the mentioned aspects are exposed comparing all the rules in general aspects are
showed in table 19. In addition, class notation for their additional class is provided.

Table 19 - General comparison between classification rules

RULE APPLICATION
ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005
Class
Ranking Rule Ship side Shore Side CONSIDERATION
Notation
1 RINA HVSC √ √ √
BUREAU
2 HVSC √ Χ Χ
VERITAS
3 ABS HVSC √ Χ √
LLOYD’S
4 OPS √ Χ √
REGISTER
SHORE
5 DNV* √ √ √
POWER

6 DNV-GL Χ Χ Χ Χ

As it can be seen in the mentioned table 19, the international standard is the most
complete, but there are some important requirements provided from the rest of the rules
that should be added to the standard. These requirements are showed along the chapter
in all the comparison charts.

4. CONCLUSIONS

The main conclusion about the situation of high voltage shore connection, is the
focalization of the Classification Societies on the ship side installation, which is
completely comprehensive because of their specific function, classify and regulate
ship’s design and construction. But, from an engineer’s point of view, it is better to have
a global vision and regulation of the whole system aiming to apply a reliable and safety
design criteria pursuing the highest effectiveness degree.
The result of the mentioned focalization is the less effectiveness of these rules against
the international standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005-1 because it considers shore and ship
such as an entirely system.
The international standard is the most complete, but there are some important
requirements provided by the rest of the rules that should be added to the standard.
Likewise, it would be a good idea for Classification Societies to consider the
international standard such as another way to get the class notation. Particularly, Bureau
Veritas is widely based on the standard for ship side system but do not recognise its
consideration for ships classified under it.
Nowadays, because of the rising importance of environment’s pollution control, many
sustainable technologies have been developed to contribute on their regulation and their
reduction. The high voltage shore connection is one of these technologies and it is

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

gaining consideration by many ports in many countries. Classification Societies are in

constant evolution refreshing their rules and improving them aiming to increase their
effectiveness and their safety degree. According to the current paper, there are still
many fields and requirements that can be included or developed for future rules,
contributing in that way to improve the maritime sector.

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005-1 (July 2012); High Voltage Shore Connection (HVSC)
Systems – General requirements
[2] American Bureau of Shipping (November 2011); “High Voltage Shore
Connections”
[3] Bureau Veritas (January 2010); “High-voltage shore connection system”

[4] Det Norske Veritas (July 2014); “Electrical Shore Connections”

[5] Det Norske Veritas – Germanischer Lloyd (January 2016); “Rules for classification
of ships (Part 4, chapter 8)”

[6] Lloyd’s Register (July 2014); “Rules and regulations for the classification of ships”
(Part 7, chapter 13)
[7] RINA Services (January 2015); “Rules for the classification of ships” (Part F,
chapter13, section 15)

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RISK DRIVEN SEMANTIC INTEROPERABILITY

IN THE MARITIME SURVEILLANCE DOMAIN

Fernando S. B. Dias Marques (I)

Jesús E. Martínez Marín (II)
Olga Delgado Ortega (III)
Ernesto Madariaga Domínguez (IV)
Gonzalo Arriaga Rey (IV)
(I) Department Nautical Sciences & Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,
Pla de Palau 18, 08003, Barcelona, Spain & Portuguese Navy Research Center
(CINAV), Escola Naval, Base Naval de Lisboa, Alfeite, 2810-001 Almada, Portugal
(II) Department Nautical Sciences & Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,
Pla de Palau 18, 08003, Barcelona, Spain
(III) Escola Superior Náutica Infante D. Henrique, Av. Engenheiro Bonneville Franco,
2770-058 Paço de Arcos, Portugal
(IV) Department Sciences and Techniques of Navigation and Shipbuilding. School of
Maritime Engineering. University of Cantabria. Gamazo 1, 39004 Santander, Spain.

Abstract
Semantic Interoperability (SI) is essential for organizations as to share information, via
computer systems, without which their efficiency and effectiveness is hampered.
Assuming multiple actions for enhancing SI are possible, and that resources are usually
scarce, the more relevant ones should have higher priority. Since information sharing,
in the maritime surveillance domain, is essential for dealing with risks, such as
irregular migration or piracy, this paper presents a method for prioritizing SI
development actions based on the risks they aim to address.
The method was developed by following the Design Science Research strategy, is based
on the Delphi method and the Weighted Sum Model, and was validated in a real
environment, with six organizations involved in maritime surveillance. The method aims
to foster information sharing by supporting the development of action plans for
enhancing SI, which may deliver relevant results faster, cheaper and less risky than
traditional approaches.

Keywords:
Maritime Security, Strategy, Policy, Surveillance, Risks

Acknowledgements:
The authors thank the support of the Portuguese Directorate-General for Maritime
Policy (DGPM), which provided information, essential for this research, from the
NIPIM@R project, which aims the development of the national node of the European
Maritime CISE.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

INTRODUCTION
Information Sharing (IS), through integration of information systems, is becoming
widely adopted by the European public sector as a promising practice for enhancing
cost-effectiveness in several domains with high societal impact. Particularly, for the
maritime domain, recent studies have shown that significant benefits could be expected
from IS. For example, 400 million euros per year [1] is the estimated benefit of IS
among the over 300 European public authorities presently involved in maritime
surveillance (MS) [2]. Therefore, this matter should be a top priority for Europe, which
is evidenced by strategic documents such as the EU Maritime Security Strategy
(EUMSS) [3] or the eHealth Action Plan 2012-2020 [4].
IS implies processing information from and to external sources, in a meaningful
manner, i.e. Semantic Interoperability (SI), one of the four interoperability levels
comprised by the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) [5], which Europe is
committed to enhance as per its European Interoperability Strategy (EIS) for European
public services [6]. To properly enhance the performance of IS, it is essential to
establish the present (as-is) and desired (to-be) situations, define lines of action and
targets, and monitor and control the progress towards the objectives defined [7].
However, such transformations entail many different actions, which require (usually
scarce) time and resources, and imply several risks; hence they must be prioritized,
considering especially its effectiveness. Some of these actions are related to developing
the SI among the organizations involved, which entails developing the necessary
mappings and transformations between the Common Information Model (CIM) selected
and the Information Models (IMs) of the information systems of the organizations
involved [7]. These models tend to be complex and the aforementioned activities as
well, leading to lengthy and error prone development processes. Examples of other
actions can be those related with the legal framework within which the IS will take
place. Likewise, these are usually also complex, lengthy and error prone.
This paper presents a method for prioritizing SI development actions, based on the risks
they aim to address, which purpose is to foster information sharing by supporting the
development of iterative and incremental action plans for enhancing SI, which may
deliver relevant results faster, cheaper and less risky than traditional approaches. The
method is based on the CIM [7] selected by the organizations involved in the IS
initiative, and on a set of maritime risks these organizations are committed to tackle.
This paper is organized as follows: in section 1 a literature review is presented, followed
by the conceptual framework, described in section 2, which will be the grounds for
defining the proposed method, presented in section 3, and for validating it, in section 4.
The conclusions are then presented in section 5.

1. LITERATURE REVIEW
Since, in 2007, the European Commission has launched the Common Information
Sharing Environment (CISE) initiative [8], in order to support the Integrated Maritime
Surveillance (IMS) in Europe, one of the pillars of Europe’s Integrated Maritime Policy
(IMP) [9], several projects followed to foster IS in the maritime surveillance domain
and, consequently, to (1) contribute to ensuring safer, more secure and cleaner seas; (2)
better prevent and combat all kinds of illegal activities at sea or to protect merchant

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ships and fishing boats from all kinds of threats; and (3) better prevent, intercept or
clean-up different pollution types at sea.
The BlueMassMed (BMM) [10] project developed and demonstrated several prototypes
for sharing maritime surveillance information at the European level, which were
deployed in 4 states. The technological solution was based on a large information model
comprising several hundreds of information attributes. The project took place between
2009 and 2012, had an overall budget of 3.7 million euros, and involved 6 states and
experts from 37 public authorities. Among other, the project also contributed with
several operational requirements for maritime surveillance information sharing, as well
as with a study of the legal framework within which this would take place.
The Coop [1] project refined and harmonized the operational requirements for maritime
surveillance information sharing developed during the BMM, leveraging the results of
other projects; developed an information model and a service model for maritime
surveillance information sharing with several hundreds of information attributes;
developed a cost-benefit analysis for maritime surveillance information sharing at the
European level, and enhanced the legal framework study developed during the BMM.
With a budget of 2.7 million euros, this project took place between 2013 and 2014, and
involved 14 states and experts from 45 authorities. It is worth noting that one of this
project’s recommendations was for the CISE to adopt an evolutionary approach.
The EUCISE2020 [11] project is ongoing since 2015 and is foreseen to last until 2017.
This project aims to develop the initial operational capability of the CISE, which
includes developing the necessary technology, legal framework and operational
processes, and demonstrate it in 10 to 12 states. It has a budget of around 17 million
euros, and involves 15 states and 37 public authorities. The information model of the
technological solution is essentially based on the information model developed during
the CoopP, and the overall architecture is inspired by the results of the BMM.
Still, some of these initiatives’ commonalities are that they (1) are based on large and
complex information models, proportional to the level of ambition regarding the
information to share; (2) usually take several years to present results; (3) imply large
financial investments; (4) involve a large number of member states, actors and
information systems simultaneously and (5) deal with the multiple facets of
interoperability simultaneously (operational, legal, technological and semantic).
Consequently, they entail many risks at the same time, where the most important of
them is probably the loss of interest from the stakeholders, in face of the huge
investments made during a considerable time and the lack of practical results.
In this context, it is wise reflecting if things can be done differently. Meaning a way
where relevant results can be obtained faster, with less investment and risks. Not
necessarily only in the CISE initiative, but also in related maritime initiatives involving
information sharing which face similar challenges. For example, those that are now
starting at several European states, which aim to foster information sharing at the
national level first, before adhering to the CISE network, and many other already
ongoing at the European level, although pertaining to a specific maritime sector, like
transport, customs or safety. This paper contributes to address this issue by proposing a
method for prioritizing SI interoperability development actions with the aforementioned
goals in mind. Consequently, the research question being addressed is:

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How to prioritize the necessary actions to enhance SI among organizations, in the

maritime surveillance domain?

2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

We have tackled the research question based on the following concepts and
methodology.

2.1 RISK DRIVEN SEMANTIC INTEROPERABILITY

The purpose of enhancing MS information sharing is twofold. Firstly, efficiency. If

organizations can access information already existing in other organizations, they do not
have to incur into duplicate expenditures to collect, store and process that information
again. Secondly, effectiveness. If organizations have more relevant information then,
potentially, they can take more informed decisions which, ultimately, can lead to more
effective operational actions aiming the deterrence, detection and response to specific
risks, such as irregular migration, maritime accidents or piracy.

SI ensures that the precise meaning of the exchanged information is understood and
preserved throughout the exchanges between parties; hence, it is indispensable for IS
and requires [7]: (1) Participant’s (in the information exchange process) information
models (IMs); (2) A common information model (CIM) for describing the information
exchanges between the participants; (3) Mappings between the CIM and the IMs,
establishing their conceptual relationships; (4) Definitions of the transformations
between the IMs and the CIM, which preserve the meaning of the information.

Therefore, to enhance SI, after assessing the present situation (as-is) and defining the
desired situation (to-be), the actions to evolve from the present into the desired situation
[7] have to be identified. These consist, essentially, in the definition of the information
mappings and transformations aforementioned. However, assuming resources are
scarce, such actions should be prioritized, and its relevance is essential criterion which
is directly related to the relevance of the information they entail. In other words, the
most relevant actions for developing SI are those which will enable sharing the most
relevant information for deterring, detecting and responding to the risks being
addressed, hence these should have the highest priority.

For example, if the ship’s speed is more relevant for detecting drug trafficking activities
than its colour, then the actions of mapping and defining the transformations of the
speed, between the IMs involved and the CIM, are more effective than those regarding
the colour; hence, the actions related to the speed should have a higher priority and be
developed first.

In a nutshell, risk driven semantic interoperability is a method to determine SI

development actions’ effectiveness, based on the risks the information to be shared will
contribute to tackle (its relevance), and aims to support the prioritization of such
actions, so that a cost-effective approach for their development can be taken.

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Figure 1: Risk Driven Semantic Interoperability

Source: Authors

2.2 METHODOLOGY
In Design Science Research (DSR) a designer answers questions relevant to human
problems via the creation of innovative artefacts, thereby contributing new knowledge
to the body of scientific evidence, where the designed artefacts are both useful and
fundamental in understanding that problem [12]. Moreover, these artefacts are
demonstrated to improve manager’s capability to “change existing situations into
preferred ones” [13]. Since what we are developing is a method which can assess SI
development actions’ effectiveness, in order to contribute to prioritizing them, so that
the available resources for this purpose can be used in the most efficient way, we
consider this a case for DSR; hence, we have used it in our research and followed its
methodology [14], which comprises the following activities: (1) Problem identification
and motivation; (2) Solution objectives definition; (3) Design and development; (4)
Demonstration; (5) Evaluation and (6) Communication.
The Delphi method may be characterized as a method for structuring a group
communication process so that the process is effective in allowing a group of
individuals, as a whole, to deal with a complex problem [15]. In a nutshell, the Delphi
Method consists in collecting information, usually in the form of a survey, from a set of
experts, processing the results, and iterating with the experts, as many times as

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necessary, providing the consolidated results and allowing the experts to change their
evaluations (information provided on a certain topic), until consensus is reached among
all experts, on the consolidated results. This approach is well suited for the problem at
hand, since IS cannot be done without the consensus of a wide and largely
heterogeneous group of stakeholders. From the common problem properties which lead
to the need for employing the Delphi method, our case entails all of them, which are the
following [15]:

• The problem does not lend itself to precise analytical techniques but can benefit
from subjective judgements on a collective basis.
• The individuals needed to contribute to the examination of a broad or complex
problem have no history of adequate communication and may represent diverse
backgrounds with respect to experience or expertise.
• More individuals are needed that can effectively interact in a face-to-face
exchange.
• Time and cost make frequent group meetings infeasible.
• The efficiency of face-to-face meetings can be increased by a supplemental
group communication process.
• Disagreements among individuals are so severe or politically unpalatable that
the communication process must be refereed and/or anonymity assured.
• The heterogeneity of the participants must be preserved to assure validity of the
results.
Multi-Criteria Decision Methods (MCDM) do not try to compute an optimal solution;
rather, they try to determine via various ranking procedures either a ranking of the
relevant actions (decision alternatives) that is optimal with respect to several criteria, or
they try to find the optimal actions amongst the existing solutions (decision alternatives)
[16]. Considering that we are trying to prioritize the possible actions to enhance SI
interoperability based on the risks the information to be shared will contribute to tackle,
this is a case for the application of MCDM, where the decision alternatives are the
possible SI actions and the criteria are the maritime risks involved. Therefore, we have
also used MCDM in our research and followed the typical steps [16] for using any
decision making technique involving numerical analysis of alternatives: (1) Determine
the relevant criteria and alternatives; (2) Attach numerical measures to the relative
importance of the criteria and to the impacts of the alternatives on these criteria; (3)
Process the numerical values to determine a ranking of each alternative.
Among the several MCDM available [17] we have chosen to use the Weighted Sum
Model (WSM) [18], probably the most widely used [16], which is appropriate for single
dimensional cases (where all units are the same) and lies on the assumption (verified, in
our case) that the total value of each alternative is equal to the sum of the products
given. Other commonly used MCDM [19] are the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP),
the revised AHP, the Weighted Product Model (WPM), the ELECTRE and TOPSIS.
The WPM was developed to overcome some of WSM weaknesses by eliminating any
units of measure [16]. Since this weakness is not present in our case, the WPM would
only introduce higher complexity into our process. The AHP is becoming increasingly
popular and the revised AHP is more consistent than the AHP [16]; however, since our
criteria are not hierarchical, these methods are not applicable. Finally, considering the
huge amount of possible actions our case entails, methods based on pairwise
comparison (which demand high user intervention), such as the ELECTRE and

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TOPSIS, are not feasible, since that respondent fatigue limits the number of alternatives
that can be ranked [20].
Among the several ways to validate the artefacts developed foreseen by DSR [21], we
have chosen the Observational form, which primary goal is to determine how the
artefact behaves in a comprehensive manner and in a real environment [22], since
research that is based on DSR cannot only focus on the development of the artefact and
should demonstrate that the artefact can be effectively used to solve real problems [23].
To demonstrate and evaluate the proposed method, we have developed a questionnaire,
which was answered by six public maritime authorities which missions entail MS
actions, and which are willing to share information and to enhance their SI for this
purpose.
The questionnaire is based on the CISE [8] information model, developed during the
CoopP project [1], which information attributes relevance has been evaluated according
to seven different maritime risks (Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; Illegal oil
spills and discharges; Counterfeit goods; Maritime accidents; Drug trafficking; Irregular
migration; Piracy). This information model has also been used within the CoopP project
to develop a cost-benefit analysis on the usage of the CISE and maritime surveillance
information sharing among the over 300 public authorities in Europe involved in the
‘Coast Guard’ functions [2]. The questionnaire was filled in by the experts (operational
and technological) appointed by each of the authorities involved in this research, after
which the data was collected and analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively,
according to the Delphi process steps.

3. PRIORITIZING SI DEVELOPMENT ACTIONS

Considering its purpose, the method hereafter presented must achieve the following
objectives:
• Usability – The method should be easy to use, namely it should not consume too
much time from experts involved, since they are usually overloaded with day to
day operational activities;
• Coherence – SI actions with higher priority shall be those which entail the most
relevant information, hence higher benefits if developed;
• Consensual – The priorities assigned must be consensual among the experts,
otherwise a collaborative and joint action will not be possible to achieve;
• Usefulness – Must support devising incremental action plans which may
progressively enable sharing relevant information and increase confidence
among those involved in the IS initiative, while keeping costs involved to a
minimum.
To prioritize the possible actions for developing SI, according to their relevance to the
maritime risks considered, we shall consider a set of m number of possible actions (A) and a
set of n maritime risks (R). We shall also consider the relevance (V) of each action to each
risk, and a score (S) which reflects the relevance of each action to all risks considered,
hence allowing their ranking. Additionally, we shall consider a weight (W) for each risk, to
accommodate the possibility of risks considered not being equally important and, finally,
we shall consider the priority (P) of each SI development action, which results from
applying the proposed method. These concepts are depicted in Table 1.

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Table 1: Prioritization concepts

Source: Authors

To define the priority of each possible SI development action, the proposed method
entails a sequence of different steps, depicted in Figure 2, which, in broad terms, will
allow developing the questionnaire, collecting and harmonizing the necessary data,
scoring the relevance of the information and, finally, prioritizing the inherent actions.

Figure 2: Prioritization process

Source: Authors

The first parameter required is the set of possible SI development actions (A). These
actions are, essentially, mappings and transformations between the IMs and the CIM
information attributes [7]. For example, a possible action could be to develop the
necessary mappings and transformations between an information attribute named
“speed” defined in the CIM and also in the IM of a maritime authority command and
control information system. Therefore, the CIM has to be selected by the participants
involved in the IS initiative and, since its information attributes are tightly coupled to
each mapping and transformation action which may have to be performed, these will
represent the actions required. Using the CIM information attributes is preferred to
using its information entities (i.e. course is preferred to vessel), since the latter are more
abstract, hence it would be harder for experts to define its relevance regarding the risks
selected.
The second parameter required is the set of maritime risks (R) against which the
relevance of each CIM information attribute will be evaluated. Many risks exist in the
maritime domain and, since they will be the main criteria to rank the possible actions to
enhance SI, they must be well pondered. Examples of such risks are Illegal, unreported
and unregulated (IUU) fishing, Drug trafficking and Piracy. These risks should be clear
to the experts using this method and it should be possible to establish their relative
importance (i.e. weight), if necessary – the third parameter of the proposed method (W).
If this is the case, usually, when using MCDM, weights assigned to the decision criteria
are normalized to add up to one.

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After setting the parameters, we need to define the relevance (V) of each action to each
risk. Since this is an activity that requires expert knowledge, to collect this information
a questionnaire shall be used, comprising a matrix formed with the possible SI
development actions (A) and the different risks (R) considered. Then, a list of options
(relevance scale) shall be used by the experts to express the impact of each CIM
information attribute on the operational activities aiming to deter, detect and respond to
each of the risks considered. In other words, for each CIM information attribute in the
matrix, the experts are required to select the most appropriate value from the list of
options, for each of the risks selected. The questionnaire should follow common best-
practices for questionnaires, such as ethical principles or closed-answer formats [20],
and special attention should be given to the facts that 1) CIMs are usually lengthy; 2)
experts do not have much time to spend in answering questionnaires. To avoid answers
distortion, experts are asked to only define the relevance of the CIM information
attributes regarding the risks that their organization’s missions address.
After collecting the data from the experts of the different participants in the IS initiative,
a consolidated version should be produced. The reason for this is that hardly experts
will have the same operational experience and background, use the same techniques or
simply use the information in the same way. Therefore, it is necessary to harmonize this
heterogeneity in order to rank the SI development actions in a coherent way. For this
purpose, we have used the median of all experts answers received. Usually, in the
Delphi method, either the mean or the median are used for this purpose; however, the
median is preferred when the data distribution is skewed, which corresponds to
situations such as the one described.
Then, to calculate the score (S) of each possible action (A), we use the WSM, as
depicted in Formula 1 (score of each action using the WSM).

(1)

Finally, to establish the priority (P) of each possible action (A), we will convert each
score into a value of the relevance scale by rounding the results obtained. The reason for
this is to provide meaning to the priority established, hence making easier to explain the
motivation for selecting a set of possible actions. An example is depicted in Table 2.
Table 2: Prioritization example

Source: Authors

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

If a second order of priority is necessary; for example, if the resources available cannot
afford implementing all actions of a certain first order priority, then other criteria can be
used, such as the scores previously defined (i.e. selecting the first 50 actions) or the
risks selected (i.e. selecting all actions which address a specific risk).
After this process is completed, we submit the consolidated results (including the
priorities assigned) to the experts, as many times as necessary, allowing them to change
their evaluations, until consensus is reached regarding the consolidated evaluation. The
fact of showing the priorities assigned helps in the reanalysis, because the implications
of the choices made can be observed.

4. VALIDATION
To demonstrate that the proposed method can be used to effectively solve real problems,
we will first present its usage in a real environment and then evaluate its performance
regarding the objectives set in section 3.
4.1 DEMONSTRATION
The National Ocean Strategy 2013-2020 presents a new development model of ocean
and coastal areas that will allow Portugal to meet the challenges for the promotion,
growth and competitiveness of the maritime economy [24]. For this purpose, its action
plan entails several initiatives, within which the NIPIM@R project aims to develop
integrated maritime surveillance and marine environment monitoring, by fostering and
enabling the sharing of relevant information among all national and international
stakeholders.
This project, within which our method has been experimented, is inspired by and
contributes to the European maritime CISE [8] and involves over 20 partners which
require maritime surveillance information and are committed to share such information
with each other. For this purpose, a plan must be developed for enhancing their SI,
which allows them to progressively share relevant information and increase confidence
in the process, while keeping costs involved to a minimum.
The information attributes used are those from the CISE information model (CIM
selected) developed during the CoopP project [1]. This information model has been
collaboratively developed by experts from the 45 maritime authorities of the involved
European countries and entails, presently, 212 information entities and 699 information
attributes. It is based on and reuses over 60% of definitions from over 30 related
information models and standards used by the seven user communities of the CISE:
Border Control, Fisheries Control, Defence, Maritime Safety and Security, Marine
Environment, Customs and General Law Enforcement [8]. The CISE information model
represents, therefore, the information that over 300 European maritime authorities
involved in the ‘Coast Guard Functions’ are interested in for carrying out their missions,
which includes those involved in this research.
The maritime risks used to establish the relevance of the information attributes selected
were the following: (1) Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; (2) Illegal oil spills
and discharges; (3) Counterfeit goods; (4) Maritime accidents; (5) Drug trafficking; (6)
Irregular migration and (7) Piracy. These risks have been used during the CoopP project
to develop a cost-benefit analysis on the relevance of the CISE (and the information it

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comprises) and of MS information sharing among the European maritime authorities

abovementioned.
Assuming that the risks chosen do not have the same relative importance, we have
assigned them a weight based on the benefits of the CISE and MS information sharing
[1] reported by the CoopP project. This weight was then normalized considering that,
when using the WSM, weights assigned to the decision criteria are normalized to add up
to one [16]. The weights assigned to each risk are presented in Table 3.
Table 3: Weights assigned to each risk

Source: Authors

Finally, the scale used by the experts to express the relevance of each information
attribute for each of the risks considered was the following:

• 0 - Irrelevant (this information attribute is not needed for operational activities

aiming to deter, detect or respond to this risk).
• 1 - Potentially useful (if available, this information attribute may enhance
operational activities aiming to deter, detect or respond to this risk).
• 2 - Useful (if available, this information attribute enhances operational activities
aiming to deter, detect or respond to this risk).
• 3 - Important (if not available, this information attribute degrades operational
activities aiming to deter, detect or respond to this risk).
• 4 - Indispensable (if not available, this information attribute impedes operational
activities aiming to deter, detect or respond to this risk)."
After developing and testing the questionnaire, it was distributed to several organizations
involved in the NIPIM@R project. The answers used in this research were collected from
6 different participants, which fully represent the seven CISE user communities and all
‘Coast Guard functions’ abovementioned. The effort required by each expert to answer
the questionnaire has been estimated between 2 and 6 person/hours.
The representatives of the participants, experts in the operational domain, have
answered the questionnaire, collecting and harmonizing opinions from other colleagues
in their organizations whenever possible. Moreover, they have only expressed their
opinion regarding the risks that their organizations missions address, hence omitting
evaluations of the remainder and minimizing misinformation, according to the
instructions provided.
In Figure 3, we can see that most participants addressed at least 4 different risks, while only 2
addressed a single risk. We can also see that 2 of the participants addressed all risks selected.

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Figure 3: Number of risks addressed per participant

Source: Authors

On the other hand, each risk was addressed by at least 3 participants and at most by 4
participants, as we can see from Figure 4.
Figure 4: Number of participants addressing each risk

Source: Authors

Afterwards, the answers received went through a quality process, which consisted in a
manual inspection of all answers to make sure that the questionnaires have been properly
answered. Namely we developed efforts to ensure that no missing values existed and that
the correct risks have been evaluated by the respondents. Some issues were found, and the
experts involved were invited to revise their answers whenever necessary.
To consolidate the 6 different answers to the questionnaire, we decided to favour
situations where the majority of participants have a similar answer; hence, we have used
the median to come up with the consolidated evaluation of the relevance of each
information attribute to each risk.
To score the relevance of the information, the WSM was then instantiated, considering
the formula depicted, as follows:

• Decision alternatives: The CISE information model attributes;

• Decision criteria: The maritime risks used in the CoopP.

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• Decision criteria weights (W): The weights presented in Table 3.

• Quantification of the impacts of the alternatives on the criteria (V): The values
of the scale presented above.
To set the priorities for the SI actions (development of mappings and transformations
between the CIM and the IMs involved), according to the relevance of the information
attributes, we have converted each information attribute score into a value of the
relevance scale used, by rounding the results obtained, hence providing an operational
meaning to the priorities assigned. This facilitated achieving coherence and consensus,
which was reached at the second iteration with the respondents.
The results, depicted in Figure 5, evidence the need of a method like the one being
proposed. Firstly, because a huge percentage of the information attributes is relevant for
their users. According to the questionnaire results, 98.71% (690) of the CISE
information attributes are useful, important or even indispensable to operational
activities aiming to deter, detect or respond to the risks considered. Additionally, none
of the CISE information attributes is found irrelevant, and only 1.29% (9) are
considered potentially useful by the experts involved. Secondly, because without
criteria to support a different approach, users will engage in cumbersome activities to
obtain the information they lack. Due to the high number of information attributes being
dealt with simultaneously, they tend to engage in activities with high duration and costs
before producing results, and which entail more simultaneous risks. Therefore, in this
case, an iterative and incremental approach should be used.
Figure 5: Number of information attributes per priority

Source: Authors

Furthermore, we can also see in Figure 5 that 5.29% (37) of the information attributes
are indispensable, that 62.09% (434) are considered important and that 31.33% (219)
are considered useful. Therefore, an incremental plan for developing the SI of the
participants driven by the risks they address and its inherent benefits, could be devised
in three phases, as follows:
I. Indispensable information attributes (37).
II. Important information attributes (434).
III. Useful information attributes (219).

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This would be a plan which costs would be distributed along the time, and which would
provide the highest benefits and require the minimum effort in the beginning. It would
also produce results much faster than tackling the 699 information attributes
simultaneously; hence, would allow participants to increase confidence in the initiative
while reducing the risks involved by reducing its overall complexity. For example,
dealing with the legal issues necessary to share 699 information attributes at the same
time, among 6 different organizations, is (overwhelming) completely different than
doing it considering only 37 information attributes.
If the second phase would still be considered too complex, then a second order priority
could be established, for example addressing each risk separately. In Figure 6, we can
see that the number of information attributes with priority 3 per risk is completely
different. Based on this, if, for example, the two major priorities for Portugal were to
fight drug trafficking and IUU fishing, than phase II could be further broken down as
follows:
Important information attributes for operations aiming to deter, detect or respond to:
I. Drug trafficking (272).
II. Illegal unreported and unregulated fishing (remainder – some may be
coincident).
III. Other risks (remainder – some may be coincident).

Figure 6: Number of information attributes per risk with priority 3

Source: Authors

4.2 EVALUATION
In DSR, the evaluation of the artefacts produced is a key activity [21]. Its purpose is to
ensure that the solution proposed to solve a particular problem will, in fact, work. In
other words, the artefacts produced are only valid if they achieve the desired and
expected objectives, that is, they completely accomplish their function [25].
In this context, we have qualitatively evaluated the proposed method considering the
objectives set in section 3 and the results obtained during the validation presented in
section 4.1, as follows:

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Usability – The proposed method was validated in a real environment, with experts
dealing with a real problem for which the proposed method was designed. At least 6
experts were involved in the validation, one per each organization which answered the
questionnaire. The results of the Delphi method were stable after the second iteration
and the effort needed to answer the questionnaire has been estimated between 2 and 6
hours per expert. A few sessions to answer specific questions from the experts,
regarding the questionnaire, have been held, beyond the written instructions and
supporting documentation (namely the CISE information model documentation)
provided beforehand.
Coherence – The priority of the SI actions to develop is based: (1) on the relevance of
each information attribute to each risk selected, as considered by each expert; (2) on the
median of all experts’ opinions, hence favouring skewness situations; (3) on the relative
importance of each of the risks selected. Consequently, the highest priority corresponds
to the SI action, which entails the information attribute that is more relevant to all risks
selected, considering the harmonized opinion of all experts; hence, delivers the highest
benefits.
Consensual – Information sharing can only be achieved if the parties involved concur
with the initiative. Therefore, consensus is an essential characteristic of any decision
process willing to support it. To achieve it, the proposed solution is based on the Delphi
method, which foresees interactions with the stakeholders, with the exact purpose of
harmonising their opinions regarding the importance of each information attribute for
each risk selected, until a final stable result is achieved.
Usefulness – The proposed method enabled the division of the CISE information
attributes considered into smaller groups using firstly the priority assigned and,
secondly, the risks used. This allowed the creation of an action plan with several phases,
where the first phase entails only approximately 5% of the information attributes, hence
only 5% of the effort, costs and risks, if we assume these to be linear and directly
proportional to the number of information attributes considered, for the sake of simplicity.
Overall, we consider that the proposed method achieves its objectives, hence it is
capable of solving the problem it was designed for. Firstly, because the method has
shown to be easy to use and did not consume too much time from the experts involved.
Secondly, because the SI actions with higher priority were those that entail the most
relevant information, hence the highest benefits. Thirdly, because the priorities assigned
to the SI actions were achieved by consensus and, finally, because it made possible to
draft an action plan for developing SI, hence sharing information, among the
organizations involved, with the most important benefits delivered in a shorter period of
time, with much less costs and risks associated.

5 CONCLUSIONS
We have developed a method, following the Design Science Research strategy, for
prioritizing Semantic Interoperability development actions based on the risks they
address. The proposed method is based on a combination of the Delphi method with the
Weighted Sum Model.
We have demonstrated and evaluated this method in a real environment, in the maritime
surveillance domain, involving 6 authorities committed to share information, hence to
develop their semantic interoperability, which participate in the NIPIM@R project. The

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demonstration also used the EU maritime CISE information model and the results of a
cost-benefit analysis regarding maritime surveillance and information sharing in
Europe, developed during the CoopP project.
The proposed method has achieved its objectives, hence it can be used for effectively
solving real problems. Namely, to support the development of Semantic Interoperability
among organizations, in the maritime surveillance domain, by contributing to the
development of iterative and incremental action plans.
By using the proposed method, organizations involved in related initiatives will be able
to devise better grounded initiatives with the potential to achieve better results, faster,
with less costs and risks, hence inducing confidence and motivating the participants to
continue their involvement in information sharing initiatives.

REFERENCES
[1] Finnish Border Guard, “Test Project on Cooperation in Execution of Various
Maritime Functionalities at Sub-Regional or Sea-Basin level in the Field of
Integrated Maritime Surveillance (CoopP). Final Report,” Helsinky, 2014.
[2] ICF International, “Study on the feasibility of improved co-operation between
bodies carrying out European Coast Guard functions,” Brussels, 2014.
[3] Council of the European Union, “European Union Maritime Security Strategy,”
Brussels, 2014.
[4] European Commission, “eHealth Action Plan 2012-2020 - Innovative Healthcare
for the 21st century. COM(2012) 736 final,” Brussels, 2012.
[5] European Union, “European Interoperability Framework ( EIF ),” Brussels, 2011.
[6] European Commission, “Towards Interoperability for European Public Services.
COM(2010) 744 final,” Brussels, 2010.
[7] F. S. Bryton Dias Marques, J. E. Martínez Marín, and O. Delgado Ortega,
“Information Sharing Performance Management - A Semantic Interoperability
Assessment in the Maritime Surveillance Domain,” in Proceedings of the 7th
International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge
Engineering and Knowledge Management, 2015, no. Ise, pp. 382–393.
[8] European Commission, “Integrating Maritime Surveillance. Common
Information Sharing Environment (CISE),” Brussels, 2010.
[9] European Commission, “An Integrated Maritime Policy for the European Union.
COM(2007) 575 final,” Brussels, 2007.
[10] Secrétariat Général de la Mer, “BlueMassMed. Final report,” Paris, France, 2012.
[11] Italian Space Agency (ASI), “EUCISE2020,” 2015. [Online]. Available:
http://www.eucise2020.eu/. [Accessed: 18-Feb-2016].
[12] A. R. Hevner and S. Chatterjee, Design Research in Information Systems. New
York: Springer, 2010.
[13] H. A. Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd Ed. MIT Press, 1996.
[14] K. et al. Peffers, “A Design Science Research Methodology for Information
Systems Research,” J. Manag. Inf. Syst., vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 45–77, 2007.
[15] M. Linstone, Harold A. Turoff, The Delphi Method: Techniques and
Applications. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc, 1975.

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[16] E. Triantaphyllou, “Multi-criteria Decision Making Methods: A Comparative

Study,” Springer US, Boston, MA, 2000.
[17] F. Hwang, “An Expert Decision Making Support System for Multiple Attribute
Decision Making,” Kansas State University, Manhanttan, KS, USA, 1987.
[18] P. C. Fishburn, “Additive Utilities with Incomplete Product Set: Applications to
Priorities and Assignments,” Oper. Res. Soc. Am., 1967.
[19] S. J. Chen and C. L. Hwang, “Fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision Making:
Methods and Applications,” Lect. Notes Econ. Math. Syst. Springer-Verlag, no.
375, 1991.
[20] N. Bradburn, S. Sudman, and B. Wansink, “Asking questions: A practical guide
to questionnaire design,” Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2004.
[21] A. Dresch, D. Lacerda, and J. Antunes, Design Science Research. Springer, 2015.
[22] A. R. et al. Hevner, “Design Science in Information Systems Research,” MIS Q.,
vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 75–105, 2004.
[23] M. C. Tremblay, A. R. Hevner, and D. J. Berndt, “Focus groups for artifact
refinement and evaluation in Design Research,” Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst., vol.
26, pp. 599–618, 2010.
[24] Directorate-General for Maritime Policy, “National Ocean Strategy 2013-2020,”
Portuguese Directorate-General for Maritime Policy, Lisbon, 2013.
[25] J. Pries-Heje and R. Baskerville, “The design theory nexus,” MIS Q., vol. 32, no.
4, pp. 731–755, 2008.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

DIGITAL MARITIME REGULATIONS: APPLICATIONS TO SHIPS

AND PORTS
Marianne Hagaseth (I)
Philipp Lohrmann (II)
Albert Ruiz (III)
Fotis Oikonomou (IV)
Daniel Roythorne (V)
Stéphanie Rayot (VI)
(I) MARINTEK, marianne.hagaseth@marintek.sintef.no
(II), (V) BMT, plohrmann@bmtmail.com, droythorne@bmtmail.com
(III) PORTIC, Albert.ruiz@portic.net,
(IV) DANAOS, drc@danaos.com
(VI) TEMIS, stephanie.rayot@temis.com

Abstract

The set of regulations that apply to ships and ports is already large and is increasing.
Also, the long lifetime of ships, the different phases of ship operations and the large
number of parties involved in the compliance and enforcement processes increase the
need to make maritime regulations available in a machine-readable format.
In this paper, we describe the process of making maritime regulations machine-
readable and how this can improve the compliance and enforcement for ship and port
actors.
A maritime ontology has been defined and can be used by legislators when drafting new
regulations. For ports, machine-readable regulations can be linked directly to the port
procedures, and thus help port stakeholders to assess the impact of new regulations and
trace their legislative origin. For ship operators, the maintenance and creation of Ship
Management Systems can be simplified if machine-readable regulations are used to
give an overview existing regulations.

Keywords:
Ships and port operations, facilities and cargo handling, e-navigation and e-maritime,
Sea traffic management, semantic technology, maritime ontology

Acknowledgements:
This work has been performed as part of the e-Compliance project which has received
funding from the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission under grant
agreement MOVE/FP7/321606

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INTRODUCTION

Commercial shipping is heavily regulated by a large number of international and

national authorities in addition to the EU and local authorities in the ports. These
authorities maintain a large and increasing number of maritime regulations that apply to
ships and ports. These regulations are only to a very limited extent available in
machine-readable and searchable formats, and no tools to support the creators to write
new regulations and maintain existing regulations in a consistent way, exists. The result
of this is that compliance with and enforcement of maritime regulations remain tedious
processes with little digital support. This means that the complexity of the regulations
and the dependencies between all the various stakeholders must be manually handled.
The work reported in this paper is done as part of the EU-project e-Compliance. The
main goal of the project is to create tools to help reduce the administrative burden on
maritime stakeholders by using semantic technology and digital models to create and
manage machine-readable regulations [1].

1. THE CASE FOR MACHINE-READABLE MARITIME REGULATIONS

This section describes why it is important to have a digital archive of maritime

regulations that can be used to support compliance and enforcement done by the ship
and port stakeholders.

1.1 COMPLEX REGULATIONS

There are several factors that add to the complexity of maritime regulations and thus
make their interpretation and compliance more difficult:

• Maritime regulations are issued by several different organizations at different levels

(international, supra-national, national, local), see Figure 1.
• Maritime regulations are in many cases related to each other, for instance in the case
where the EU issues a directive regulating maritime transport, which is subsequently
implemented at the national level. Another example is the introduction of the ISM
Code created by the IMO, and then implemented by each flag state (Figure 2).
Furthermore, each ISM company must create checklists and procedures in their Ship
Management System (SMS) to comply with the ISM Code. For other regulations,
for instance the ISPS Code issued by the IMO, the port authority may need to create
port specific rules and procedures to comply with this regulation.
• The applicability of maritime regulations is complex in that it can depend on several
factors, for instance the ship type, keel laid date, flag state, crew nationality, type of
voyage, departure and destination port, geographical areas, port state, weather
conditions, ice conditions, average temperatures and a combination of these. All
these different applicability types must possibly be viewed as a whole to be able to
get the correct regulations and paragraphs of a regulation that must be complied
with in a certain situation.
• Law text is generally complex with long, complex sentences, multiple exceptions
and text written as lists where there can be either a meaning of “OR” or “AND”
between each item.
• Sometimes things are intentionally left open or unclear if agreement is not reached.
In addition, errors may happen during the law creation or updating processes, for
instance that some paragraphs that were meant to be invalidated are not invalidated.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

• Regulation text has several links to other sections in the same regulation and also to
other regulations issued by different organisations. This makes the interpretation of
the regulation text a complex process, since the reader also needs to be sure that the
correct version of the text is found.
• There are a large number of regulations, and the number of regulations is increasing.
This is because regulations are very seldom invalidated; instead new regulations are
introduced to cover new situations and also to solve inconsistencies,
misunderstandings and ambiguities in existing regulations.
• Ships have long lifetime, meaning that new rules may apply to the ship over its
whole life time. The “grandfathering” principle means that regulations hardly can be
deleted, since they may still be applicable for older ships. For instance, amendments
to SOLAS and MARPOL related to the structure of a ship shall apply only to ships
which can be considered to be built on or after the date on which the amendment
enters into force. Thus, previous versions of the regulation text must be “kept alive”
to maintain the correct text for older ships.
• Regulations cover all different phases of shipping, both design, build, operation and
transportation, which means that the domain is very large with lot of different concepts.
• The Force Majeure 1 clause adds complexity to the interpretation of the regulation
text since this introduces a possible exception for all regulations.
• New regulations may have an unclear relation to existing regulations, for instance
how the new Polar Code [2] relates to the United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea [3]. This ensures the "freedom of the seas"-concept for other nations in a
coast state's water. How does this relate to the Polar Code? Will the Polar Code
restrict the sea traffic more than what is ensured in the Law of the Sea, since by
accepting the Polar Code, a flag state will reduce their influence compared to what
is stated in the Law of the Sea [4].
• The definitions used in a regulation text contain a lot of information that must be
considered during the interpretation of the whole text. This makes the text more
fragmented as a lot of information that is spread out over different chapters and
different regulations must be considered at the same time.
Figure 1: Maritime Regulations and Stakeholders

1
An event or effect that can be neither anticipated nor controlled.

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1.2 CHALLENGES WITH COMPLEX, MANUAL REGULATIONS

The fact that maritime regulations are very complex leads to problems for all
stakeholders involved in maritime transport, both for regulation creators, for ship
operators, ship managers, captains, ship agents and for port authorities.
1.2.1 Regulation Creators

For the international, national and local authorities, writing new regulation text and
maintaining existing text with respect to consistency, completeness and correct use of
terms and ensuring correct linking to other regulations, is very challenging. It is difficult
to find the exact definition of a term, and it is difficult to know which term to use in a
certain case. The same term can be used for two different "things", for instance the two
definitions of bulk carrier that exist in SOLAS, where in Chapter II-1, IX, and XII a
“bulkcarrier” or “bulk carrier” is defined differently 2 [5]. Also, two terms can be
introduced to denote the same concept, for instance “fishing boat” and “fishing vessel”.

Figure 2: Complexity of Maritime Regulations [6]

2
SOLAS Chapter IX: “Bulk carrier” means a ship which is constructed generally with single deck, top-side
tanks and hopper side tanks in cargo spaces, and is intended primarily to carry dry cargo in bulk, and
includes such types as ore carriers and combination carriers.
SOLAS Chapter XII: Bulkcarrier means a ship which is intended primarily to carry dry cargo in bulk,
including such types as ore carriers and combination carriers.

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1.2.2 Collaboration

One challenge with having complex and non-machine-readable regulations is that the
connection between the makers of the law with those who need to enforce or obey it is
not supported through an electronic system, meaning that the changes must be manually
published to the users of the law. The same goes for International Safety Management
code companies. They are not automatically aware of updates on regulatory changes,
and the information is not filtered by relevance for them (for example, ship or cargo
types and geographic regions). This makes it more difficult for the practitioners to
update their processes and internal procedures to ensure compliance.
Another challenge is for the ship crew to know the actual rules that are valid in a port,
since the local by-laws and the mandatory reporting requirements vary from port to
port. Without having formulated computer-readable “rules” that contain the
requirements of the by-laws, it is a manual and labour intensive process for the ship
agent to keep track of the requirements and to alert the captain and the crew about these
and also about the cases where the requirements are not met.

Further, with no machine-readable regulations, ports are not able to publish regulations
and report templates directly to ship systems so that the ship systems can pick these up
and automatically initiate the reporting and compliance-checking process.
From a business perspective, shipping companies spend a large amount of resources
collecting new and updated regulations each year. In addition to the cost, they often
remain unsure that their system is up to date and those authorities in different ports do
agree with their interpretation of the regulations.

2. CREATION AND MAINTENANCE OF MACHINE-READABLE MARITIME

REGULATIONS

This section gives an overview of how the machine readable regulations are created
from plain regulation text and how this supports the interpretation and searching of the
regulation text.
Figure 3: Creation and usage of machine-readable maritime regulations [7]

The writing and maintenance of machine readable maritime regulations require domain
expertise, legal expertise and also knowledge of how the text can be interpreted, Figure
3. The e-Compliance project are aiming to support this process by developing an ICT

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tool in which new regulations can be written, existing regulations can be uploaded,
manual and automatic annotation of the text can be done, consistency is checked, plain
text is stored according to a maritime ontology, interpretation of terms, definitions and
links to related and similar regulations are readily available, and search capabilities
exist.
2.1 THE APPROACH

Central to our approach to creating machine-readable regulations is the concept of a

“Rule”. In this context, a Rule is a data structure consisting of three parts:
• The “Target”, capturing who or what the regulation applies to (typically a type of
ship or a person);
• The “Context”, describing the conditions under which the regulation is applicable
for example geographical location, weather or currently performed activity;
• The “Requirement”, capturing what is demanded of the Target in order to be
compliant with the regulation, for example the submission of a report or the
availability of a piece of equipment.
We capture the content of a regulation by creating a Rule instance and storing it in a
specifically created maritime ontology, see [8]. In the e-Compliance project, we are
mainly focused on describing the ship classes to which a given regulation applies.
The steps in the process of creating machine-readable regulations are shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Regulation Creation Process [9]

The first step is to automatically annotate the raw regulation text using specifically
created semantic tools. This process serves two purposes:

• To check for a consistent use of terms. This step is based on the e-Compliance
thesaurus described in [9] and a specifically created, publicly available reference
vocabulary for the maritime domain.
• To extract a Rule to capture the content of the regulation text.
The outputs of this annotation process are then checked by the author; if necessary, he
or she will make adjustments to both the text and the suggested Rule. Once satisfied, the
user can save the Rule in the e-Compliance ontology, thus creating a machine-readable
version of the regulation, capturing in particular the set of ships to which it applies.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Subsequently, standard semantic technology (so-called “Reasoners”) can be used to

decide which regulations apply to a given vessel. The steps above will be explained in
more detail in the following sections.
2.2 SEMANTIC AND ONTOLOGICAL ENRICHMENT

The automatic annotation of raw regulation text is done using the specialist semantic
tool Luxid [10]. Luxid annotation services are based on Text Mining processes for
extracting and analysing large volumes of unstructured text content in order to discover
enriched relevant information in a machine-readable output format.
This approach required the creation of specific resources (called Skill Cartridge) for
terminology and component hierarchies in the maritime domain. For the purpose of the
e-Compliance project, two dedicated Skill Cartridges have been developed, a first one
based on the e-Compliance thesaurus and a second one that extracts the instances (Rules
and Entities) with their properties for each object modelled. The regulations are
enriched thanks to the relevant pieces of information that are modelled in the Skill
Cartridges, mainly:
• Publication information (for instance authority, instrument, publication date and
amendments) and document parts (for instance title, paragraphs and notes)
• Scope of the rule (for instance the geographical area concerned, the application date,
the ship types affected, its applicability in new or existing vessels, the conditions)
• The ensued restrictions and/or requirements (that is, reporting formalities and
certificates, declaring party)

The result of the extraction process is a suggested Rule that captures the content of the
regulation (in particular the set of ships it applies to) as well as information on whether
‘correct’ terms (as defined by the thesaurus) have been used. An example of such an
output (for a fictitious regulation) is shown in Figure 5. Note that in the regulation text,
the term “life raft” was used, whereas the ‘official’ term (called the Preferred Label) is
“liferaft”. The thesaurus contains about 1,500 maritime terms, with labels in English,
French and Spanish.

Figure 5: Example of an enriched regulation

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The output of the annotation process is manually checked by the user; if required, both
the raw text and the suggested Rule can be updated at this stage.

2.3 MACHINE-READABLE REGULATIONS

The set of ships to which a regulation applies is stored as a target ship class in the e-
Compliance ontology. These classes are specified by a set of ship-specific variables.
The variables currently used are given in Table 1.
Table 1: Variables used to specify target ship classes

Variable Name Type

Ship Type String
Tonnage Double
Length Double
Draft Double
Passenger Number Integer
Keel Laid Date Integer

It is easy to extend this list, but these variables are sufficient to demonstrate the concept.
A target ship class is defined by restricting the ranges of these variables. As an example,
the fictitious regulation used in Figure 5 (“All oil tankers bigger than 500 GT but smaller
than 800 GT and built before 1 January 1980 must have at least 4 life rafts.”) imposes
the following restrictions on its target ship class:

• Ship Type = “oil tanker”

• 500 GT < Tonnage < 800 GT
• Keel Laid Date > 19800101
For this extremely simple example, the target ship class can be fully automatically
extracted from the regulation text using the Luxid tool, See Section 2.2. The resulting
class in the ontology is shown below in a screenshot of Protégé [11], a popular ontology
editor, see Figure 6.
Figure 6: Target ship class as seen in Protégé

Note that the ship type has automatically been changed to “crude oil tanker”, which is
the preferred label in the e-Compliance thesaurus.

In general, target ship classes of real maritime regulations are more complicated than
the over-simplified example used above. However, any relation of sets can readily be
constructed using the operators union (⋃), intersection (∩) and complement (¬). Thus,
let us consider the following example from MARPOL [12], Figure 7:

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Figure 7: Example of structured and machine-readable output regulation [13]

The target ship class is given as the union of the two sets “Ships ≥ 400 GT” and “Oil
tankers ≥150 GT”. The resulting target ship class is modelled in Protégé as shown
below, Figure 8.
Figure 8: Target ship class extracted from a MARPOL regulation

In practice, restrictions on target ship classes are frequently spread out over different
parts of a regulatory instrument. For example, SOLAS Ch.1 Reg.4 [14] contains the
subtitle “Applicable for all ships from 1980-05-25”, which is not repeated in the actual
regulatory text. In addition, there are regulations that specify applicability and
exemptions for the rest of the chapter or indeed the rest of the document. One of the
main purposes of the Creation Tool is to help users keep track of these restrictions; once
they have been added to the ontology, the Creation Tool will be able to collect and
consolidate all applicable restrictions to the target ship class of a given regulation. This
approach relies on creating a hierarchical model of the document in RDF, see Section
2.5.

The main advantage of using an ontology to capture the content of maritime regulations
is that readily-available software tools called “Reasoners” (e.g HermiT [15]) can be
used to check the consistency of the extracted target ship classes and indeed of the
ontology as a whole. If the user tries to implement inconsistent restrictions on a class,
the system will give a warning. Figure 9 shows a simple example of an inconsistent
target class shown in Protégé. Note that after invoking the Reasoner (in this case Pellet

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[16]), the class is shown as equivalent to “Nothing” (i.e. the empty set), indicating that
the imposed restrictions cannot be fulfilled.
Figure 9: An example of an inconsistent target class

2.4 SEMANTIC SEARCH

Assume we have a concrete instance of a vessel, specified by the parameters listed in

Table 1. How can we find the regulations that apply to this ship? To answer this
question, we first create an “instance” of a ship in the ontology, specifying the values of
the listed parameters, see Figure 10.

Figure 10: An example ship

We then simply invoke a Reasoner to retrieve all target ship classes of which this
instance is a member. The regulations that gave rise to these classes are the ones that
apply to the ship instance. For the given example, this includes the MARPOL regulation
in Figure 8, but not the (fictitious) example in Figure 5.

2.5 IMPLEMENTATION
This section describes the choices made regarding storage formats of machine readable
regulations, including the means by which documents are logically structured, how
metadata and linkages are systematically added using technologies originating in the
semantic web, and how the Creation Tool and other services access such information.
We have taken our inspiration from efforts made by legislation.gov.uk to make UK
primary legislation available as linked data over machine accessible web interfaces. In
that case, legal instruments are manifested as XML documents according to an XSD
schema, then annotated with metadata elements originating in linked data standards. We
take this two stages further: first, by expressing the underlying data model as a semantic
web graph; and second, by including links between textual elements in legal
instruments, and the OWL classes which unambiguously identify them within a
maritime domain ontology.

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2.5.1 Storing Machine Readable Regulation Text

For storage and retrieval, ontology entities and legislative documents are converted to
RDF [17] and stored in a triple store. The stored RDF graph adheres to OWL [18] and
makes use of the Dublin Core [19], Metalex [20], OrderedListOntology [21] and SKOS
[22]. For prototyping, these triples have been stored in an in-memory database supplied
by Apache Jena [23], and enterprise graph or triple stores with transactional features,
such as Giraph [24], Neo4J [25], or Apache Jena TDB/Fuseki are suitable for
production usage. The resultant RDF permits multiple use cases and extensions, some
of which are used directly by the e-Compliance Creation Tool, but all are relevant to the
structured and consistent editing, distribution, browsing, linking and reuse of maritime
legislation. In particular:

• Queries may be issued against the full knowledge graph using SPARQL3[26]
through RESTful interfaces to CRUD operations, for which we provide an example
below;

• ‘Missing truths’ and contradictions are deduced using OWL reasoners (see also
Section 2.3) and the knowledge base may be further enhanced with SWRL rules;
semantic consistency of the underlying data structure can be guaranteed (e.g.
Metalex BibliographicExpressions must be a realisationOf exactly one
BibliographicWork);

• The data schema may be readily linked to other online repositories of relevant
linked data (e.g. legislation.gov.uk publishes all UK statutes as XML containing
semantic metadata) using semantic web tools.

Structured regulation text is input from the Creation Tool via a simple RESTful
interface; that abstracts the specifics of RDF document interactions manipulating RDF-
XML triplets, to domain specific actions. The service handles issuance and enforcement
of structured, unique identifiers for all entities, and these URI ‘handles’ on RDF nodes
may be shared across services. As a design choice, RDF triples are considered
immutable so that URIs remain consistent (documents are viewed as essentially static
content, so immutability of the metalex:BibliographicExpression (the document
version) guarantees that references to a particular manifestation of that document stored
as a static web resource remain valid.

As an example of the prototype functionality permitted by the RDF representation,

below is a SPARQL query showing how a concrete document representation can be
reconstructed from its graph representation.

The code snippet in Figure 11 shows a SPARQL 1.1 query conducting a depth-first
traversal of an RDF document tree for a SOLAS Chapter 14 expression. It utilizes the
imodoc (IMO documents), olo (OrderedListOntology) and list (ARQ list) ontology
namespaces and reconstructs the sub-document nesting and branch ordering (e.g. a
document hierarchy of Chapters – Sections – Paragraphs) for an arbitrary document
type.

3
Strictly speaking, we use ARQ, the Jena implementation of a SPARQL 1.1 compatible RDF query
language, which includes the capability to conduct full text searches on nodes

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Figure 11 SPARQL Snippet [27]

String prefix = "prefix rdf: <" + RDF.getURI() + ">\n" +

"prefix owl: <" + OWL.getURI() + ">\n" +
"prefix imodoc: <" + IMO_DOC_NS + ">\n" +
"prefix olo: <" + ORDERED_LIST_NS + ">\n" +
"prefix list: <" + ARQ_LIST + ">\n";
showQuery( model,
prefix + "SELECT ?item ?depth ?idx ?section_type WHERE { ?slot olo:item
?item. ?slot olo:index ?idx. {SELECT ?item" +
" (count(?intermediate)-1 as ?depth) WHERE {imodoc:SOLAS_1_14
(imodoc:contains/olo:slot/olo:item)* ?intermediate . ?intermediate
(imodoc:contains/olo:slot/olo:item)* ?item ?format_type .} group by ?item order by
?depth}" +
" } ORDER BY ?depth ?idx"
);

After reconstructing a table containing the URI of the content, its depth within the
master document, order and formatting information (i.e. should this be formatted as a
Chapter, Section, BulletedList, etc., where options exist within the namespace of the
document root, imodoc: SOLAS_1_14). A subset of the underlying RDF graph is
shown in Figure 12. The full version is available from the authors on request.
Figure 12 RDF Graph example [28]

Ontology enhancements derived by semantic consolidation rules applied in Section 2.3

are logically stored in RDF, both within the Jena triple store and as OWL RDF/XML
text files.
2.5.2 User Interface for Creating Machine Readable Regulations

Figure 13 shows basic functionalities needed by the user during the regulation text
creation process. The following describes how the creator of the regulation text uses the
graphical user interface. The plain regulation is entered by the user, and the Ontological

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Services described in the previous section are then used to decide whether it is a rule or
a definition. After the user has written the plain text, he clicks the "Annotate"-button
(Figure 13). Then, the semantically annotated regulation text from the Ontological
Services is displayed. The target is displayed, if found. If a definition is found, the name
and the description are displayed. The user is allowed to change the Rule and the
Definition found by the Ontological Services according to what he was actually
meaning. The user is allowed to enter tags (meta-data) to the regulation to manually
enrich the text. Examples of these are:

• The Regulation Title: The text that constitutes the title of a regulation.
• The Regulation Type, for instance certificate, procedure, checklist, technical
specification, operational specification, functional requirement or report
specification.
• Regulation KPI: KPIs can be added to be able to measure the consequences of
introducing a new regulation, both in terms of unwanted and wanted effects, and
also to improve the searching of the regulations based on the meta data value. As an
example, regarding the ISM Code, the following KPIs may be relevant to check
compliance: Flawless Port state control performance, Lost Time Injury Frequency,
Health and Safety deficiencies, Lost Time sickness Frequency, Crew planning, HR
deficiencies, Releases of substances as defined by MARPOL, Contained spills,
Environmental deficiencies, Passenger injury ratio, Port state control detention,
Vetting deficiencies, Condition of class, Failure of critical equipment and systems,
Fire and explosions and Port state control deficiency ratio.
• Invalidate: Regulations are invalidated by setting the tag Invalidate to TRUE.
• Finalize: Regulations are finalized by setting the tag Finalize to TRUE.
• Regulation Hierarchy: Regulation text is structured in a hierarchy.

After the user has completed the manual update of the regulation text, he saves the
regulation, and it is stored in the RDF-XML graph.
During interpretation of the text, the user enters a term he wants to check, and the
broader term, preferred term, and the definition is found from the thesaurus (the SKOS
terms). The user can select a ship definition found in the semantic annotation, and then
select the actual ship class that he wants to use in this regulation.
The user can search for similar regulations using Luxid services. An extension to this is
to allow the user to check the regulation for possible inconsistencies and incompleteness
using the ontology services, not only semantic queries.
The objective of the regulation will not be entered manually by the user, since this is
already found in the RDF-XML-graph: the objective of the regulation is often found in
the regulation text itself. This objective is then inherited by the sub-regulations of the
regulation. This is implemented in the subject field of the linked data, where the 10
most used SKOS terms used in the plain regulation text are fetched from the RDF-XML
graph representing the text.
Lists of paragraphs in the regulation text are handled by letting the user specify either
“AND” or “OR” between each of the sibling regulation paragraphs.

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Procedures and Checklists are handled by letting the user specify the Regulation Type,
that is, either "Procedure definition" or "Checklist definition".
The Amendment Date is automatically set by the Creation Tool to be the date when
the regulation was last updated. Validity date, expiration date and availability date
need not be manually added by the user, since these dates are found by the semantic
annotation.
The user interface also provides links from one regulation to another regulation to
increase the readability and simplify the maintenance of the text.

Figure 13: Creation Tool User interface for entering regulation text [9]

2.5.3 Additional Use Cases for Reasoning over the Ontology

Extending the regulation rule from just containing the target to also cover the
requirement, context and exception, gives us the possibility to support the user with
information about the completeness and consistency of the regulations. One example is
that the requirements entered in a rule can be checked to inform the user that the
requirement defined in this regulation is not complete for all ships when taking into
account already existing regulations in the knowledge database. An example is:

• A regulation has some requirement X on the life boats for ships with length > 300
meters.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

To check the completeness of this regulation, the Ontology Services could check other
regulations that have a requirement involving life boats. If the Ontology Services return
only one regulation that is a requirement on the life boats for ships with length < 200
meters, then the user should be notified that there may be missing some regulations for
ships with length between 200 and 300 meters.
Regarding consistency, another extension is to give the user a hint on the consistency of
a newly entered regulation compared to already existing regulation texts. The Ontology
Services could return a set of regulations with requirements that may be inconsistent,
and leave it to the user to change the new regulation. Some examples are:

• A regulation has a requirement saying that ships of a certain ship type must have 4
life boats. We want to check the consistency of this regulation: Does there exist
other regulations that are inconsistent with this requirement? The ontology services
could find regulations that already have a requirement saying that ships of this ship
type must have 2 life boats.

• One regulation defines a requirement "greater than" for some property. Another
regulation defines a requirement "less than" on the same property. The user should
be notified that this may be an inconsistency.

• The user enters a new regulation saying: "ship>300 GT AND requirement X" Then,
a list of regulations should be given that is possibly affected by the new regulation.
For instance: All regulations that apply to ships > 500 GT should be listed and
checked by the user.

• An example from the Polar Code, where the Ontology Services must check that no
conflicting requirements to lifeboats exist: "In order to comply with the functional
requirement of paragraph 8.2.3.3 above, the following apply: no lifeboat shall be of
any type other than partially or totally enclosed type;

Searching the regulations can be done by both creators and also by the port and ship
actors, Figure 14. The result is a list of regulations that are applicable for the relevant
values given for the parameters. The parameters will only be checked against the target
of the rule, not against the context, the requirement nor the exception. If also contexts,
requirements and exceptions of the rules are handled as well, searches can also be done
on cargo, activity, journey and maritime situation.
In Figure 14, an “AND” or “OR” relation between the ship parameters and the
regulation parameters can be specified. Inside each group, for instance the Ship,
each attribute can be left blank or a value can be given. An alternative is to select the
ship class that we want to list all regulations for instead of specifying the values. An
“AND” is taken between all given values inside each group. This will list all
regulations applicable for a certain ship type, and possibly restricted to specific
regulations.

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Figure 14: Regulation Search User Interface [9]

If the requirement of the rules also was represented in the RDF graph, including
information about Cargo, Activity, Journey and Maritime situation, and not only the
target ship type, more queries would be possible. Then queries of the following type
would be possible to answer by accessing the RDF-XML-graph-representation of the
regulation text:

• Which port bye-laws are valid for garbage handling in port Y (our neighbour port)?
• Which regulations apply to a ship carrying dry bulk?
• Which regulations in the SOLAS instrument have to do with maintenance?
• Which port bye-laws apply to my RORO ship when entering Barcelona?
• Which regulations apply to my RO-PAX ship carrying dry bulk between Spain and
UK?
• Which clauses in the ISM code can be implemented as check lists?
• What are the requirements to the ship's Polar Code Certificates?
• Which regulations in the EU 2010/65 on reporting formalities for ships arriving in
and/or departing from ports of the Member States can be implemented as a
procedure?
• What will be the requirements to my ship when passing through icy waters?
• Given a requirement X (for instance restriction on where a ship can anchor): In
which regulations are this requirement given?

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

3. WHAT's IN IT FOR PORTS?

This section describes some of the advantages and new functionalities that can be made
available to the port stakeholders when they ensure the compliance with various
maritime regulations and also how this supports the enforcement done by the ports. In
this section, we describe how a Port Community System (PCS) can make use of
machine-readable maritime regulations to make the ship reporting easier and the follow-
up better. In the following, we call this add-on to the Port Community System "The e-
Compliance System".

3.1 PROCEDURE FOR OBTAINING THE SET OF RULES FROM THE DIRECTIVE
FOR EACH PORT/COUNTRY

The Port System will enable a port or ship agent to publish regulations and report
templates in a machine-readable format. Such documents could be picked up by the e-
Compliance system and specifically tailored to the needs of a ship, automatically
initiating the reporting and compliance-checking process when required. This would be
straightforward in some cases – for example, when extracting a ship’s “static” data such
as its identity number, name and tonnage.

Figure 15: Steps in Port Bye-Law Creation

Figure 15 shows the steps undertaken when creating port bye-laws for Port of Barcelona.

1. The DG Energy and Transport builds the Directive 2005/65/EC (Regulation)

2. Based on this, ‘Puertos del Estado’ (a public body dependent on Spanish Ministry of
Development), builds the Spanish law (Port bye-law) for regulating the port
procedures [29, 30].

3. This law is the base for designing the port calls procedure PIDE (Port Calls
integrated procedure) [31]

4. The Barcelona Port Authority implements this procedure, but some topics change
due to several reasons (Terminal operator requirements, etc.).

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5. Each ship agent builds a list of formalities to be performed by the vessel crew within
the vessel arrival procedure. This check list is based on the procedure, and each ship
agent adds items due to internal needs (can change the number of hours before
submitting a document, request the vessel crew to phone the ship agent, etc.).

3.2 THE EXTENDED PORT SYSTEM

The port system extended with functionalities from e-Compliance is used by the ship
agent in the port to simplify the communication with the ship captain about which
reports need to be submitted and when. The port system is composed of three
subsystems, Figure 16:
• Rule Authoring GUI: Web application that enables the port authorities to manage
the reporting rules.
• Rule Compliance System: Database where the previous reporting rules are stored.
It’s also composed of a set of services to fetch the reporting rules dependent on
different conditions.
• Reporting Gateway: Web application that enables the ship master and sometimes
ship agents to consult the rules and execute them.

Figure 16: Reporting Compliance in the Port System [28]

The port authority will represent the reporting rules, that is, the tasks, related to the
vessel arrival procedure to comply in a port, which are grouped by vessel type
(procedure for container vessels, cruisers, etc.). Optionally, the ship agents can override
these reporting rules and tasks for a vessel type in a port by adding internal
requirements (send an email with a specific information, etc.), or he can set reporting
rules by vessel instead of vessel type for covering extreme exceptions. Each reporting
rule can be subject to conditions such as Draft mean, Cargo amount, Crew number,

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Deadweight, Length over All, Gross tonnage, Passengers number, Dangerous goods or
Pollutant, Figure 17. It indicates:

• When the rule must be performed? (for instance 24 hours before arrival)

• Site where the rule must be performed (for instance in Port waters).

Figure 17: Specification of Reporting Conditions [28]

This system will enable the vessel crew to access the system to query the reporting rules
to comply when berthing in a port, and they can use it for submitting the required
information for each reporting rule.

4. WHAT'S IN IT FOR SHIP OPERATORS?

This section describes some of the advantages and new functionalities that can be made
available to the ship stakeholders when they ensure the compliance with various
maritime regulations.

The core analysis of the Ship Management System (SMS) as a regulatory enforcement
tool for ship operators will be based on Figure 18. This figure describes how a new
regulation imposed from a creator (an authority, in this case IMO) is transformed in a
machine-readable format, updates a database both onshore and at sea, amend formalities
vertically and horizontally and at last, alerts designated users to alter their workflow or
procedures.

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Figure 18: Ship Management System (SMS) as enforcement tool

4.1 E-COMPLIANCE SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ASSISTANT TOOL

The Safety Management System (SMS) is an important component of the International
safety management (ISM) code. The SMS consists of regulations implemented by the
quality department of a shipping company in order to ensure safety of the ship and
secure marine environment at sea. The SMS is a fully controlled top tier document
management system which translates regulations into procedures setting a workflow of
safety rules to be followed by marine staff.
The SMS is a dynamic document constantly revised with new regulations. Maintenance
and update of the system adds complexity and administrative cost to the company.
Dealing with aforementioned challenges, the e-Compliance project has developed an
innovative SMS assistant IT solution where the SMS policy manual is structured in a
hierarchical multi-level document breakdown, including revision history and
appropriate meta-data, such as effective date, issue date, updated references and forms.
This means the new system does not only facilitate navigation for designated users but
also ease tracking and implementation of changes vertically and horizontally to the
entire system. Updates are managed with minimum of human intervention in an
effective, automated and confidential procedural mechanism.
Once a new amendment is published and translated into a regulation repository, the
appropriate build-in e-Compliance mechanism is triggered, informing accordingly all
involved bodies, altering related statutory forms and changing templates either in
content or in task rules, consequently updating safety procedures. Finally, the rule
compliance engine tool alerts authorized users for any case of data inconsistency or
action required. The procedure of updating the SMS when a new statutory regulation is
imposed, is sketched in Figure 19.

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The e-Compliance assistant tool comes in an on-shore and an on-board version. As far
as the Safety Management System Assistant on-board version is concerned, the SMS
manual, formalities, static and operational data are stored in an on-board database and
some of these data are exchanged with the office version. The synchronisation process
makes minimal use of the limited internet connectivity on the ship, while maintaining a
high level of consistency with the shipping company databases (on-shore) and other
deployments of e-Compliance systems on other ships.
The novelty is that the tool may be used from any ship whether it has its own on-board
application or not. Existing or new formalities designed by commercial standard tools
like Microsoft Excel, Word, PDF forms, Google forms or InfoPath may be used
immediately without any change. The tool retrieves and stores only the filled in data,
assigns them to attributes and consequently exchanges them with office with minimum
communication volume and cost.
Figure 19: Updating of Ship Management System (SMS) [28]

5. CONCLUSIONS

The work done on machine-readable maritime regulations shows that this is a promising
tool to increase the consistency of regulations and also to support the compliance and
enforcement done by ship and port actors. We have made great use of already existing

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semantic tools to extract initial meaning out of the text. However, more work must be
done to be able to handle requirements, contexts and exceptions in the regulation text,
and also to handle huge amount of regulation text and the relations between different
texts.

REFERENCES
[1] http://www.e-compliance-project.eu/

[2] http://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/polar/Pages/default.aspx

[3] http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf

[4] Øystein Jensen: “The International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters:
Finalization, Adoption and Law of the Sea Implications”. In publication.

[5] e-Compliance Deliverable 1.2: Policy, Legal and Standards Analysis

http://www.e-compliance-project.eu/media/1045/d12-revised.pdf

[6] e-Compliance Deliverable 1.5: Services and Tools Specifications.

[7] e-Compliance Deliverable 5.3: Creation System.

[8] e-Compliance Deliverable 2.2: Ontology

http://www.e-compliance-project.eu/media/1028/d22-final.pdf

[9] e-compliance Deliverable 4.4: Revised Services.

[10] Luxid Annotation Service:

http://www.expertsystem.com/products/luxid-annotation-server/

[11] http://protege.stanford.edu/

[12] International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships

(MARPOL):
http://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/ListOfConventions/Pages/International-
Convention-for-the-Prevention-of-Pollution-from-Ships-%28MARPOL%29.aspx

[13] e-Compliance Deliverable D2.1: Repository Design.

[14] International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974:
http://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/ListOfConventions/Pages/International-
Convention-for-the-Safety-of-Life-at-Sea-%28SOLAS%29,-1974.aspx

[15] The HermiT OWL Reasoner: http://www.hermit-reasoner.com/

[16] Pellet Reasoner:

http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/bernardo.cuencagrau/publications/PelletDemo.pdf

[17] https://www.w3.org/RDF/

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[18] http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-features/
[19] http://dublincore.org/
[20] http://www.metalex.eu/
[21] http://smiy.sourceforge.net/olo/spec/orderedlistontology.html
[22] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-reference-20080829/skos.html
[23] https://jena.apache.org/
[24] http://giraph.apache.org/
[25] http://neo4j.com/
[26] https://jena.apache.org/documentation/query/

[27] e-Compliance Deliverable 3.1: Creation Services.

[28] e-Compliance Deliverable 5.2: Ship System.

[29] FOM/1194/2011: http://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2011-8339

[30] http://www.puertos.es/en-us/Pages/grupo-arminizaci%C3%B3n-
procedimientos.aspx

[31] PIDE (Barcelona Port Authority):

http://www.portdebarcelona.cat/cntmng/d/d/workspace/SpacesStore/678e7044-
5050-407a-af92-d42db34c595f/PIDE_v20.pdf

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MARITIME MUSEUM SECTION – AN INNOVATIVE TOURISM

PRODUCT FOR SHKODRA REGION
Dr. Mersida (Bala) Mokçi (I)
Dr. Brikenë Dionizi (II)
(I) Lecturer at the Tourism Department, University of Shkodra “Luigj Gurakuqi”,
Albania
(II) Lecturer at the Business-Administration Department, University of Shkodra “Luigj
Gurakuqi”, Albania

Abstract
Tourism destinations around the world try to create or promote existing or potential
products in order to attract visitors. Some regions are well known for their appeal
through the differentiated offer and such a case is the region of Shkodra in Albania. The
region has a lot of resources and a long history and variety of traditions which can be
exploited in order to create tourism products.
Such an opportunity is the creation of a maritime section, which can be part of the
actual historical museum of Shkodra namely “Oso Kuka”, this based on the traditions
that the region has on maritime transportation, fishing and sailing.

Keywords:
Heritage, maritime, museum, tourism, innovative product

1. INTRODUCTION

The topic of this paper is related to the potentials of creating an innovative tourism
product, a maritime museum, in the region of Shkodra, in the well known museum of
”Oso Kuka”. Shkodra region is one of the 12 regions of Albania and it is well known for
the natural, cultural and historical resources. It has a favorable geographical position
and a Mediterranean climate. The region is surrounded by the Shkodra Lake, the biggest
lake of the Balkans and also has a connection with the Adriatic Sea through the Buna
River. All these elements drawn together have converted Shkodra region in the most
important center for development of the northern Albania. An important area and
opportunity of development has been given to tourism based on the resources the region
has, mainly after the year 1990 when the communist regime ended.
Tourism needs resources and destinations to develop and museums as part of the
heritage tourism are an important product used to attract visitors. The common pattern
between tourism and museums is the cultural heritage where heritage is: “a group of
characteristics which belong to the culture of a society, such as the traditions, language
or buildings which still exist from the past and have a historical importance and we
want to preserve them for the future”(Girard & Nijkamp, 2009). Museums play an
important role for the preservation and promotion of the cultural heritage. Such a case is
the Historical Museum of Shkodra which started its existence in the 1947 and in the
year 1953 it was riorganised and diveded in different sections. Its mission is to promote
the local and national culture inside and outside Albania and the four sections it has are:
the archeological exposition, the ethnographic department, the historical department and
the library. In the year 2013 it has reached 9.000 visitors (Juka, 2016). Destinations
need to be competitive and to face the challenges which come from the external

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environment, and they do this by offering new products or new features which are
considered innovations. Our focus of this paper is to evaluate the opportunity of
deepening the offer of the actual “Oso Kuka” museum and to create the maritime
section. In order to support our idea, we have used different sources of informations
such as books, old documents, research projects, field research and interviews with
historians and the director of the “Oso Kuka” Museum.

2. HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Shkodra is positioned in the north of Albania, along the lake with its same name and
surrounded by the rivers of Buna, Kiri and Drini where the Buna River creates the
connection with the Adriatic Sea. Within a range of 45 km it is possible to reach the
mountainous areas, the Adriatic Sea and different rivers. In its entrance rises the Rozafa
Castle, 130 m above the sea level, dating back to the Illyrians hundred years BC (Kristo
& Papajani, 1995). Its favorable geographical position made it a crossroad for different
economic activities and trade but also has contributed to its cultural and social
development.

Figure 1.A map of Shkodra region during the antiquity era

Source: The museum of SHkodra “Oso Kuka”

Along the centuries Shkodra has confirmed its inalienable values in different areas. The
earliest traces of the human activity discovered in the region of Shkodra, belong to the
middle Paleolithic Age. Different objects found during the excavations which now are
part of the museums in Shkodra, Tirana and others cities of Europe, prove this claim.
The area has been populated by the Illyrian tribe of Labeats, well-known as brave

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sailors and traders. Latin historian Titus Livius called it "stronghold of the Labeats"
(Livy). Because of different trades developed in that era, Shkodra was considered a
place of living and also a big trade center. Since the IV century BC the city was
mentioned in the history with different names such as Scodra, Scobre, Skodrai, Skodre,
Skydreonopolis and today Shkodra (Ivezaj, 2010). During the era when the city was
inhabited by the Labeats, it has experienced an economic development which can be
understood by the denomination of coins in the city in the year 230 BC. In the year 181
BC, it was the capital of the Illyrian kingdom, ruled by king Genti. The process of
development of the region has experienced its ups and downs as a result of disfavorable
political conditions but it has preserved untouched a feature, being a center of economic
development. Money have been used continuously and their denomination tells a lot
about the economic relation with other countries and also about the trade especially
during the XIV-XV centuries as it was well-known for the production of wheat, wine,
different wood materials, for the handicrafts such as leather elaborations, gold and silver
elaboration, textile industry including the elaboration of silk, but also that of wood and
stone or the fishing industry (Barleti, 1982).
The invasion of Albania by the Ottoman Empire which lasted from 1385 – 1912 (the
year when Albania declared independency), had a negative impact and it had thrown
back the development of Shkodra and Albania (Jubani, 2003).
As it can be clearly seen from the map above, the region of Shkodra was the focal point
of connection with and for different countries and sailing in this region was used for
several purposes starting from the transportation of goods and people, fishing or battles.
Evidences of the means of this transportation and the fishing techniques are found in the
pre-Illyrian period (12-10 century BC), proved also by archeological findings. Through
the routes made possible by these resources Shkodra has created connections with
Albanian areas around but also with different foreign countries as it was considered a
door towards the sea. Water transportation was used for the transportation of people and
goods because it was safer than road transportation (when it was possible) for the trade
caravans because of the ambushes.
During the medieval times, sailing was a common activity in the Shkodra Lake and
Shkodra was considered a real port where sailing means coming from the areas around
the lake where anchored. High importance was given to the Buna River which connects
the region with the Adriatic Sea. Sometimes the sea is considered as a partitive
element, but it was not the case of Shkodra. It had a harbor in Pulaj, in the Buna outfall
and the Shirqi port which became the transit center of the exported and imported goods
and had a custom office. Trade relations of Shkodra with the Adriatic area had been
really dynamic with the two most important feudal republics of the medieval period,
that of Ragusa and Venice. The big numbers of ships which have been sailing in the
Buna River, show clearly the power of trade relations as around 200 trade ships were
anchored in Shkodra during a year. Tit Livi claims that in the Labeat Lake there exist
220 ships. Also along the Buna area have existed different boat manufactories as it is
supported by A. Dyselie who mentions the fact that in the medieval period in the Buna
area there are more than ten ship manufactories, producing small and big ships. Philip of
Macedonia took different wellknown masters to build 100 lembe for his fleet (Zojzi,
1968), meanwhile in the year 1368 Gj.Balsha the ruler of Shkodra, has in the sea 6 big
army ships (Celiku, 2015) and in that period the trade with the Apennine peninsula was
at its peak.

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2.1 TYPES OF SAILING MEANS

Water resources (lake, see, sea) have been considered basic elements for the everyday
living and in the same time resources for economic development. From the antiquity till
the beginning of the XX-th century, road transportation has been a second choice with
less importance and development. Sailing means, starting from the most primitive ones,
have transformed waters from an isolating factor to a communicating one. The sailing
means the region of Shkodra has used during different times have changed and evolved
till the creation of their typology with authentic patterns. A distinction can be made
between the means used in the mountainous sees and those used in the Shkodra Lake or
the Buna River.
“Liburna”, was a very fast warship used by the liburnians to cross and sail the sea.
Their marine activity was focused in the maritime transportation, in fishing, pirating and
wars for the acquisition of the sea water territories (Tafilica, 2016).
In the left image it is shown the Illyrian coin denominated at the Rozafa castle in
Shkodra, during the ruling of King Genti of Illyria in the year 212 BC. In the center of
the coin is the Liburna and a dolphin and the subscription "SKOΔRINΩN” means
“belonging to Shkodra”.
In the right image it is shown the Albanian coin of 20 leke, used actually in Albania
with the Liburna and the dolphin.
Figure 2. Illyrian coin Figure 3. Albanian actual coin

Source: Museum of Shkodra “Oso Kuka” Source: own image

After the invasion of Illyria by the Roman Empire in the year 168 BC., the Liburna were
appreciated a lot by the Romans as to become part of the roman fleet, witnessing the art
of ship constructions by the Illyrians.
A traditional mean was “lundra”, elegant in nature with a resistant and light
construction, was the most widespread mean of transportation in the Shkodra Lake and
Buna River. The capacity varied from 80-250 kv and in some cases 400 kv and its
length varies from 15-20 m (Tafilica, 2016) (Middleton & Clarke, 2001).
Figure 4. Lundra

Source: Museum of Shkodra “Oso Kuka”

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“Lemba” (lat:lembus) was an Illyrian ship, very fast and maneuverable. Its first traces
are found in the IV century BC. They were opened ships with two rows of oars. Those
which had 16 oars were considered small ones and an average lemba could transport
about 50 people.
Figure 5. Lemba

In the pictures below there are shown also other three means used for sailing in the
Shkodra waters.
Figure 6. Take Figure 7. Batela

Sulja

Source: Museum of Shkodra “Oso Kuka Source: Museum of Shkodra “Oso Kuka”

Figure 8. Sule

Source: Museum of Shkodra “Oso Kuka”

We can also mention arshti and the monoksil boats used as simple means of
transportation.

Figure 9. Monoksil boat Figure 10. Arshti

Source: Museum of Shkodra “Oso Kuka”

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2.2 FISHING

Fishing along the Mediterranean area is a primary activity which has started with the
existence of humankind. The typology of the sailing and fishing boats and the means
used to fish tell a lot about the characteristics of a place. Albania also has a long history
and connection with fishing. Archeological traces which were discovered mainly along
the waters of Shkodra, show the tools and techniques of fishing and also about the
conservation of fishes or the fishing nets weights used at those periods. The oldest tools
used for fishing are thought to be the hooks, which have evolved from those of bones
used in the Paleolithic and Neolithic period, next those of bronze and lastly of iron.
An interesting technique of fishing which is used until the recent times is the dajlan (a
knitting with reeds or pickets fixed in the base near the estuaries of see, or in the narrow
sea gulf in order to fish bigger amounts). These were really complex structures and it
was important to know where to position it; this tells about the abilities people in the
area and those working there had. Dajlaners (people working there) were organized with
clear competencies but having also clear right and benefits. The elaboration of different
types of fishes was another activity realized along the waters of Shkodra, mainly in the
Buna shore but also in the Shkodra Bazaar which was a center of trade and craft works
(Tafilica, 2016).
Figure 11. Dajlan

Source: Museum of Shkodra “Oso Kuka”

3. HERITAGE AS A TOURISM PRODUCT

The tourism product is considered as all the elements which are combined together by
different stakeholders and which are consumed by the tourist. In order for a destination
to be able to attract customers different options should be available for the tourist so he
can have his freedom of choice. According to Middleton and Clarke (2001) the tourist
product means customer value, which is “the perceived benefits provided to meet the
customer’s needs and wants, quality of service received, and the value for money”. On
the other hand there is Levitt (1981) who suggests that there exist benefits and as a
result do exist the products and that the products are just a present way of presenting
these benefits to the customer. Also he suggests the three levels of the tourism product
which include: the core product, the formal product and the augmented product where
the core product is the essential service which is designed to fulfill the customer needs.

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The formal product is what the formalized offer the customer gets for the money he
pays and lastly the augmented product is what is added to the product or service in order
to make it more attractive.
A well-known classification of the tourism product is given by Smith (1994), who poses
five elements and includes: the physical plant, services, hospitality, freedom of choice
and involvement. The physical plant includes the natural resources, infrastructure, also
weather and water. The services are needed to convert the physical plant into something
useful for the tourists. The third element, the hospitality is an added value to the product
and the fourth one, the freedom of choice includes the different opportunities a tourist
has to fulfill its experience in the destination. The last element, the involvement; is
about the physical and emotional complicity of the tourist towards the different
elements of the touristic product.
In order to create tourism products, a tourism resource needs to be available. A tourism
resource is considered as any factor, natural or manmade, available at a destination,
which makes a positive contribution to tourism.
Different authors have given classifications and typologies of forms of tourism based on
the type of travel or travel experience offered by a destination. An interesting one is
made by Smith (1989) offering six forms of tourism namely: ethnic tourism, cultural
tourism, historical tourism, environmental tourism, recreational tourism, business
tourism. Among these, the most interesting for the topic of this paper is the heritage
tourism since it is largely concerned with the interpretation and representation of the
past. Timothy & Boyd (2003) consider heritage tourism as a concept which includes
natural and the cultural environment that records the process of historic development
and forms the identity of a destination. The particular heritage and collective memory of
each locality is irreplaceable and an important foundation for development. This
heritage can be tangible (a movable resource) or intangible (resource) both resources
contributing to a more valuable tourism product.

3.1 THE MUSEUM AS A TOURISM PRODUCT

An important tourism product which is gaining more and more interest is the museum,
generally as part of the heritage and the culture of the destination. Museums vary in the
range of the products they offer but also in the way the products are made available to
the customers. It is of interest for this paper to present a definition of a museum by
ICOM (2007) where the museum is considered as: “a non-profit making, permanent
institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which
acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study,
education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment”. From
this definition it can be clearly understood that a museum has different purposes of its
existence each one offering an opportunity for the tourist to widen its freedom of choice
as mentioned above. Museums enable people to explore collections for inspiration,
learning and enjoyment. Museums preserve and disseminate the core values on behalf of
a society as a whole, using their collections as a basis to achieve reflective and social
outcomes. They play an important role in the creation of knowledge and lifelong
learning of people. Museums have also been casted as sites for the formulation of value.
At the same time, they are trusted societal institutions that communicate analytically
and pedagogically as well as emotionally and aesthetically. They appeal to senses and

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feelings as well as to the intellect, so playing a major role as an asset for a community
and a touristic product for the tourists.
3.1.1 The maritime museum

Maritime museums are museums that specialize in the presentation of maritime history,
culture or archaeology. They explore the relationship between societies and certain
bodies of water. Just as there is a wide variety of museum types, there are also many
different types of maritime museums. First, as mentioned above, maritime museums can
be primarily archaeological. These museums focus on the interpretation and
preservation of shipwrecks and other artifacts recovered from a maritime setting. A
second type is the maritime history museum, dedicated to educating the public about
humanity's maritime past and the third one are military-focused maritime museums.

3.2 THE INNOVATIVE TOURISM PRODUCT

The tourism industry is influenced by rapid changes and developments in the external
environment and as such needs to stay ahead of them and to fulfill customers will. A
tourism destination needs also a good product portfolio in order to be able to develop
tourism. The portfolio should be based on the existing attractions and resources, but it
should also take into account the possibility to offer new products and services which
can improve the destination performance and competitiveness by creating innovations
or by applying innovative approaches. Innovation is variously defined and in the
tourism industry it includes all the aspects of formation and development of creative
ideas or improvement of better tourism services. Schumpeter (1997) distinguishes five
areas in which entities can introduce innovation:
1. Generation of new or improved products
2. Introduction of new production processes
3. Development of new sales markets
4. Development of new supply markets
5. Reorganisation and/or restructuring of the company

According to the classification given above, the opportunity to create a maritime

museum for the Shkodra region is included in the first area, that of the generation of a
new product.
When a destination is trying to create an innovative product and converting it from an
asset to a tourism product, according to McKreshner & Du Cros (2002), the asset needs
to:

• Tell the story, including the historical context, being relevant, interesting,
educational and memorable
• Be alive, engaging tourists and making possible for them to engage
• Be relevant for the tourists, project a correct attraction image for the tourists
• Focus on quality and authenticity, be distinguishable

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3.2.1 A MARITIME SECTION IN THE SHKODRA MUSEUM “OSO KUKA” AS

AN INNOVATIVE TOURISM PRODUCT

Taking into the consideration the history and the connections the region of Shkodra has
with its surrounding different body of waters, the close relationship and all the activities
which were realized in along those waters there do exists a lot of potentials to create a
maritime museum section in the Shkodra region which would increase the range of the
tourism products and be an integral part of the existing museum of “Oso Kuka”. This
new product would serve as a memory of all the water activities realized in the region
by collecting, preserving and presenting the rich maritime heritage. The new section
would help to understand the relationship between the existence of the surrounding
waters of Shkodra and their contribution to the progress which is influenced also by the
culture of the region. Some of the new products would be: exhibitions of ships and other
water transportation means used in different time periods, the tours in nature which
chronologically will tell the story on how water transportation in Shkodra has evolved,
fishing instruments and techniques, educational programs, publications and other
events. As an innovative product it would tell the story since it is relevant in the
regional historical context, it can engage tourists, be relevant and also distinguishable.
According to the definition the museum has to be able to take notice of a society’s
development and react to it. It has to be capable to adapt to changes in the environment,
but the museum can also play a role itself in the development of the society by adding
value. Since the section proposed will represent the collective memory of the Shkodra
region it will make the community feel proud and it will help to connect the generations
also. Tourist and people who are interested to learn informally can use it as an
educational tool or can motivate the academic or scientific researches and lastly can
generate more money by increasing the tourist’s attraction to the area.

4. CONCLUSION

It is considered a fact that the existence of waters around a region brings development
and creates the typology and identity of that region. As it was clearly shown the region
of Shkodra has used its surrounding waters to communicate with other regions, to
develop trade and to increase its influence. History and findings show that the Shkodra
region from its ancient times till now has passed through different stages of
development. A part of its history can be told also by the means of water transportation
used in different periods and the human activities undertaken then. In order to make it
memorable and to preserve it for the future, museums can be used. Since in the Shkodra
region there is an existing one (Oso Kuka museum), creating a new section focused in
the maritime area, would bring innovation, a greater attraction potential for the tourists
and also give new features to the regional identity by fostering also the economic
benefits of the community and adding value.

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Middleton, V., & Clarke, J. (2001). Marketing in travel and tourism. Boston:
Butterworth-Heinemann.
Pirnar, I., Bulut, C., & Engin, E. (2011). Improving the performance and
competitiveness of tourism establishments by means of innovation: trends and
applications. ECEI conference proceedings
Schumpeter, J. (1997). The theory of economic development. New Jersey: New
Brunswick.
Smith, S. (1994). The tourism product. Annals of tourism research , 582-595.
Smith, V. (1989). The hosts and guests: The anthropology of tourism. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tafilica, Z. (08. 02 2016). Sailing in the waters of Shkodra. (M. Mokçi (Bala),
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https://vargmal.org/dan1713

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TRANSPORT LOGISTICS IN SOUTH CONE OF SHOUT AMERICA –

CHALLENGES
Dr. German de Melo Rodriguez, UPC; Capt. Rodrigo Garcia Bernal, GIZ

Abstract:

This paper analyse the existing transport logistic in the South Cone of South America,
for analytical purposes, the study establishes an evaluation area which has been
represented by a “graph” built up from nodes and links. These symbolise the complex
logistics network, hinterlands, roads, railways and coastal shipping. Likewise, the links
and nodes have direction, intensity and values that the study intends to describe and
evaluate.
Moreover, nowadays hinterlands are not as exclusive as they were before.
Consequently, most of the port systems face an extremely competitive market in offering
services for international hinterlands/foreland. Therefore, this document will conclude
that at least some Latin American countries establish land bridges between them. There
have already been some studies about the land bridges, “Inter-Oceanic corridors” or
“Integration Corridors” options in South America.
The Pacific Ocean Basin and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries
represent a huge market of 2.8 billion of people and generate 57% of the world GDP,
for those Atlantic countries which have products to export and import from that vast
area of the globe. The existence of the main industrial site of South America running
from the Atlantic side of South America to the Pacific Coast, which forms an “Industrial
Banana”, is the foundation of a massive demand to and from both coasts.
The study evaluated the logistics system through different criteria, such as logistics,
physical capacities, and economic, social, environmental and political considerations.

Acknowledgement:
The authors thanks to the colleagues from the Transport Unit of the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and to the Chilean Maritime
Authority (DIRECTEMAR) for their support and information.
Keywords:
Maritime Transport, Logistics, Methodology.

1. GENERAL CONCEPT
The Council of Logistics Management (CLM) define Business Logistics as the following:
“ Logistics is the process of planning, implementing and controlling the efficient,
effective, flow and storage of row material, in-process inventory, finished goods,
service, and related information from point of origin to point of consumption
(including inbound, outbound, internal, and external movements) for the purpose of
conforming to customer requirements”.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

It is possible to derive that Maritime Transport Logistics is the process of planning, imple-
menting, and controlling the efficient and effective flow, information, and storage of cargoes,
going from point of origin to point of destination, for fulfilling the clients’ requirements.

2. THE LOGISTICS SYSTEM AND THE GRAPH THEORY

2.1 THEORY
For the purpose of this research and because of the huge area covered (the Southern
Cone, see figure 1) the author considers it is required to focus the area of study.
According with the above, a “Graph” is designed and showed as figure 2.
Therefore, figures are based on the logistic system of nodes and links. The first one represents
mainly logistics at origin or destination. Consequently, those are the ports, hinterlands,
industrial sites, cargo depots, and their related places. In the case of the links, they represent
the roads, railways and shipping systems involved. All of them have to be analysed
considering the restrictions of the problem presented and the target area predetermined.
It is also important to have in mind that nodes can be simple or complex depending on
their composition.
Figure 1. Routes and Connections.

Source: Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA)
Likewise, complex nodes represent port conglomerates and regional hinterlands, when
simple nodes are hinterlands or single ports.

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2.2. THE INDUSTRIAL BANANA OF THE SOUTH CONE – THEORY

APPLICATION.

Having constructed the “System Graph”, there is a demand derived from the industry
located in the target area. From that, a survey been done for the researchers determined
there is a physical relation between the industrial zones of the different countries
involved in the Graph.
Furthermore, it can be said that the industrial site for the South Cone of Latin-America
forms a line coming from Santos (Brazil), crossing through Uruguay, Argentine, to
arrive to the Central Region of Chile and the Pacific Ocean.
This industrial zone, formed by the countries mentioned above, is the conglomerate the
author has named the “Industrial Banana”. This area is going to generate a great
demand for maritime transport, to and from the products final destinations.
Considering Latin-America surplus production is being exported as part of the new
economic policy enforced on the majority of the “industrial banana” countries, there is
a need for export diversification in terms of searching for new market possibilities.
So, the huge market located in the Pacific Ocean basin, represents a real incentive for
exporters of the South Cone. Chilean ports could be the communicating gates between
South Atlantic countries and the Asian-Pacific emerging economies.
It is important to have in mind that the facts that show freight rate fluctuation are
related, among other parameters, not only with port efficiency but also with economies
of scale, which are reached depending on the quantities, connectivity and periodicity of
the cargoes shipments.

3. THE BI-OCEANIC CORRIDORS TO CORRIDOR OF TERRITORIAL

INTEGRATION.

Using both, the land bridging concept and the design of the above logistics graph, the
links connecting nodes, which, depending on the case, represent a national or
international hinterland, and communicate ports belonging to different Oceans, should
be either land bridges or micro bridges, depending of the cargo destination.
Likewise, in both cases they establish a system and represent a multimodal corridor
connecting both Oceans. From that, and hereinafter the author initially will name the
multimodal corridor as “Bi-Oceanic Corridors”. Also considering it was an advantage
for the Chilean and Peruvian ports being located in the Pacific side of the continent,
especially for those cargoes with destination on the Pacific like the destination ports in
Asia. Opinion observed during the interview to some political strategist on different
countries.
Considering most of the corridors are not implemented with the adequate infrastructure
to fulfil the requirements needed for international multimodal transport, there is a need
to revise their condition, characteristics and physical capacities.
Moreover, the acceptance of these corridors depends not only on their infrastructure but
also on political and strategic decisions.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

Figure No. 2. Industrial Banana of the Southern Cone.

Industrial Banana
of
SA South Cone

Source: Map IIRSA and authors addition

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Figure No. 3. Industrial Zones Nodes and Links.

Greater
Antofaga
Z
Greater Sao
Paulo
Zone

Greater
Valparais
Z Greater Buenos
Aires
Greater Concepcion Z
Zone

Source: Map from IIRSA and authors addition

Therefore, the Bi-Oceanic Corridors actually represent a greater advantage, not only for
the ports which are in one of the ends of the link, but represent a bigger advantage for
the integration of the related zones to their national and external markets that is why the
author modify the original name to “Integration Corridors”.

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

3.2. SURVEY OF THE LOGISTIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM IN THE SOUTH CONE

OF SOUTH AMERICA.
3.2.1. Operative Aspects of International Logistics within the Mercosur.
As a result of the integration policies carried out by South American countries within
each of their regional commercial blocks, the Inter-regional commerce has seen a
considerable increase during the last decades.
In order to maintain the current economic openness in the region and produce the
desired effects by the participating countries, it is fundamental to deepen and perfect
the current economic agreements until they reach a real Common Market level, where
goods, services, capitals and work can circulate freely between member countries, with
no obstacles regarding nationality or citizenship. Even though Mercosur has advanced
considerably in commercial matters, an agreement has not been reached on other joint
matters that are just as important, such as employment and tax legislation, monetary
handling and macroeconomic coordination between member countries. This subject will be
clearly seen in this part of the document as there is an analysis of the operative aspects of
MERCOSUR, where even the established agreements for the commercial promotion and
transport infrastructure integration are not put into practice in the day to day reality.
However, the adjustment of the regulation framework does not only make the countries
more competitive, it also requires the optimization of the different production phases, the
integral and synergic improvement of the logistic chain and the infrastructure that supports
it, allowing the transformation of the development poles in sustainable development areas.
Recent studies have highlighted the importance of adequate consideration of the
concepts of economic distance over and above physical distance in global
environments; this leads to a discussion over how to analyse the logistic chain of each
product adequately and competitively.
It is not only necessary to have the sufficient infrastructure to dispatch products, it is
also important to optimize the different factors that are part of the process (packing,
transport, insurance, bank transactions, customs operations, dispatch costs, delivery,
information technology, etc.). It can be seen that in a large proportion of cases, the
differentiation of the competition and the better returns obtained, are due to the
integration of activities, through the propagation of up to date and equal information of
the process to the rest of the components of the productive chain and the introduction of
improvements – operative, organizational and technological – that lead to substantial
savings in both time and resources.
It should be of no surprise that the businesses work in an environment with very
favourable conditions, either due to the availability of workforce, tax exemptions or
their closeness to larger markets, where they make up real development poles, requiring
intricate logistic and transport networks that connect the production centres with
storage areas and sale points.
The opening of free market economies forces a continual optimization of the
participants of the logistic chain process, seeking savings that can be passed on to the
final consumer and therefore making the products more competitive. This concept is
not shared by some governments, where the savings are not passed on to the final
consumer, but increasing the state or private operator income.
Aware of the fact that transport makes up a significant part of the final cost of the
product, the companies have taken on board the issues of:

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

i) Optimizing transport, selecting the adequate mode of transport according to

the type of cargo and privileging the multimodal transport schemes.
ii) A larger and better planning of the position of the warehouses and logistic
centres that provides services to the cargo.

Figure No. 4. Industrial and Agricultural Zones of the Southern Cone.

Mining Zone

Sao Paulo
Industrial and
Agricultural Zone Agricult
ural

Industrial and
Agricultur
al Zone Buenos Aires
Industrial Zone

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

3.2.2. Modal Transport in the MERCOSUR (South Cone).

In theory, experience shows that the more the distance increases, the land transport
mode (by road in the first instance and then by rail) loses competitiveness against the
maritime mode. However, the analysis of the particular situation on the MERCOSUR
region, shows an overuse of road transport in some sections mainly due to the lack of
rail infrastructure capable of satisfying the demand for transport services within
Mercosur and the legal protective framework established on the use of coastal shipping
(countries protection of the short sea shipping/regional cabotage) that impedes the use
of complementing schemes between modes, as shown on Table 1.

Table 1: Competition and Complementation between modes of transport

Transport Mode Competition Complementing sequence

with other modes
Rail Road Road
Maritime Maritime
Road Rail Rail
Maritime (Cabotage) Maritime
Internal water lanes
Air
Maritime Road (Short distances) Rail
Air
Maritime (Cabotage)
Internal water lanes
Air Rail (short distances) Rail
Road (short distances) Road
Maritime
Air (domestic services)
Source: Ruibal, Alberto, 1994

Although 67% of cargo exported within the Mercosur, use maritime transport and only 24%
use the road, the maritime mode is only dominant for the bilateral traffic between Argentina
and Brazil, and also between Brazil and Uruguay. While for the rest of the commercial flow,
the main transport mode is by road, especially for cargos to and from Chile.
The use of air freight within the block for inter-regional commerce, although currently
in the process of expansion, is still low, mainly due to the lack of rulings and common
policies (for example open sky agreements) and the lack of minimal aeronautical
infrastructure in most of the regions.
River navigation, on the other hand, although is an economic means of transport and of
low environmental impact, is only used intensively by Paraguay on the Paraná –
Paraguay Waterway, and by Brazil on the Madeira, San Francisco, Tocantins and
Araguaia rivers and the Tiete – Parana Waterway (Sánchez, et al, 2003).

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Multimodal transport is precarious and only present in particular cases or as a result of

artificial bureaucratic obstacles, forcing cargoes to be transferred at the border, bringing
forward structural differences. The advantages of multimodal transport are diluted by
inefficiencies in the procedures that add no value to the final process.
This lack of optimization in the modal choice means that, in order to satisfy the returns
of transport companies that cover the MERCOSUR, the final users must pay overprices
on the products due to an inadequate modal choice. This is clearly reflected in the high
rate of empty return journeys that occur by road transport through the border passes of
the Mercosur countries (see Table 2), although this has improved considerably in the
last years, around 40% reduction of border transfers in some passages and between
20% and 35% reduction of empty journeys, they continue to be important factors that
affect the competitiveness of the MERCOSUR products.

Table 2: Frontier transfers and ballast returns, in MERCOSUR land lanes, 1999

Frontier Empty
Land Lanes
transfers Legs
São Paulo – Buenos Aires 67% 37%
Buenos Aires – Valparaíso 23% 42%
São Paulo – Montevideo 57% 44%
Paranaguá – Asunción 5% 38%
Montevideo – Buenos Aires n.a. 28%
Buenos Aires – Santa Cruz de la
n.a. n.a.
Sierra
Río de Janeiro – Valparaíso 74% 40%
Buenos Aires – Asunción n.a. 23%
São Paulo – La Paz 69% 0
Valparaíso – Asunción 0 0

Source: Elaborated based on ALADI (2000); “DITIAS”

3.2.3. Spatial Planning for Lower Costs.

The need for logistic nodes capable of transporting merchandise at the lowest possible
costs with high levels of quality and security, have led to search for organized ways of
making the costs structures flexible, reducing fixed costs and empty returns and
optimizing the logistic process in terms of time and service quality.
One of the schemes that have taken on some strength is the logistic platforms, this was
based on EUROPLATFORMS in 1992 as limited geographical zones, within which

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different operators carry out all the activities related to transport, logistics and
distribution of merchandize, both for national and international transport.
Depending on the size of the market and the level of competition and service ruling the
market, different types of logistic platforms can be set up, as shown by the following table:

Table 3: Types of Logistic Platforms

Logistic Platforms

With only one transport mode With more than one transport mode

Road Centres - Transport service Centres Port Logistic activity Zones

(ZAL/LSA)
Urban distribution or city-logistic Centres
Air cargo Centres
Distriparks Transport Centres
Dry Ports
Multimodal Logistic Platforms

Source: Ministerio de Fomento de España, September de 1999

The logistic platforms have a geographical situation that allows the communication and
integration of the urban and international distribution of merchandise, resulting in
important savings for the companies that participate in them due to the concentration of
services and large volumes.
In the case of logistic platforms where more than one mode of transport operates, especially
the multimodal and the port LSZ/ZAL’s, the concentration of logistic activities in the same
environment – mainly port – allows important scale savings due to handling large volumes
of cargo and the correct integration of transport modes. At the same time, they enable
optimization of working times and the use of the available physical infrastructure,
technology and telecommunications. If in addition there are tax benefits or customs
facilities, as is the case in some platforms, it is highly favourable to the competitiveness of
the country to have such platforms.
The setting up of logistic platforms in the ports presents advantages as they are
traditional points of modal change and traffic concentration, offering privileged
characteristics to house added value functions, although it is necessary to have the
correct integration of land logistics (second port line) with first line operations (port –
maritime logistics). With the understanding that all logistic operations (static and
dynamic) in the port nodule ambit, including those of Logistic Zones, should be
integrally optimized in order to increase global competitiveness with regards to other
alternatives of transport and logistic chains.
The following picture shows the reduction of the logistic flows in a Port Logistic
Activity Zone, which finally reverberate in a reduction of logistic costs and an
improved service regarding quality and time.

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Picture 5: Logistic Flows in LSA

Source: Manchon, F. Revista Puertos; Número 97 Julio-Agosto, 2002.

3.2.4. Logistic Platforms in MERCOSUR.

Although Latin America has not been an outsider to structural changes that have
occurred in the production, commercialization and distribution of goods in the new
economic globalization context, the development of logistic organizations is still in its
early stages, mainly connecting origin with destination of goods, and not using a
concept of logistic services or a logistic operator from holistic point of view. However,
the number of integral logistic operators is small in most countries and even non-
existent in others.
In the MERCOSUR region, there are no undertakings of logistic platforms to the level
that the commercial block suggests. The reason for this, according to some logistic
enterprises, is the existence of some regional rulings 1 that put restrictions of the
services that can be offered on the logistic platforms, restrictions they hope will be
abolished soon in order to increase the commercial exchange within the region.
Nevertheless, in the last few years there has been an increasing interest on behalf of the
regional ports in transforming into logistic platforms as part of their master plans.
These initiatives are presented below, stressing that the level of advancement in each
case is relative and many are still only projects.

1
The resolution 252 of 1999, of the originating regime of the ALADI, establishes, among other
dispositions, restrictions on the operations that can be carried out with the cargo and disallows the
division of the certificates of origin in the countries where depots are installed; this restricts the services
to the cargo that logistic platforms can offer. It has been requested that logistic platforms be considered
an exception to the rule, which would favor the free circulation of the merchandise in transit within the
ALADI and allow the distribution of products with certificates of origin, according to the quantities
required by the importing companies. (Chile Portuario, 2003)

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 MARITIME POLICIES AND ISSUES

In Latin America, the multimodal transport, according to UNCTAD definition, has not
come into effect due to the non-existence of a regulatory framework that would allow it
to work as an efficient system. However, transport users have developed a logistic
system that is not necessarily dependant on a complex and bureaucratic legal
framework, therefore its implementation is more operational than regulatory.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to establish some sort of regulation regarding civil
responsibilities and insurance.

4. CONCLUSIONS AND REFLECTIONS.

a) The development strategies of third world countries place a strong

emphasis on the expansion of their international commercialization
processes, which are highly dependent on efficient transport services
and reasonable costs. For this, it is a priority that the methodology for
the drawing up of a policy presents a correct analysis of the market
force, services, technology and rights that govern transport systems in
order that these subjects may be adequately included in the strategy
b) Developing countries, the majority of which are users and not
providers of transport services, face a world scenario of fierce
competition concerning the use of vanguard technology, solid internal
legislation and flexible, dynamic and consistent commercial strategies
based on the application of economies of scale which are directed
towards rendering multi-modal services with computerized processing
of information and communications.
c) In the southern cone of South America, it is possible to identify a series
of logistic corridors.
d) The economic policies of the southern cone countries have been
reoriented towards the increase of imports, which makes them
dependent on an efficient logistic system which will allow them to
place their products in international markets.
e) The infrastructure of roads and railways in the southern cone are still
insufficient.
f) Only recently has it been possible to detect initiatives for the
integration of logistic corridors.
g) The efficiency of the logistic corridors will depend from the facilitation
of the bureaucratic processes and paper work, it is require to re-
formulate the mandates and processes of the relevant public services
like: customs, quarantine, immigration, public health, and even
provision of cashier open 24/7.
h) World tendency is to provide a “single window” approach.
i) Logistic concepts are new to the southern cone, and therefore the
establishment of logistic platforms has only been effectively
considered after the year 2000.
j) Logistic integration policies are being discussed by governments
without any resolution to date.

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k) As there is no legal framework or a specific policy, there are no

projects or investments oriented towards the strengthening of logistic
corridor infrastructure.
l) The study of a logistic distribution system implies a global analysis of
all its components and a thorough knowledge of all the relationships
among the elements, whether on an individual basis or together as a
whole.
m) An in-depth analysis also requires identifying and delving into sub-
systems. This is not possible to analyse it in a broad study.
Additionally, it is essential to consider how the system and its
components acts upon and is affected by its surroundings.
n) The suggested methodology is a means for analysing and evaluating
the physical capacities of a distribution system. This requires the
availability of detailed information that would facilitate a profound
explanation of the system.
o) It is worthwhile mentioning the difficulty of obtaining the information
presented here. The analyst responsible for putting the methodology
into practice must have particular qualities. Preferably, he or she
should be involved in and be part of the system, but nonetheless
objective in the evaluation process.
p) To know the capacities of the system is to understand it as an
integrated unit. This is of vital importance for management and
decision-making processes which involve changes not only to the
system but also to its surroundings.

Reflection
q) The governments of the southern cone countries should increase their
efforts in order to improve the infrastructure of their logistic corridors
and it efficient connectivity and integration.
r) The governments of the southern cone countries should encourage the
establishment of logistic platforms that will facilitate the physical and
administrative distribution of the cargo.
s) It is necessary that the persons responsible in each country establish the
required technological platforms to allow efficient information
management for external trade.
t) It is necessary to improve the road and rail infrastructure of the logistic
corridors.
u) Countries should sign cooperation agreements to improve physical,
technological and administrative infrastructure at the border passes in
order to reduce the “dwell time” of cargo and vehicles.

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encuesta origen destino de pasajeros y carga Macrozona Centro-Norte, II etapa,
Secretaría Ejecutiva de la Comisión de Planificación de Inversiones en
Infraestructura de Transporte, Ministerio de Planificación, Chile, 2000.
41. FAL 205, 2003; Boletin FAL, 205: El Ferrocarril En El Comercio Entre Brasil
Y Sus Vecinos Del Cono Sur: El Potencial De Un Mayor Aprovechamiento,
Unidad de Transporte CEPAL, Naciones Unidas, 2003.
42. ECLAC, Hoffman et al 2002; Hoffmann, Jan; Pérez, Gabriel ; Wilmsmeier,
Gordon: "International trade and transport profiles of latin american countries,
year 2000" Transport Unit, February 2002.
43. MECON, 2000; Dirección Nacional de Cuentas Internacionales (DNCI),
Ministerio de Economía, Argentina, Web site
http://www.mecon.gov.ar/cuentas/internacionales/comercio_brasil/dinamica_ex
portaciones.htm.
44. ECLAC, 2003; Maritime Profile of Latin American and Caribbean, web site.
Transport Unit, ECLAC
http://www.eclac.cl/transporte/perfil.
45. Bloch, Roberto, 2002; Los tres ferrocarriles transandinos. Boletín de difusión
académica,Comité de investigación estratégica, Escuela de Defensa Nacional
Argentina. Número 1/ 2002.
46. CAF, 2003; Ejes de Integración y Desarrollo. Resumen de la Visión por ejes.
http://www.caf.com/view/index.asp?pageMS=9380&ms=8
47. DITIAS, 2000; Diagnóstico del Transporte Internacional y su Infraestructura en
América del Sur (DITIAS) Transporte Carretero (Mercosur y Chile). Autor
Néstor Hugo Luraschi, Asociación Latino Americana de Integración, ALADI,
Montevideo, Uruguay 2000.
48. IIRSA, sin fecha; ¿Qué es IIRSA? Iniciativa para la Integración de la
Infraestructura Regional Suramericana,
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49. Ruibal, Alberto, 1994; Gestión Logística de la distribución física internacional
Editorial Norma, 1994.
50. Vega, Guillermo, 2003; El debate de la iniciativa IIRSA en la 5ta CIAL
Veracruz, México Conferencia Iberoamericana de Logística.
51. CEPAL, Serie 159, Politicas Portuarias, Octavio Doerr, 2011.
52. DIRECTEMAR, Chile, Boletín Estadístico Marítimo, Ediciones:1980, 1990,
2000, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

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53. ECLAC, Maritime Profile of Latin-America and the Caribbean, 2015.

54. ECLAC, CEPALSTAT, 2014
55. CEPAL, Serie 153, Perrotti y Sanches, La Brecha de Infraestructura en América
Latina y el Caribe.
56. CEPAL, Serie 149, Cipoletta y Sanchez, La Industria del Transporte Marítimo y
Las Crisis Económicas, 2010.
57. CEPAL, Serie 161, Seguridad de la Cadena Logística Terrestre en América
Latina.

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TRAINING
 MARITIME EDUCATION AND TRAINING

PARTICULARITIES OF THE MARITIME HIGHER EDUCATION

SYSTEM AS PART OF THE MARITIME TRANSPORT ENGINEERING
STUDIES
KristoforLapa*, Prof.As.
AgronDukaj, PhM
EraldAliko, PhM
University "Ismail Qemali", Skele, Vlore, Albania, *e-mail: kristoforlapa@gmail.com

Abstract
High education in maritime field is a special field of engineering education. The special
features of this field of education, originate from the existence of an international standard
established by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) which is mandatory for all
universities. It is intertwined with the national curricula, which also are required by national
education standards. Starting from 2010, the Maritime Branch of the University of Vlore has
been part of various projects financed from the World Bank, the Government of Norway and the
European Community. The purpose of these projects is the unification and the increase of
theoretical preparation and training level of students through:

• Improvement of academic staff through training and certification on the use of

simulators, mutual meetings at partner universities, improvement and standardization
of literature,
• Review of existing curricula and their restructuring in accordance with international
standards.
• Increasing the capacities of students through enhanced laboratory and didactic
materials (emphasis on simulators).
• Increasing the training hours on board to comply with the international standards.
• Training of students aspiring to be employed in the maritime industry by opening the
Maritime Training Center at the University of Vlore.
• We expect that the achievement of these objectives will increase the student employment
opportunities in the maritime industry, domestic and international. By applying this
contemporary program combined with fully integrated training sessions on board, we
will provide the best chance of student employment in the European commercial fleet.
The main aim of this paper is to share ideas and opinions with the academic community
regarding the integration of training in the curriculum of general engineering.

Keywords:
Maritime High Education, MET-Maritime Education Training, UV-University of Vlora, IMO,
STCW.

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1. INTRODUCTION
Today, the University of Vlore is the leading maritime academic institution in
Albania. This position mainly attributed to tradition and also thanks to the continued
efforts to prepare future deck and marine officers, with knowledge and better training in
this area. In this regard it has been made continuous improvement, starting with the re-
evaluation of curricula to bring them closer to the current requirements of the STCW
Convention and new technologies in the maritime industry. Furthermore, improvement
of teaching methods, the use of new technologies and simulator involvement in the
learning process and finally, but not least, improving of the skills of trainers and
academic staff, according to the latest developments in the training field, has been
made. In the field of maritime education the University of Vlore offers preparation in
two careers[4]: the first one for the preparation of the students for who intend to make a
career as ship deck officers in sea navigation, and the second in preparation of the
students who intend to make a career as marine engineers on board.

Both courses are developed in conformity with national standards and international
requirements set by International Maritime Organization (IMO) through IMO Model
Courses [4].

With the completion of the Bachelor cycle, students of Maritime Sciences and
Naval Engineering achieve operational skills. Developments in Maritime Industry and
in related fields require more trained operators, able to perform in different and
challenging situations. In order to achieve this standard, the operational training must be
strictly professional in accordance with international standards on this field. The
approach includes the use of the latest techniques like simulators and computer
softwares. These techniques and methods, used to develop the operators’ skills, were a
challenge for the University of Vlore, and some of them are still a challenge. As the
Maritime Industry evolves, it requires more and more trained and specialized people.
The training, in all levels, but mainly in the academic level must accept the challenge
and responds to the demand from the industry for trained and specialized people.
Actually, the worldwide number of ship officers is over 35,000 and following the rising
demand for seafarers the number will increase furthermore. During the last decade, the
seafarer profession in western countries has considerable changed [1].

It is a fact that the quality of life has increased and the differences of payment
between sea and shore work have been reduced. This is the main reason that explains
why the interest of Western European youth to work at sea is declining. The demand of
the industry for maritime officers must be furnished by the East Europe and Asia. In this
aspect, Albania must aim to become an important crew supplier’s country and this
requires a well-organized international Education and Training system. Nowadays, the
Albanian commercial fleet is almost absent and the only chance for the employment of
the graduates is the international commercial fleet [2].

Being in continuous monitoring from the national and international board, the
Maritime Departments of the University of Vlore are in continuous improvement to
comply with the requirements of:

• EMSA
• Ministry of Education and Sports

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• Albanian Maritime Administration

• Albanian Institution of Quality Control in High Education
• Albanian Public Agency for Accreditation of Higher Education (APAAHE) [3]

Almost alalways, when a change on teaching and training methods is required, the
first step is the changing of the mindset of the trainers and at the same time the updating
of the teaching material and methods. It is not a simple process; at first it was very
difficult, this mainly due to limited knowledge on new technology, but also the adaption
of the training methods in order to achieve desirable results. Even after the
familiarization the challenges were there, because of technological changes with new
products and new procedures [1].

Our mainly problem was that the Curricula must be in compliance with two
standards:

1. the standard curricula for high education required by the Ministry of Education and
Sports of Albania
2. the standard curricula required by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for
the certification of deck officers and marine engineers. [5]

2. STCW CONVENTION AND SEAFARERS TRAINING

The STCW Convention sets out the necessary requirements for a trained person
who is involved in sea operations and helps him to achieve these requirements. MET
responsibilities is to incorporate in their curricula the guidelines provided by this
document and the relevant training.

Taking into account the review of the STCW Convention should be noted that this
occurred after a relatively long period of time, when the basic concepts were considered
outdated compared with the requirements on board, which evolved considerably with
the introduction of modern technologies in maritime industry. At the moment the option
of studying Electronic Navigation separately was considered, but it seemed reasonable
to do it together with other methods of Navigation, like Coastal and Satellite
Navigation. In addition, raised the need for the use of computerized techniques and
computational applications for satellite and coastal navigation. It is the responsibility of
MET-s to supply the World Fleet with trained officers able to use this applications and
technology. It doesn’t make sense – with the current trend of technology – to lecture the
procedures of navigation without taking into consideration the new technologies on
board, with the intent to increase safety of navigation. In order to increase the
competence and skills of future officers, it is crucial to change the requirements of the
training process and their performance, according to the current developments in the
maritime field [2]. The University of Vlore in the Nautical Department has established a
profile and vision in preparing future seafarers relating the requirements of the STCW
Convention with the latest technology developments, with the aim to prepare future
seafarers for the international market able to fulfill the requirements of the STCW
Convention on the use of new technologies to increase safety at sea. The training
process is essential and for this reason, at the moment the Nautical Department of
University of Vlore is ready to open a Training Centre for Seafarers, firstly for the
cadets who aspire to work in the maritime industry [5].

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In this aspect, the institution has been paying attention to the following factors:

• Programs and courses must be updated with the requirements and standards of the
maritime industry.
• Programs and courses should be in coordination and meet the requirements and needs
of customers and the industry.
• The level of training of graduates must be in full compliance with the requirements of
the STCW Convention and national authority.
• Teachers and instructors involved in the training process should have high level of
knowledge and fully understand the system and its requirements.

3. BACHELOR AND MASTER MARITIME STUDY PROGRAMS AT UV

To achieve these objectives, both Maritime Departments at UV have updated their
teaching programs according the requirements of the STCW Convention. The curricula
have been updated with IMO Model Courses for each specialization, Navigation and
Naval Engineering. Not only the programs and curricula were updated as required, but
also the cycles of study are structured in operational and managerial level. The
University of Vlore has started a process of training the trainers since 2012, with the
aim to improve and update their knowledge and teaching skills based on:

• Review and updating of teaching materials to promote new knowledge and

technological achievements in the field of seamanship.
• Establishment and development of an online network for the start-up and pursuit of
continuous training of human resources under the concept of LLL (Life Long Learning).
• The accomplishment of studies and analyses in order to identify the training programs
and link them with the needs of the maritime industry.[4]

All these are based on the idea that continuous learning is the main condition for
the reorganization and development of the education system to provide interaction
between various persons involved in maritime academic system. In addition, it is
necessary the involvement of lecturers in the framework of international maritime
transport in order to be in direct contact with the end user, companies in the maritime
industry, and to familiarize themselves with their needs. Shipping companies are a
valuable source of information concerning the requirements for employment in the
maritime industry. Collaboration with partners from the maritime industry, as an
objective, is conducted through exchanges of information, in order to identify and
implement appropriate modalities for increasing employment opportunities. According
to STCW 2010 Convention, simulators should be used more effectively in the process
of training of future seafarers. Technology should be used in order to increase the level
of training and reaching the highest standards of knowledge and skills. The use of
simulators and technology, especially electronic equipment, in the process of training
offers possibilities of creating models closer to reality. Consequently, students feel more
involved in the direct process and also perceive more clearly the objectives of the
training. The first step is to familiarize the students with these devices to make them
recognize their role and function in navigation and safety. Nowadays, ships are
equipped with the latest navigation technology, like, GPS, Radar, AIS and Electronic
Charts (ECDIS).

During the process of teaching in the University of Vlore, the future operators
receive data about the technical details, configuration, operational procedures, and
should be able to analyze this data and take the necessary corrective decisions. During

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simulator training, students have the opportunity to develop their skills in the use of
equipment; they can work with two or more devices connected between them, to get
data from various sources and to make comparisons between them. In this manner, they
will learn to use the information around them and choose an optimal route for their
virtual ship.

To achieve the requirements of the STCW Convention on training on board,

University of Vlore has arranged several important agreements with shipping
companies; students are embarked to Albanian flagged ships or liner passenger ships
operating in Albanian ports. These agreements have enabled onboard training of the
students for a period of two weeks during the second and third year of studies. Of great
assistance are the agreements signed between the University of Vlore and the Albanian
Maritime Administration and also agreements with several Shipping Companies which
operate in the Albanian ports. In order to facilitate and coordinate the training of
students on board, the University of Vlore has prepared an Onboard Training Manual. It
includes all activities and operations in which the student must be present during the
training period. The manual also provides coverage of opinions, remarks and
assessments by staff on board related to the achievements of the students. In the end, the
Manual serves for the evaluation of the onboard training performed by the students.[5]

The Academic Program in Maritime Departments consists in two levels of study,

Bachelor and Master’s degree. According to current concepts of maritime education
these two levels are respectively equivalent to the operational level of education of
seafarers (deck officers and marine engineer) and managerial level.

Both, academic education and training are requirements that professionals must
own, in order to comply with the requirements and needs of the maritime industry. It
seems that, the developed countries own the ships and technology while countries in
development provide the crew [6].

Today, MET encounters two challenges:

• to develop a syllabus which should be able to comply with changes in the maritime
industry,
• to stay at the previous level while maintaining the number of hours specified.

4. MARITIME TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN UV

Characteristics of graduates are expressed in terms such as, the level of knowledge,
professional skills, behavior and ability to cope with various situations. These
assessments can be done from the academic staff, representatives of the marine industry,
or former graduate with experience at sea. At the base of every maritime course are the
competences to achieve from students as requirements of STCW Convention. At the
end of studies, students are graduated as deck officer or marine engineer. It is an
engineering diploma approved by the Albanian Ministry of Education and Sports in
accordance with the memorandum of “Bologna" recognized by all EU countries. In
addition, cadets are subject to another examination organized by the Albanian Maritime
Administration (AMA), or non-Albanian authorities with similar attributes. Assessment
of competencies acquired by seafarers and their certification is done only by the
Albanian Maritime Administration, an institution which is outside the jurisdiction of
Albanian Ministry of Education and Sports. The certificates of AMA are in conformity

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with the international standard of training of seafarers and the Albanian quality
education system.

In order to provide a qualitative training, trainers should be able to determine

elements such as: the needs of the student, his skills acquisition, methods of teaching
and ultimately make more accurate tests. To achieve this, the trainers should have a
sufficient work experience at sea. Trainers without such experience, but involved in
training of seafarers (ex. Maritime English teachers) must familiarize with the features
of maritime transport. Furthermore, trainers must be trained in maritime subjects,
curricula development and literature. They must pay attention to avoid a duplication of
the same issues or topics in different subjects of the course [5].

Another problem encountered, is to determine the teaching hours for each subject.
Currently, we have introduced formation subjects according the requirements of
Albanian Education system and professional subjects according to the requirements of
STCW Convention. Our curriculum and education programs have been screened and
approved by the Commission of Quality Control in Higher Education as well as the
Albanian Maritime Administration. Actually, in Albania there are only two universities
and one high school in maritime education and the involvement of Ministry of
Education in maritime education is poor. Every time we have to pass inspections, we
face similar problems and need to spend a lot of time and energy to explain what maritime
education represents. We need to explain why maritime education is an engineering
education, and there should be a certain level of training hours on board or simulators.

Teachers that are dealing with the training and our maritime students have to
undertake from the beginning of their teaching carrier a set of courses for their own
training. Most of the courses are delivered as part of a project (MArED) financed by the
European Union and AMICI (Albanian Maritime International Competitiveness
Initiative). A list of these courses is described below:
• Elementary Fire Fighting (IMO Model Course 1.20)
• Elementary First Aid (IMO Model Course 1.13)
• Personal Survival Techniques (IMO Model Course 1.19)
• Personal Safety and Social Responsibility Training Course (IMO Model Course 1.21)
• Security Awareness Training for all Seafarers (Model course 3.27)
• Ship Simulator and Bridge Teamwork (Model course 1.22)

5. CONCLUSIONS
University of Vlore, as a maritime training institution, respects and applies the
complete requirements of the STCW Convention and national legislation regarding
levels of training and content of the training process according with the final
specialization, deck or engine officer.

Study programs are structured according with the requirements of the present
regulations and with the shipping industry needs, at the end of the study years, the
graduates having knowledge and skills necessary to perform their on board duties in
respect of the safety and secure procedures and standards. Training the trainers that are
teaching maritime related disciplines is essential for achieving the required quality standards
and to transmit to the students the proper level of knowledge and skills required by the
competencies that they have to achieve during the years of academic studies.

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REFERENCES

[1] Barsan, E. (2010). Particularities of the maritime higher education system as part of the
maritime transport engineering studies, (pp.168-173), ISSN:1792426X, Corfu, GR, 2010
[2] The Nautical Institute and The World Maritime University – Maritime Education And
Training, A Practical Guide, ISBN 1870077415, London, 1997
[3] Albanian Maritime Administration. (2009). Albanian Regulation for Ship Inspection.
Durres, AL: AMA.
[4] Dukaj, A. (2015). DEVELOPING AN EFFECTIVE MARITIME EDUCATION AND
TRAINING SYSTEM- UV (pp. 58-64). Vlore, Albania: Proceedings of the 3d International
Maritime Symposium IMCI 2015, ISBN: 978-9928-4108-2-5
[5] Lapa, K. (2015). TRANSFORMATIVE CHALLENGES OF DNME AND DNS THROUGH
THE INITIATIVES OF AMICI HERD MARITIME PROJECT 2014-2015 - UV (pp. 102-
107-64). Vlore, Albania: Proceedings of the 3d International Maritime Symposium IMCI
2015, ISBN: 978-9928-4108-2-5
[6] http://www.emsa.europa.eu/overview-maritime-administrations/candidate-potential-
candidate-countries.html - albanian.pdf

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SCIENTIFIC AND PEDAGOGICAL SUPPORT OF DISTANCE MARI-

TIME EDUCATION

Irina Makashina
DSc., Professor of the English Department, Director of International
Education Center of Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University,
Novorossiysk, Russia
e-mail: irmak@inbox.ru

Abstract.
The model of scientific and pedagogical support of distance maritime education is sub-
mitted. It corresponds to priority, socially motivated purposes and results, achieved due
to use of different means of the training, constructed on methodology of system of har-
monious development of human potential, content of maritime education and system of
results’ assessment, the technological environment and normative base.
The new Project providing a tool for developing innovative methods of maritime educa-
tion and training system is proposed. It is the attempt to unite different approaches,
knowledge, methods of teaching, and like‐minded maritime educators from different
regions to share ideas and experience in order to contribute to development of maritime
education.
The main idea of the developed model is preparing the algorithm for collecting infor-
mation on innovative educational products and providing for extra opportunity of aca-
demic collaboration based on exchange of already created or planned innovative edu-
cational products among maritime universities.

Key words: educational process, distance learning, situational and functional approach

INTRODUCTION
In modern conditions the main objective of development of modern educational tech-
nology is, primarily, access to educational information to a person regardless of its dis-
tance from the institution. Issues of modern distance education attract a large quantity of
researchers that are not only theoretically grounded ways of its construction, but also
created the various models of systems that implement these technologies in teaching
practice. And reference to this topic by researchers and uninterrupted search of new
approaches, models, methods and tools proves the urgency of this issue.
For Maritime education distance learning has the particular importance on different rea-
sons: often distant being of trainees from institution due to sailing practice or regular
voyage; necessity to coordinate learning process with maritime institutions from differ-
ent countries in order to provide mobility of trainees or lecturers and instructors and
others.
Currently, the improvement of Maritime education involves the organization of work on
training qualified specialists in sea transport in accordance with the requirements of
state educational standards and international conventions, to implement the multilevel
system of continuous Maritime education. However there is a contradiction between the
high level of technical equipment of majority modern Maritime universities and insuffi-

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cient scientific and pedagogical support for the implementation of distance education
technology.
The above contradiction points to the urgency of the search for a model of distance
learning, and its research and pedagogical support that could practically be implemented
in the educational process. There are different models of distance learning: training on
the type of external studies; learning based on cooperation of several educational institu-
tions; training in specialized educational institutions; Autonomous learning; informal,
integrated learning through multimedia programs; teleconferences; the case-technology
etc. Possibility to use modern data information technologies can open up new perspec-
tives for increasing the efficiency of the educational process [5; 6; 7, etc.]. Their effi-
ciency is largely based on the fact that the trainees have the opportunity to work with
educational materials in accessible mode and volume. At the same time we note weak-
ness of distance learning, for example, the lack of direct communication between teach-
er and learners, as well as inability to conduct training in distance courses in all special-
ties effectively. The above proves that the chosen issue is multisided. In this paper we
will focus only on one aspect – on scientific-pedagogical support of the training process
of marine specialists.

PART 1. SCIENTIFIC-PEDAGOGICAL SUPPORT OF TRAINING PROCESS

OF MARINE SPECIALISTS

In this part we consider the scientific-pedagogical provision of distant Maritime educa-

tion as an obligatory component of the system of pedagogical support, as well as the
design principles, laws and specific conditions of its functioning.
First of all, it is necessary to determine the interpretation of the notion "scientific and
pedagogical support". Under scientific-pedagogical support we understand the unity of
techniques, methods, means and conditions for promoting the educational objectives
with use of information technology and suggesting: a) the need to create psychological
and social conditions favorable for the educational process; b) the consistency of actions
of all participants of process of learning using information technologies, focusing on the
development of methodological materials, providing for operation of the trainees with
the use of information technology, and organization of their implementation. Scientific
and methodological support of educational process of training of marine specialists
should be oriented to free and responsible choice to the trainees own educational trajec-
tories. Its organization should be aimed at implementation of the goals set, to develop
students ' abilities to work in any educational environment, to implement training and
quasi-professional activity in real conditions [2; 3]. The main methodological require-
ment for research and pedagogical support of distance learning is the consideration of
its essence, the internal arrangement and mechanisms governing the interaction of its
components.

The mechanism of realization of the model of scientific and methodological support

should be based on the organic combination of traditional teaching and distance learn-
ing technologies. Such a model should be based on the following principles:
– systematic approach for ensuring the integrity of construction of the all subsystems;
– modularity, implying the division of educational process into structural elements;
– poly-profile character of the content of teaching, providing knowledge in different
subjects included in one's professional field;
– interactivity of educational aids;

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– staging, involving a sequence of changes in the level of requirements to knowledge,

abilities and skills, the interrelation between the content, methods and forms of teaching
and educational process;
– adaptability, requiring the organization of the educational process, providing the sequence
of formation of knowledge, abilities and skills, as well as diversity in the act-ways to get
interaction of subjects of educational process, the variety of forms of education.

The organization of the educational process on the proposed model is constructed on the
base of situational and functional approach, the essence of which is as follows. The ef-
fect of educational functional system of specialist training occurs in the actions of a
teacher and a student performed in two autonomous functional systems: a leading and
decisive. In the first system a leading person is the teacher, who imposes the task and
leads the student to poly-profiled communicative situation, and the student accepts it. In
the second system the decisive person is a student, which grounding his knowledge and
skills intends to solve the obtained tasks [2; 3]. The result is the assimilation of new
information, acting incrementally to an existing state of cognition. Reliance on this ap-
proach provides a gradual formation of students' knowledge and developing their com-
petence.

Teachers, organizing training and information professionally-oriented environment fo-

cuses on information model of teaching that incorporates both sources of information
(manuals, modeling software, databases and knowledge, information and expert system)
and active participants in the educational process: teaching, introducing new teaching
methods and using new teaching manuals to support the learning process and the stu-
dent as object of obtaining information and interpreting it in the form of their own
knowledge, skills [2; 3; 4].
In this regard, there is increase of demands to the level of training of the teacher, acting
as the intermediary between the specialist and field activities, prepared to the formation
of competence of students.
As a trainee, we believe it is necessary to emphasize that he always performs both the
subjective and objective actions. Their ratio should be adequate to educational activities.
The student acts as the object with respect to the teacher and as a subject of his own
actions. In the process of acquiring knowledge, development of competences, its role is
changing.
The organization of training and information professionally-oriented environment re-
quires structuring information on different levels, systematization of the process of
presentation of information, interactive communication [4]. Implementation takes place
through the creation of computer educational-methodical complexes on different disci-
plines and model courses.
Training tools is another compulsory component of the learning process. For each train-
ing module there is a special teaching-methodical set of materials, including textbooks;
workbooks, methodological materials, manuals for self-study, audio, video, and others.
Teaching and methodical set is a system of teaching materials, sufficient to teach stu-
dents in accordance with the requirements of national and international standards.
Criteria for selection of learning tools are the following:
1) the adequacy of means to the purposes and content of maritime education;

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2) the adequacy of means of organizational forms and methods of distance maritime

education;
3) the multichannel principle of assimilation of students of distance educational materi-
al;
4) compliance of training tools solved at this stage to the learning tasks;
5) the effectiveness of the complex mix of teaching and learning tools.
Conditions of realization of scientific and pedagogical support of distance learning in-
clude:
– the focus of the methodological support of distance learning to ensure the content and
outcomes of distance learning to the requirements of both the national and international
educational standards;
– poly-profiled-communicative approach to the content selection of educational materi-
als for the assimilation by distance learning;
– technology and content flexibility, i.e. adaptability of the methodical system of dis-
tance learning;
– the creation of the corresponding educational servers and the availability of mediation
access to educational resources;
– comprehensive application of information technology and the optimal choice of forms
and methods of training (the use of games, computer simulations, services, support, re-
plenishment of the collection of digital educational resources, etc.);
– training and retraining of pedagogical staff;
– implementation of pedagogical monitoring of the status and results of educational
process of distance learning;
– the optimal system of indicators reflecting achievements in training – applicable ver-
sion of the rating system of quality management of specialists training;
– safety of functioning of the educational process;
– comfortability of educational space.
Regarding the functions of scientific-and-pedagogical support of distance maritime edu-
cation, we consider it necessary to highlight the following:
– synthesizing function (to ensure the integrity of professional education, provides for
the interconnection of all subsystems, defines the strategy of training of the future sea
specialist);
– designing function (enables the use of relevant information for the development of
competences defined by the Conventions’ requirements and national education stand-
ards);
– constructive function (implemented in the selection process for teaching content that
reflects poly-profiled content of the activities, the communicative nature of the relation-
ship, the particular activity in a long voyage, the significance and possibilities of the
English language in professional activities);
– informational and educational function (implemented in the technology of teaching);
– organizational function (implemented in the choice of educational technologies);
– communicative function (represented by the totality of methods, receptions and forms
of organization of the communicative environment).

PART 2. REALIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC AND PEDAGOGICAL SUPPORT

OF DISTANCE TRAINING OF SEA SPECIALISTS

For achievement the main objectives of any Maritime institution providing training of
marine specialists it is necessary to provide high quality of all conditions of the educa-
tional space, including scientific and informational content. The activities of the rele-

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vant divisions and services of the institution should be integrated in the learning pro-
cess, and the employees of these departments need to understand the essential character-
istics of the Maritime industry for which it trains specialists. We assumed that the sys-
tem of distance education may include programs and courses of different levels (sec-
ondary, secondary vocational education; higher education; postgraduate education; pro-
fessional development courses and others). An important component of the procedural
model is the indicators of the quality of distance training. These are as follows:
– the availability of distance learning;
– the quality of educational services;
– resource provision of the process of distance learning;
– the effectiveness of distance learning.
The criteria used in the evaluation of electronic resources, required for distance educa-
tion are:
– ease of access to resources;
– affordable cost of network materials;
– ability to assist users and training of users;
– stability of network resources;
– the possibility of obtaining long-term access to network resources;
– facility of license agreements;
– delays in access to materials due to congestion;
– determination of the degree of reliability of the seller and the possibilities of further
cooperation with them;
– the degree of potential use (based on numbers of users and frequency of access to ma-
terials);
– easy computer interface for users, etc.
The effectiveness of the use of information resources in distance education, including
maritime, depends on several factors: the proper use of the material; source of infor-
mation; compliance with the rules of assignments; responsibility of the learner.
Recently model courses become more and more popular.
Model course for Maritime universities is a special organization of learning and teach-
ing material.
Manual on their structure was defined by the International Maritime Organization
(IMO) [1]. Model courses are submitted for consideration at IMO and, upon their ap-
proval, can be incorporated into the educational process of Maritime universities.
The model courses play a very significant part in the implementation of the STCW
Convention and Code requirements. The intent of a model course is to provide a vali-
dated example of a "framework" for the use of course providers who develop education
and training programs and courses for seafarers, which are consistent with the require-
ments of the Convention. The purpose of the IMO model courses is to assist maritime
training institutes and their teaching staff in organizing and introducing new training
courses, or in enhancing, updating or supplementing existing training material where the
quality and effectiveness of the training courses may thereby be improved.
Taking into consideration abovementioned we offer to create a Data Bank of model
courses for distance learning of marine specialists, which can greatly enhance opportu-
nities of Maritime universities [6; 7]. This Data bank must be arranged on the base of
scientific and pedagogical support of distance training of sea specialists and correspond
to above mentioned principles and above said criteria.

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Moreover, each model course (in any discipline) or its part offered to the Bank must
contain the following:
– syllabus that meets international standards;
– work plan of discipline, with terms and forms of knowledge control;
– theoretical material necessary to prepare to conduct the practical and laboratory
works, presented in an automated complex in different forms for different courses: e-
textbooks; video lectures or e-text version; methodical recommendations on implemen-
tation of laboratory-projects; reference material etc. All statistics on students achieve-
ments should be stored in the system database. An important aspect is the analysis of
functional adequacy of information and educational resources for the realization of the
goals of training and the adequacy of the forms and modes of interaction with the teach-
er and students using Internet resources and complex tools of distant access.
Created so the educational environment is distributed and has common means of navi-
gation, providing the user fast and simple means to find any information resource regis-
tered in the environment, regardless of its physical location. For convenience, standard
media interface and system management of information resources, providing interaction
with the educational environment must be used or created.

CONCLUSION

The current state of transport sector is characterized by demand for specialists, pos-
sessing poly-profiled knowledge, corresponding skills and competences what in
whole can provide competitiveness of these professionals, and the Maritime
industry. This factor stipulates the necessity to expand the opportunities of distance
training of marine specialists.
Scientific-pedagogical support of the training process of marine specialists is
presented in the paper as a part of whole distant learning course. Scientific and
pedagogical sup-port of distance education of Maritime specialists involves the
creation of educational and material resources that provide conditions for
implementation of the educational actions; the use of educational technologies,
forms and methods providing adequate orientation of all educational actions on the
formation and development of professional competencies that meet to
demands of the Maritime community. Creation of a database of model
courses for use by different Maritime Universities and institutions on the basis of
careful scientific study of the scientific-pedagogical support of proposed distance
education will facilitate the development of Maritime education in general.

REFERENCES

[1] IMO, STW 39/7/3, Comprehensive Review of the STCW Convention and the
STCW Code – Communication and leadership skills.
[2] Makashina I.I., Malinochka E.G. Situational and functional approach in training
of marine managers. – Krasnodar: Kuban State University, 2007. – 44 p.
[3] Makashina, I.I. Poly-profile training of managers for merchant shipping. – Palmari-
um Academic Publishing. AV Akademikerverlag GmbH and CoKG. Saarbrucken.
Deutchland / Germany. – 2012. – 239 p.
[4] Marichev, I. Systemic arrangement of the educational space. Novorossiysk: Admiral
Ushakov State University, 2013. – 216 p.

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[5] Marichev, I.V. Cooperation Projects in Maritime Education / Conference paper.

“Looking ahead. Innovation in maritime education”15th IAMU Annual General Assem-
bly. Published by: Australian Maritime College. Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. 27-
29 October. 2014. – P. 402-406.
[6] Makashina, I.I. Cooperation Projects as a way of further BSAMI development
/Conference proceedings. International scientific conference «Science and technology
for sustainable maritime development». Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy. Varna 13-
14 May. 2015. – pp. 47-54.
[7] Fayvisovich, A., Makashina, I., Truschenko I. Joint educational programs within the
frame of BSAMI: condition, problems, prospects / Conference proceedings. Interna-
tional scientific conference «Science and technology for sustainable maritime develop-
ment». Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy. Varna 13-14 May. 2015. – 37-40.

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INNOVATIVE WAY OF TEACHING COLREGs

Mohovic Djani; Baric Mate, Mohovic Robert

Faculty of martime studies Rijeka
Studentska 2, 51000 Rijeka Croatia
dmohovic@pfri.hr; mbaric@pfri.hr; mohovic@pfri.hr
+38551338411

Abstract
"Avoiding Collisions at Sea" (ACTs) was a project funded by the European programme
"Leonardo da Vinci" and is managed by Faculty of Maritime Studies, University of
Rijeka, Croatia. Other partners who are participating in this project are from United
Kingdom, Spain, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Turkey. The goal of this project was to detect
gaps in knowledge, understanding and applying of COLREGs (International
Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972 - Rules) and to develop new way of
teaching COLREGs. Research was conducted on more than 1500 seafarers, nautical
students and amateur seafarers. On the base of research results, new teaching material
was prepared which consists of more than 280 on-line scenarios explaining how to use
the Rules in real-life situations. Each scenario consists of description of scenario and
explanation which Rule(s) apply and why. Where it is appropriate, scenario is
accompanied by video of bird’s-eye view, bridge view, radar screen view and ECDIS
view. Developed new innovative way of teaching COLREGs will improve understanding
of the Rules.

Keywords:
COLREGs, teaching, scenarios

INTRODUCTION
The Faculty of Maritime Studies in Rijeka is the leader of the European Union project
"Avoiding Collisions at Sea" (ACTs). Other partners on the project are maritime
training institutions coming from Great Britain 1, Spain 2, Slovenia 3, Bulgaria 4 and
Turkey 5. The project started on November 2013 and ended by December 2015. In order
to achieve the project goals, COLREGs questionnaire has been prepared and distributed
among nautical students, maritime professionals and non-professionals. Workshops
have been organized in all of the partner’s countries in order to validate the results of
the questionnaire and the research results obtained have been presented. The results
were used to prepare on-line COLREGs course. To prepare scenarios recent COLREGs
accidents were analysed and comprehensive database was made. Each scenario in part B
of the Rules has prepared simulations for bridge view, bird`s view, radar view and
ECDIS view where appropriate. Scenarios in Part C of the Rules have 3D visualisation
of the vessels navigational lights and sound of the appropriate sound signals. At the end

1
C4FF – Center for Factories of the Future
2
SeaTeach S.L.
3
Spinaker D.O.O.
4
Nicola Vaptsarov Naval Academy
5
Piri Reis University

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more than 283 scenarios were uploaded on line. Course pilot testing was conducted with
maritime professionals and students which were browsing the course and pointing out
what should be changed in order to improve the scenarios. Participants praised new
approach in learning the Rules using scenarios with simulations and 3D visualisation of
navigational lights. The course is available in English and in 5 different languages
including Croatian, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish and Bulgarian.

1. TRAINING NEEDS
The Questionnaire has been designed to determine which rules are difficult to
understand and which rules are most often broken in practice. Such questions are more
difficult than the questions which simply check the knowledge. In a technical sense, the
questionnaire has been prepared according to the instructions of the professors from the
Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka who are dealing with teaching
and assessment methods. Preparing questions for testing the Rules understanding has
been a very difficult task, only 4 questions from the total of 372 from the MCA
COLREGs test have been taken. The questionnaire was distributed from January to the
end of March 2014 through Lime survey and in a printed form. The results from the
printed form have been inserted in the Lime survey. The questionnaire has been
distributed to all maritime schools and colleges, seafarers on board merchant ships,
teachers and lecturers at maritime institutions, VTS operators, employees of the port
authorities, pilots as well as to masters of fishing boats and yachts. By the end of
January 2016, the questionnaire was fulfilled by 1543 participants (professional
seafarers, maritime high school and faculty students) and 315 holders of licenses for
various types of ships/boats (pleasure craft and small fishing vessels). In order to
validate questionnaire results, workshops have been organised. The workshops aimed at
presenting the results of the research, at validating the obtained results through
discussions, at conducting discussion on the methods of learning the Rules and
determining the best way to use the results of the project for long-life learning. In all
partners’ countries, workshops have been attended by 102 participants: teachers and
professors at maritime colleges and faculties, seafarers, representatives of government
authorities and maritime companies, pilots and members of various professional
associations related to maritime shipping. It has been concluded, on the workshops, that
the results obtained have been in accordance with the workshop participant’s opinions
and that there has been a strong need for the implementation of new methods of learning
and teaching of COLREGs.

Figure 1: Percentage of correct answers of selected Rules from Part A and B

100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule Rule
1 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 13 14 15 17 18 19

Participants with sea experience Participants without sea experience

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Figure 2: Selected Rules of part A and B which are most difficult to understand for
participants without and with sea experience

100
80
60
40
20
0
Rule 1: Application

Rule 2: Responsibility

Rule 3: General definitions

Rule 4: Application

Rule 5: Look-out

Rule 6: Safe speed

Rule 7: Risk of collision

Rule 8: Action to avoid

Rule 9: Narrow channel

Rule 10: Traffic separation

Rule 11: Application

Rule 12: Sailing vessels

Rule 13: Overtaking

Rule 14: Head on situation

Rule 15: Crossing situation

Rule 16: Action by give-way

Rule 17: Action by stand-on

Rule 18: Responsibilities

Rule 19: Conduct of vessels in

between vessels

restricted visibility
collision

scheme

vessel

vessel
No sea experience (n=255) With sea experience (n=466)

Figure 3: Selected Rules of part A and B which are most difficult for
students to understand – answered by lecturers

100
80
60
40
20
0
Rule 19
Rule 18
Rule 10

Rule 12
Rule 17

Rule 13

Rule 15
Rule 16

Rule 14
Rule 8
Rule 9
Rule 6
Rule 7

Rule 2

Rule 1

Rule 5
Rule 3

Rules which are most diffucult to understand

2. COLREGs COURSE DEVELOPMENT AND ASSESSMENT

COLREGs e-learning module course has been developed as an innovative online e-
learning and e-assessment platform by adapting the pedagogical framework of proven
and appropriate methods and methodologies. In order to develop innovative COLREG
course it was necessary to identify, adapt and develop appropriate methods and
methodologies for the development of the intended training course strategy, design,
content, delivery and assessment. Also, one of the objectives was to identify the
interactive pedagogical framework, applying multimedia learning techniques in the
development and delivery of training courses. Methods and methodology adopted in the
course designs and development are:
1. Scenario design and creation,
2. Delivery practice and modelling,
3. Evaluation and quality assurance,
4. Review and analysis of initial methods and methodology.

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Scenario design and creation of course has undertaken a series of activities to improve
training provisions for COLREGs. These activities are: analysis of comprehensive
needs, study of recent COLREGS accidents, incidents and analysis of survey
questionnaires and series of workshops with the support of the maritime community.
Course creation consisted of the work in creating a comprehensive database of a number
of collision and near miss reports. The selected cases were summarised and transformed
into user friendly animated scenarios as a novel means of learning the COLREGs.
These summarised reports were converted into animated scenarios by developing a
range of real life situations using simulations of a bird’s eye view, bridge view, radar
and ECDIS view.
Delivery practice and modelling consisted of qualitative and quantitative
methodological and pedagogical frameworks which were developed for the project as a
whole. Strengths and limitations of each method were tested by using tools for
standardising the education, training and on-line assessment of the COLREGs using an
interactive online platform.
Evaluation & Quality Assurance was conducted through internal evaluation by a team
of experts. Peer view was conducted to support the external evaluations and piloting
plan included a series of trials initially with 3 Target Groups followed up by 5 Target
Groups. In total 48 people tested eCOLREGs course in 1st piloting and 107 people
tested eCOLREGs course in 2nd piloting. Pilot groups were students, skippers, maritime
professionals and instructors/lecturers.
COLREG convention has 38 rules and 4 annexes, divided in 5 parts and 3 sections
which resulted with eCOLREGs course. The course has more than 283 scenarios
divided by the rules and annexes. The number of the scenarios for the each Rule
depends on the number of paragraphs of each Rule and the number of actions to apply
the specific Rule. Also, the Rules which were identified as hard to understand with the
questionnaire have comments for explanation.
Figure 4: Scenarios available for Rule 13 (Overtaking)

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Figure 5: Example of scenarios with simulations

The navigational lights are shown in 3D, so the user can observe them from all
directions. That helps the students with the perception of the navigational lights and
better understanding the angles of visibility.

Figure 6: Example of scenarios for navigational lights and sound signals

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The course is available at 6 different languages and in the future translation for more
languages can be expected.
In 2015 e-COLREGs course has been introduced to students of Faculty of maritime
studies Rijeka. This year results of final exam in COLREGs is compared with the
former year’s result of final COLREGs exam and shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Percentage of students by final score

70%
60%
50%
40%
2013-2014
30%
2015
20%
10%
0%
90-100 % 80-89 % 70-79 % 60-69 %

In this analysed time period 150 students undergo the oral examination of COLREGs.
The statistics in Figure 7 show increase of 23% of students with the best final score.
Also, the number of students with minimum knowledge is reduced for 25 %. This is
evidence that course helps students in learning and understanding COLREGs.

3. CONCLUSION

This course is one of the kind e-learning platforms for COLREGs. The objective of the
course is to help the students and seafarers to understand the Rules. For that purpose
every situation and action at sea is explained using simulations. That helps students to
acquire the perception of situation and purpose of the Rules. Also, some Rules have
comments which are further explaining the application of specific Rule. Scenarios can
be used by students at home and maritime professional at sea or at the classes by
professors. The course was used in COLREGs classes at Faculty of maritime studies
Rijeka. The results of final exam showed better knowledge and understanding of the
Rules compared with the former years. The course is available via internet at
www.ecolregs.com.

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ADDITIONAL MET PROGRAMS FOR THE MASTERS ON BOARD

LNG CARRIERS

Ana Gundić, MEng (I), Capt. Dalibor Ivanišević, MEng (II), Professor Damir Zec, PhD
(III)
(I) (II) University of Zadar, Maritime Department, Ulica Mihovila Pavlinovica 1, 23
000 Zadar, Croatia
(III) University of Rijeka, Faculty of Maritime Studies Rijeka, Studentska 2, 51000
Rijeka, Croatia
Email: agundic@unizd.hr

Abstract

Recent upsurge of the LNG exploitation and consequent growth of the LNG transport
capacities by sea have triggered numerous new technologies to be developed and
implemented in LNG shipbuilding as well as on board LNG carriers. In spite of this,
education and training programs, particularly those for LNG carriers management
staff, haven’t followed these changes. Only recently, two IMO Model Courses dealing
with training for liquefied gas tanker cargo operations have been updated. These
Model Courses strictly follow the STCW Convention programs and as such, if properly
implemented, ensure the level of knowledge, understanding and skills as required by the
Convention. On the other side, there are numerous indications that even these improved
model courses will not cover all skills and knowledge required for the complex work on
board LNG carriers.
Consequently, the paper presents results of analysis of discrepancies identified between
the education and training requirements as regulated by the STCW Convention, and
additional training programs developed by shipping companies during last decade in
order to overcome identified deficiencies. Based on the analysis the measures for
improvement of the program for masters of 3000 BT or more on LNG carriers have
been proposed.

Keywords:
additional MET programs, LNG carriers, STCW Convention

1 INTRODUCTION

LNG carries have existed in the shipping industry for less than 50 years. Up to year
2000, they were built only for well-developed gas exploitation projects. The carriers
operated in accordance with the long-term lease contracts and servicing predetermined
unloading terminals. In the late 1970s, only 52 LNG carriers existed [1]. Since then a
significant expansion of the fleet has been noticed. At the end of the year 2015, the
LNG fleet consisted of 412 carriers (greater than 30.000 m³ and owners with 3+ vessels)
with 143 new buildings on order [2]. It is expected that the LNG world fleet will surpass
the number of 500 vessels in the period from 2016 to 2017 (the number includes both
conventional and other LNG carriers) [3]. Conventional LNG carriers are carriers with
the capacity of 180,000 m³ with spherical Moss-Rosenberg independent tanks and
prismatic membrane containment tanks. The term “other LNG carrier” refers to Q-Flex
and Q-Max carriers with the cargo capacity of over 200,000 m³ and SRV (Shuttle and
Regasification Vessels), and FSRU (Floating Storage and Regasification Unit) vessels

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being capable to transport and store LNG, including the regasification of the LNG. Q-
Flex carriers have the cargo capacity between 210,000 to 217,000 m³ whereas Q-Max
carriers can transport from 263,000 to 266,000 m³ of LNG. They are built in three South
Korean shipyards, namely in Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) in Ulsan, Samsung
Heavy Industries (SHI) on Geoje Island and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine
Engineering (DSME) on Geoje Island, and all designated for the Qatar project.

These figures clearly indicate the growing trend in LNG carrier industry: a rapid
expansion and growth of the LNG fleet and increased necessity for well-educated crew
members.

The above-mentioned trend can be clearly noticed in the Republic of Croatia where a
significant increase of certificates in basic and advanced training for liquefied gas
tankers has been noticed.

Figure 1 Total number of certificates issued from 2009 to 2014 (from 1st January to 31st
December)

1145
1200

1000

800
569
600 486
341
400 227
200

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Number of certificates

Source: Authors according to [4]

2 EDUCATION OF SEAFARERS

For the needs of this paper, the education of seafarers is divided in three categories:
formal, non-formal and informal education.
Formal education is acquired in educational institutions, beginning with elementary
school and ending with PhD. It can be carried out as continued, which is worldwide the
most frequently selected approach, and as a “sandwich” system, which combines
education programs with onboard employment [5]. Continuing education generally lasts
from 3 to 5 years and is performed at four-year colleges, academies, faculties and
universities. Practical, onboard training lasts 12 months, and takes place after
graduation. The system is in place in most of the Western European countries including
the Republic of Croatia, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, Philippines, etc. [6].
“Sandwich” system is in place in the UK, some African and Asian countries. It seems
that system will eventually be abandoned.

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Non-formal education refers mostly to additional programs and is acquired through

numerous short courses and similar programs. Because of numerous reasons (delayed
response from regulators, inherent resistance to change in education and training
institutions, etc.) these additional training programs may not be in line with recent
technological development. Discrepancies can be most obviously noticed on
sophisticated vessels such as LNG carriers where the quantity and sophistication of
equipment and gear needed for safe and optimal exploitation is present more than on
other vessels. In order to handle the equipment and the vessel itself, the crew has to be
continuously educated and trained in both, mandatory programs regulated by the STCW
Convention [7] as well as in additional programs. Additional training programs ensure
skills and knowledge required for special purposes and some vessels. The companies
running such ships as a rule impose additional training requirements for their crews
clearly recognizing that formal education is not sufficient for seafarers to properly carry
out the tasks on board.
Informal education includes skills and knowledge that seafarers acquire while carrying
out everyday duties. Furthermore, it implies practical applicability of knowledge
acquired during formal and non-formal education. It is neither organized nor structured.
Consequently, a number of shipping companies have recognized the importance of
informal education and try to direct and systematize the informal knowledge acquisition
through publications produced by the companies themselves. These publications or
training logs aims to combine systematical actions and activities, and documented
afterwards by every officer. Several shipping companies consider this activity as one of
the preconditions for promotion.

3 ADDITIONAL MET PROGRAMS FOR THE MASTERS ON BOARD LNG

CARRIERS

According to the STCW Convention [7], officers and ratings assigned specific duties
and responsibilities related to cargo or cargo equipment, need to have the Certificate in
basic training for liquefied gas tanker cargo operations (STCW V/1­2­1). Except this
certificate, the master, chief engineer officers, chief mates, second engineer officers and
any person with immediate responsibility for loading, discharging, care in transit,
handling of cargo, tank cleaning or other cargo-related operations on LNG carriers, need
to have the Certificate in advanced training for liquefied gas tanker cargo operations
(STCW V/1­2­2). The main goal is to enable the responsible seafarers to obtain basic
understanding and knowledge of the systems and operations needed for cargo handling,
of the emergency procedures on LNG carriers, of chemical and physical characteristics
of gases as well as of the characteristics of LNG carriers as well as legal requirements.
The accompanied IMO Model Course suggests 93 training hours for these programs of
which 33 hours refer to the Basic Training for Liquefied Gas Tanker Cargo Operations,
and 60 refer to the Advanced Training for Liquefied Gas Tanker Cargo Operations. The
analysis of their contents, required knowledge, understanding and skills reveals that to
master such a complex matter in a given time is highly questionable. The analysis of
five curricula of General Chemistry at undergraduate level proves that, in order to
acquire needed knowledge, one need between 2 to 3 times more in-class hours than
suggested. Taking into consideration the structure and contents of the above-mentioned
training programs it seems that significant increase of in-class hours is needed.
Furthermore, one needs to ask how far with explications and apprehension of the highly

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complex processes on board LNG carriers the lecturer(s) are supposed to go on. From
the students’ perspective, it is very difficult to adopt knowledge, understand and skills
by only attending the program without actual onboard experience. In that respect some
of the notable examples are tank inspection procedures and inerting (oxygen reduction,
dew point reduction). On LNG carriers, these actions usually take place during
preparation of the vessel for docking in repair yard, or immediately after it which is in
normal vessel exploitation happening once in three or five years. The result is that a
number of seafarers formally satisfy all the requirements and standards needed to acquire
the certificate of additional training, and enabling them to manage LNG carriers. And in
fact, most of them do not have enough knowledge, skills or understanding of the matter.
Recently, the industry and the (leading) companies are trying to improve the level of
crew competence through computer based training (CBT), in some instances even
approved by classification societies. In most cases each crew member has to solve a
number of modules, the number of modules depending on onboard position. They have
to register solved module in order to get the certificate.

Apart from the knowledge, understanding and proficiencies prescribed by the STCW
Convention, a number of shipping companies also require additional training programs.
The programs analyzed in this paper are the ones the following companies require from
their masters: Hoegh LNG [8], Teekay [9], SCF­Unicom [10], Shell [11], Pronav Ship
Management [12], Mitsui O.S.K. Lines [13], Golar LNG [14] and Chevron [15]. The
above-mentioned companies operate 188 LNG carriers.
These additional training programs are divided in 6 categories: navigation, safety and
protection of the environment, ship handling and maneuvering, cargo loading and
discharging, human resources and other.

Table 1. Training programs required by shipping companies operating LNG ships

NAVIGATION Dynamic Positioning – Induction course
Octopus – onboard Wavex light structures Operator Course
ECDIS Type specific course
Ice Navigation Simulator Training
Advanced Ice Navigation Simulation Course
SAFETY AND Proficiency in Survival Craft and Rescue Boat operation
PROTECTION OF THE Marine Environmental Protection
ENVIRONMENT OPA 90
Advance Enviromental Course
Shipboard Safety Officers course
Onboard Safety Officer
Safety Officer
Proficiency in Ship Security Officer
Security Training for seafarers with designated security duties
Incident investigation training course
Risk Assessment Incident Response & ISO 14001 Awareness
SHIP HANDLING AND Shiphandling and Manoeuvring Phase one
MANEUVERING Ship handling Phase two
Ship handling & Manoeuvring (Azipod)
Ship Handling With Q­flex and Q­max LNG Carrier
Safe Mooring

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The Manned Model Course in Handling of Large Ships and

Ships with unusual manoeuvring characteristics at Ship
Handling Research and Training Center
CARGO LOADING Tanker Familiarization
AND DISCHARGING Liquid Cargo Handling Simulator (LICOS)
LNG Cargo Handling Course (SIGTTO)
Dangerous Cargo Handling
Dangerous and Hazardous Substances in solid form in bulk and
in packaged form
LNG carrier Operator Course
K­bridge Operator Course
Hamworthy LNG Regasification System
Off­Shore Loading , LNG STL Operation, Ph SP
APL Introduction to STL­SRV
GT & T Training on Membrane LNG Carrier Techniques
SIGTTO­LNG Training Course
HUMAN RESOURCES Ship Handling and Bridge Teamwork (IMO 1.22)
Senior Officer Induction Course
Assessor Training course
Senior officer qualifying Course
Maritime Resource Management (Attitude and Management /
Management Styles)
SMS Bridge Recourse Management
SAS Bridge Resource Management
Rules & Regulations for Personnel, serving on ¨“NIS“ ships
Environmental Leadership Program
Safety Management Course
Ice Crew
Management Skills Programme by Precious Associates Ltd.
OTHER Kongsberg K­chief automation Sytems Basic course
Port of Bonny simulator familiarisation course
Familiarisation Course in Norwegian Maritime Rules &
Regulations
Inventory and consumable store control
Planned maintenance
Teekay Specific CBTs Continuous Professional Development
Integrated Bridge System
Integrated Automation System
Ship’s Cook
Maritime Administration
Food Safety – Foundation
Food Safety – Intermediate
Apollo ­ Root Cause Analysis Training
Regulations for NIS flagged vessels
Norwegian Maritime Rules and Regulations
MTI Network Seafarers Media Awareness Seminar
AMOS M&P course – Spec Tec Ltd.
Source: Authors

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The analysis of the additional programs for masters on LNG carriers has shown that
there are 60+ additional training programs required by involved shipping companies. In
percentages, the programs are divided as follows: navigation 8.33%, safety and
protection of the environment 16.67%, ship handling and maneuvering 8.33%, cargo
loading and unloading 20%, human resources 18.33% and 22.33% other additional
training programs.
It can be noticed that the highest percentage refers to cargo loading and discharging.
The industry has realized that the mandatory education is not enough to safely perform
cargo-handling operations on management level. This mostly refers to the advanced
training for liquefied gas tanker cargo operations.
The most common examples of these additional training programs are Liquid Cargo
Handling (LICOS) and LNG Cargo Handling Course (SIGTTO), the mandatory for
almost every first officer on the LNG carrier.
Rapid development of new technologies and the price of energy sources (up to the
recent crises), have triggered off several new projects of exploitation of natural gas in
the Arctic Circle. Some of these projects are Snøhvit LNG on the island of Melkøya in
Norway, Shtokman Project west of Novaya Zemlya and Yamal LNG in the Bay of Ob
river. The navigation of LNG carriers in permanent dark conditions and ice, require
additional training of the officers and the crew in the area of navigation and safety of
work. They also have to be familiar with the specific equipment needed for the
navigation in such conditions. The examples of such trainings are Ice Navigation
Training and Advanced Ice Navigation Training for deck officers on operational and
management level. It is important to emphasize that, during the 94th session of the MSC
[16], the Polar Code [17] was adopted and is expected to enter into force on 1st January
2017. Following the Polar Code provisions, officers of the watch will have to attend the
Basic Training for Navigation in Polar Conditions, depending on the size of the vessel
and the quantity of ice on the navigation route whereas the master and the first officer
will have to attend the Advanced Training. The Polar Code is a positive example of the
accordance between the Convention principles and the industry recommendations.
However, almost 20 years were needed to adopt it.
In addition, the industry imposed strict requirements in the ship-maneuvering category
so all deck officers have to attend Ship handling, Ship-handling with Q-Flex and Q-Max
LNG Carriers (if they navigate on these vessels) courses. These programs have to be
carried out using simulators, or even smaller vessel models, simulating critical
navigation conditions in dedicated basins. Moreover, all LNG carriers are equipped with
IAS (Integrated Automation System), facilitating complex, cargo handling operations.
Again, the industry demands mandatory training programs for management level
officers and gives recommendations for operational level officers.

According to the authors, the main reasons causing discrepancies between the regulated
education programs and additional training requirements imposed by the industry are:
- LNG carriers ate technically highly complex and expensive units.
- The number of sophisticated control, measuring and protection units on LNG
carriers is larger than on other vessels;
- Cargo handling during transport is as important for the safety of the ship and
cargo as loading and discharging operations.

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- LNG cargo is dangerous cargo: inflammable, combustible and transported at the

boiling temperature of -160°C.
- Operating LNG ships is extremely expensive and based on long-term contracts,
so charterers usually require high maintenance standards as well as an educated
and skilled crew. They also insist on additional training programs.
- Navigation above the Arctic Circle in the conditions of permanent dark and ice
with LNG carriers is highly demanding task.
Therefore, in order to successfully master the required skills and knowledge on the
management level, it is necessary to give more time, more detailed knowledge and more
quality supportive training programs to the officers on LNG carriers.

4 CONCLUSION

LNG transport by sea is rapidly developing part of the shipping. Therefore, the growing
demands for the qualified staff working on board these ships can be easily recognized.
The STCW Convention prescribed the content of the education and training programs.
It may be concluded that knowledge, understanding and proficiency required in the
Convention are not satisfying. Shipping companies have recognized the problem, and
are trying to minimize the discrepancy between required and actually needed knowledge
through additional training programs. The sheer number of the additional training
programs required by the shipping companies (60+) for the master on LNG carriers
clearly indicates that gap is quite large. Potential measures to improve the current
situation are:
- Significant extension of the presently required programs to include missing
subjects, as it may be appropriate.
- New additional and mandatory training programs should be developed to cover
the subjects that are highly required by the shipping companies but cannot be
easily included in the existing programs. The program(s) should be developed as
a further extension of knowledge and proficiency beyond requirements outlined
in the present Advanced training programs.

REFERENCES:

[1] Global LNG Fleet Market: Trends and Opportunities (2015-2019) - New Report by
Daedal Research, available on:
[2] http://www.slideshare.net/daedal/global-lng-fleet-markettrends-and-opportunities-20
152019-new-report-by-daedal-research
[3] IHS Energy, LNG Strategic Research & Forecast Service (LNG-SRF), LNG
Shipping Report, 2 December 2015.
[4] Simpson Spence and Young, Market Commentary, April 2014.
[5] www.mppi.hr
[6] Perčić, U.:Obrazovanje pomoraca za djelovanje u izvanrednim okolnostima /
magistarski rad, Rijeka, Hrvatska : Pomorski fakultet u Rijeci, 2006.
[7] Pritchard, B.: Međunarodna istraživanja u području obrazovanja pomoraca, pomorski
fakultet u Rijeci, Rijeka, 2010.
[8] International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping
for Seafarers - STCW, 1978., International Maritime Organization, rev.2010.

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[8] http://www.hoeghlng.com/
[9] http://teekay.com/
[10] http://www.unicom-cy.com/
[11] https://www.chevron.com/
[12] http://www.golarlng.com/
[13] http://www.mol.co.jp/en/
[14] http://www.pronav.com/ship-management/
[15] http://www.shell.com/
[16] Report of the Maritime Safety Committee on its ninety-fourth session, Maritime
Safety Committee (MSC), 94th session, 26 November 2014.
[17] International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (Polar Code), IMO, May
2015.

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 HUMAN ELEMENT

APPLICATION OF THE ISM CODE ON PASSENGER SHIPS AND

IMPACT ON THE LOSS OF HUMAN LIVES AT SEA OVER THE PAST
35 YEARS.
Professor J. Agustín González Almeida (I), jagonal@ull,edu.es
Professor Dr. Federico Padrón Martín (I),
Professor Dr. Alexis Dionis Melián (I),
Professor Dr. Juan I. Gómez Gómez (I),
Professor Dr. Mª del Cristo Adrián de Ganzo (I),
Dr. José Manuel Calvilla Quintero (II)
(I) Departamento de Ingeniería Agraria, Náutica, Civil y Marítima. UD Ingeniería
Marítima. Grupo I+D CONSEMAR. Universidad de La Laguna.
(II) Grupo I+D CONSEMAR. Universidad de La Laguna,

Abstract
On March 6, 1987, the RO-RO ship Herald of Free Enterprise sailed from the Belgian
port of Zeebrugge, with the bow door unlocked because of negligence on the part of the
crew. After leaving the port, exactly 90 seconds, the water came in great amount in the
hold for vehicles, causing the heel of the ship. In a few minutes, the ship is lying on its
starboard side, causing the loss of 193 people.
The official investigation showed that the management of the safety of their vessels by
the shipping company had not been adapted, so that following this event and other high
impact accidents in the maritime field, the International Maritime Organization through
Resolution A.741 (18), approves the ISM Code on November 4, 1993, mandatory for all
vessels with the entry into force of Chapter IX of SOLAS (International Safety
Management Code) as it demonstrates that over 80% of accidents on vessels are due to
human factors.
We proceed to list a number of selected by the number of victims and high impact on
public opinion accidents. This is therefore a preliminary work that will form the basis
for further study. We want, by analyzing a few cases after the accident Herald of Free
Enterprise, if the implementation of the ISM Code has achieved the goals that had
initially set; mainly “to ensure safety at sea, prevention of human injury or loss of life,
and avoidance of damage to the environment, in particular, to the marine environment,
and to property”.
After this review, we can conclude if a change as important as the ISM code standard is
necessary.
Keywords: ISM Code, Maritime Safety, Passenger Ship.

INTRODUCTION
The International Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and for Pollution
Prevention (International Safety Management Code - ISM) has as its main objective the
establishment by shipping a safety management systems of ships and pollution
prevention. The code, adopted by the IMO after numerous accidents on passenger ships
with great media impact on the number of victims, is in Chapter IX of SOLAS
Convention (International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea); resulting

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mandatory for all member states of the IMO. Specifically Regulation 2 of Chapter IX
indicates that this code it’s applicable into:
1. passenger ships, including passenger high speed vessels, no later than July 1,
1998;
2. oil tankers, chemical tankers, gas carriers, bulk carriers and cargo ships high
speed of gross tonnage above 500, no later than July 1, 1998; and
3. other cargo ships and mobile offshore drilling units of gross tonnage above 500
GT, no later than July 1, 2002.
The starting point for the development of the ISM Code was the “Herald of Free
Enterprise” ship sinking. The official investigation concludes that “immediate cause of
the accident was that the bow door remained wide open, allowing the great inrush of
water as the vessel increased speed, while the assistant boatswain directly responsible
for closing it lay asleep in his cabin Unless the assistant boatswain's negligence was
simply the last in a long string of actions that laid the groundwork for a major
accident” (Sheen, 1987). Six years after that tragedy, the ISM code is approved. The
code and rules associated with it should enter into force on 1 July 1998 in the first phase
and July 1, 2002 in its second phase, as mentioned above. However, as we shall see, this
accident was not a unique case, and have continued accidents of this nature.
The main objective of the ISM Code, it is to create an international standard covering
the management of the safety of the ship and the prevention of pollution and its effects
on the environment. The application of the code by the company must meet minimum
requirements, for example: provide for safe practices in all operations to be performed
by the ship and in the workplace; take precautions against various risks, continuous
improvement of training of the crew on board and ashore on security management,
proceeding against emergency situations, with potential effects on the safety of the ship
and the environment. To this end, the rules must be respected mandatory, as well as
guidelines, standards and recommendations from the IMO and other organizations
involved as public administrations, classification societies and many other organizations
of the sector.
The ISM code is structured in two parts. Part A, it is mandatory and organized in 12
articles (IMO Res. ):
1. General.
2. Principles of Safety and Environmental Protection. (Onboard and ashore).
3. Responsibility and Authority of the Company.
4. Appointees to ensure the implementation and operation of IS; Code.
5. Responsibility and Authority of the Captain.
6. Resources and Personnel, with particular reference to the proper training of the
crew, for a correct application of the Code, as set out in the Management System
Security (SGS)
7. Development of plans for shipboard operations, with special attention to the
most important operations on board.
8. Emergency preparation, with exercises and practices for effective preparation
before emergency situations.
9. Reports and analysis, implementing tools to keep duly informed the company.
10. Maintenance of the ship and equipment in accordance with existing regulations.
11. Documentation, with proper processing of data related to SGS.

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12. Verification of the company, review and evaluation, verifying the correct
application of SGS.

Part B of the Code, is a guide of recommendations for proper development of the

STCW Convention and Watchkeeping for Seafarers or STCW.
Maritime recent accidents with loss of human lives, caused by recklessness and
negligence by members of the crew as Captain Schettino, responsible for the sinking of
the Costa Concordia cruise (2012) and its behavior against accident, similar to the
Korean ship Sewol’s captain (2014), Lee Jun-seok abandoned to their fate, passengers
and crew members, make the ISM code has great importance today, after being
amended in 2000, 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2013. In fact, a study by the National
Transportation Safety Board concluded that almost 80% of accidents in the maritime
sector is due to the human factor and mismanagement in shipping companies (Ugarte
Miguel, C; 2013). It is expected that its application of the legislation should have a
significant impact on increasing safety and reduce the risk of loss of human lives on sea.

METHODS
Our work aims to be the starting point for a deeper study of the situation worldwide. We
seek to make a first approach to the state of the question, seen from the point of view of
a person who has nothing to do with the maritime sector. For this reason we makes a
study of maritime accidents involving loss of life occurred in international shipping and
considering only the number of deaths, the navigation area and only passenger ships.
There are several previous studies about the causes in various parts of the world,
although generally and not specifically on passenger ships. For this study we have been
used data provided by the IMO-GISIS database: Marine Casualties and Incidents of the
International Maritime Organization, where such accidents are collected. In this work,
we will stick only to the total number of victims, without distinguishing between crew
and passengers. To do this, of the 127 incidents involving passenger fatalities in the
period 1993-2015 and the 1127 incidents with members of the crew died in the period
1993-2015, we will make a selection of those most relevant accidents (for public
opinion and number of victims) in the last 25 years and the previous decade, prior to the
implementation of the ISM code. Then, from the GISIS database, we extract 21
accidents with more than 25 contrasted deceased as a first approximation and listed in
the following table:
Ship Year Deceased Navigation Zone
M/V Tampomas II 1981 580 Indian Ocean - Java Sea
S/S Admiral Nakhimov 1986 423 Black Sea
Herald of Free Enterprise 1987 193 English Channel
M/V Doña Paz 1987 4341 Indian Ocean - Philippines
M/V Salem Express 1991 470 Red Sea - Egypt
Moby Prince 1991 140 Mediterranean Sea
M/S Jan Heweliusz 1993 54 Baltic Sea
M/V Neptune 1993 1215 Caribbean Sea
Seohae Ferry 1993 292 Corea del Sur
M/S Estonia 1994 852 Baltic Sea
M/V Bukoba 1996 800 Victoria Lake - Tanzania
M/S Express Samina 2000 82 Aegean Sea

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M/V Le Joola 2002 1863 Senegal

M/V – Nazreen-1 2003 780 Indian Ocean – Bangladesh
Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 2006 1000 Red Sea - Egypt
M/V Princess of the Stars 2008 1000 Indian Ocean - Philippines
M/V Bulgaria 2011 122 Volga River
M/S Costa Concordia 2012 32 Mediterranean Sea
M/V Karama 2012 78 Indian Ocean - Zanzibar
M/V Rabaul Queen 2012 183 New Guinea
Sewol 2014 304 South Korea
Table 1. List of Ships. Source: GISIS Database - IMO.

We will see how accidents and their victims are distributed in different periods and
analysis shall be based on the areas of navigation, number of accidents and density
navigation, evaluating some of the causes that caused such death toll. We do not intend
to conduct a thorough analysis of the issue, but to expose a series of data that tell us
simply as the issue is evolving.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Based on selected ships to our study, we collect a series of graphs to see how various
parameters have evolved over recent decades. In Table 1, we find a list of victims killed
in accidents referenced ships, while Figure 1, we can see the number of accidents
occurred in the same decades for the selected sample.

Figure 1. Number of deaths in accidents passenger per decade and annual average. Source: I+D
Consemar.

In the 80s, the victims are a very large number (over 5000) compared to the number of
accidents caused. It was from the number of deaths in this decade when proceeding with
the implementation of the ISM Code. The following decade, while the number of
accidents increases, the number of deaths decreased; however we consider the decade
from 1990 to 1999 as a time of transition, since compulsory implementation of the code,
it has a first date in 1998 and finally must be fully operational in 2002. However, we

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can see an increase in the number of deaths in accidents at sea significantly, falling short
by little the decade that would lead to the development and implementation of the ISM
Code. According to N. K. Mansell, in his thesis “Flag State Responsability: Historical
Development and Contemporary Issues” (Mansell, J.; 2009), for the decade from 1990
to 1999, the number of lost ships over 100 GT, are 2562, with an annual average of
more than 250 vessels. Their numbers, taking into account all these accidents are
approximately 6300 deaths, while each other in just 7 accidents, we account the 60% of
the total victims. From 2000 to 2007 he refers 5255 deceased compared to 4727 in our
study (90 % in 6 accidents where we reach also 2008). Data, which we consider
alarming, since the ISM code was to be fully operational and yet far exceed the data
occurred in the decade that would lead to the taking of these measures.

Figure 2. Distribution of accidents per decade. Source: I+D Consemar.

Since 2010, we have only recorded accidents until 2015, with 5 major accidents and
high media repercussion, especially for being in areas such as Europe and Korea where
the performance of the captains and other crew members show that there is an important
underlying problem. However, as we can see the number of dead itself has been reduced
drastically, which entails a substantial improvement over the past three decades.
Below we have collected four graphics (Figure 3), provided by the application
Marinetraffic.com, with the density of navigation in some of the areas where there have
been more accidents, Mediterranean, Northern Europe, Oceania and Africa, Indonesia
and the Middle East. We analyze the traffic intensity (high red and decreases towards
green), compared with areas where as many shipwrecks occur and therefore is also
compared with the victims that take place in each of these areas.

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Figure 3. Density of maritime traffic from AIS, in areas (A) Mediterranean (B) Baltic and
North Sea, (C ) Indian Ocean, (D) African Coast and Middle East. Source:
www.marinetraffic.com.

As we can see, one would expect greater number of maritime accidents in the areas of
navigation in the Mediterranean and the Baltic and North Sea. However this areas are in
the first and fourth position respectively, which verifies that the Mediterranean with a
greater maritime traffic density has a greater risk of accident.
The Indian Ocean and the African coast are situated a short distance behind, but traffic
density is lower than Mediterranean Sea, while it is true that the passages in those areas
usually have longer distance and time, exceed the distance between the multitude of
islands that form Indonesia for example. We can also find that the incidence of
accidents in the Caribbean zone is minimal (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Number of accidents according to navigation area. Source: I+D Consemar.

In the figure below, and from above, we can compare the number of fatalities by area,
which is interesting, the Mediterranean area had the highest incidence of accidents
during the period under study, but the death toll is almost the least of the areas analyzed.
As we can see the number in the Indian Ocean and African coast it is very large
compared to other navigation areas. if we analyze accidents that more victims have
caused in the areas mentioned, we found that many of these deaths could have been
avoided, since in most cases is substandard vessels with serious deficiencies for

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navigation and although the signatory countries of the Paris Memorandum of

Understanding (Paris MOU) or Port State Control, try to avoid operating in their waters
into the mentioned areas, the conditions imposed by this or other regulations are not
taken into consideration in the areas mentioned, some examples are the TAMPOMAS II
(1981), a fire occurs on board that cannot be controlled and security measures are
insufficient, failing to meet the provisions of the regulations, the MV DOÑA PAZ
(1987) tripling the allowed passage and sinks after colliding with an oil tanker, the MV
BUKOBA (1996), duplicating the amount of allowed passage, like the vessel JOOLA
LE (2002) that quadrupling the allowed passage, among others.

Figure 5. Number of victims per navigation area in the last 35 years and average per area.
Source: I+D Consemar.

As we can see, a greater number of accidents does not have to involve a greater number
of victims, as we can see in the figure above (Figure 5). So that the Mediterranean area
has less dead even the Baltic and North Sea, and compared to the area of the Indian and
African coast and Caribbean Sea with an average near 1000 deceased per accident,
much higher than the average in other areas, which may be indicative of significant
infringements in the regulations of IMO.

CONCLUSIONS
Many of these ships, conducting cruises cabotage, in countries and areas of navigation
where legislation does abdicate its functions on maritime safety and also the response of
the IMO, perhaps should be more forceful toward these nations and thus transfer them
to unscrupulous operators when developing the business. But this is not new, in 1987
after the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise, was predicted by the eminent
researcher Juan Zamora Terres, on flags of convenience and complacency of those flag
states (Zamora Terres, J; 2000)
Unscrupulousness by shipping companies, together with permissive administrations is
an ideal breeding ground for tragedies such as those collected at work, where many
times it is impossible to know the total number of victims.

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The enforcement seems to be reserved for the few countries concerned about it, and in
recent years, the crews of convenience occupy important positions in many shipping
companies, with training and preparation more than questionable, but nevertheless
prevails lower cost thereof.
Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia and many parts of Africa, also receive passengers
belonging to the local population, a significant number of foreign tourists traveling on
boats that sometimes can barely keep him or afloat or are taken to limit their conditions
safety at high risk for the lives of passengers on each cruise that shipping company
performs.
The application of the rules, may be linked to the reduction in recent years of accidents
and the number of victims, however it is known that the enforcement does not reach
desirable levels in certain areas of navigation, of great importance the amount of
passage that move.
The involvement of government is essential to it, so that IMO should act firmly against
those nations that violate the requirements of the different safety standards; although it
is a difficult task.
From 2010 a significant decrease of the deceased is seen in passenger ship accidents,
but if we extrapolate the data from these first 5 years, at the end of the decade we can
meet about twice dead; still achieving a considerable reduction in the number of deaths
compared to the previous decade; however no longer a mere assumption, because as we
see in our work, one or two accidents can cause the numbers to increase significantly.
It is essential therefore, to examine the implementation of the ISM code globally, in
conjunction with inspections of administrations and classification societies, so as to
prevent operation to those carriers that endanger the lives of their passengers and as in
some cases proven that their negligence is repeated in succession.

REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1) Sheen, J. MV Herald of Free Enterprise. Report of Court Nº 8074 Formal
Investigation. Department of Transport. London; 1987.
(2) Mérida Galindo Medina, L. Código Internacional de Gestión de la Seguridad
(Código IGS)/(ISM Code). Venezuela: Web: www.marygerencia.com; 2014.
(3) Mansell, J. Flag State Responsibility: Historical Development and
Contemporary Issues. USA. Springer; 2009.
(4) Ugarte Miguel, C. La seguridad en el trabajo a bordo de los buques mercantes:
Análisis de los accidentes laborales y propuestas para su reducción. Cantabria.
UPC, 2013.
(5) www.marinetraffic.com. Density of maritime traffic, 2014.
(6) Zamora Terres, J. Las lecciones del "Erika". Barcelona. Tribuna Diario El País.
19 de enero de 2000.

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ON CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN A MIXED CREW

Igor Olegovich Smirnov, Professor, Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University,

Novorossiysk, Russia.
Alexey Ivanovich Kondratiev, Professor, Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University,
Novorossiysk, Russia.

Abstract

The article is dedicated to some issues of cultural diversities which are available now in
mixed crews. The new perspectives to overcome the difficulties of work in a mixed crew
are offered.

Nowadays all people working in the shipping business face the new challenge that is the
globalization of the whole marine and shipping industry. People from various countries
and of completely different cultures, work together in the same crew, on the same
vessel.

To gain optimum working synergism on board, it is necessary to realize the differences

in values, beliefs as well as the practical issues such as language, religion and diet.

The rules and standards of one culture are completely different from the rules of
another culture. The objective of the paper is to create a strategy important for every
seaman, especially for an officer to build an efficient cross-cultural crew.

There may occur some critical moments or incidents aboard a vessel when feelings of
discomfort can arise as seamen face the realities of confronting issues of diversity. So,
sensitivities and understanding on the part of the officers can turn these into
breakthroughs.

Differences should be understood by all and acknowledged and respected, before any
effective work relationships can be established.

Training in cross-cultural awareness is common in many multinational companies and

national companies, for example, Novoship, Russia. Such training plays a valuable role
not only in building better teams, but also in creating more enriching working
experience, and boosting morale and motivation.

Multicultural crews are a new reality. The results of the research can be applied both
during the training of deck and engine cadets in the course of Cross Cultural
Communication at maritime universities and on board ship in a mixed crew.

Key words: Mixed crew, cross cultural, working synergism, cultural diversity.

INTRODUCTION

The global economy and the shipping market have changed significantly in the past
years. The research carried out for this report demonstrates that there will still be a
substantial demand for appropriately qualified seafarers who are able to work

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successfully with their colleagues from other countries and cultures and there is likely to
be a shortage of such people. Special attention should be paid to cross-cultural relations
while working in a mixed crew. The rules and standards of one culture are completely
different from the rules of another culture. Therefore, it is important for every seaman,
especially for an officer to have a strategy to build an efficient cross-cultural crew.

1. CREWING ISSUES OVERVIEW

Recently there has been a tendency of world seaborne trade volume increase caused by
both world economy globalization and world population increase. Around 80 per cent of
global trade volume and over 70 per cent global trade value is carried by sea and is
handled by ports worldwide. Fuelled by strong growth in tanker, container and dry bulk
trades, world seaborne trade grew by 4 per cent in 2011, taking the total volume of
goods loaded worldwide to 8.7 billion tons. World container port capacity increased by
an estimated 5.9 per cent to 572.8 million 20-feet equivalent units in 2011, its highest
level ever. This increase was less than the 14.5 per cent increase of 2010 that sharply
rebounded from the slump of 2009 [1, 2].

Over the last decade, the situation has been observed with a vivid deficiency of officers
as well as ratings on the world maritime manpower market. The world maritime
community is monitoring the processes taking place in this area. Recent research [3]
points out the corresponding reasons such as: a shift in the balance of number of
seafarers from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries
(OECD) to the Far East, Southeastern Asia and Eastern Europe; an increase in general
demand for seafarers and for some groups of specialists and types of vessels; early
retirement of seafarers and personnel shortage for their substitution; necessity of
training improvement and increased recruitment of seafarers as well as reduction of
their outflow; a decrease in the interest in the maritime career among young people in
the EU countries, a tendency to continue career ashore.

The Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO) and International Shipping
Federation (ISF) carry out research and publish relevant reports about tendencies on the
world’s maritime labour market every five years. According to the latest report the total
amount of officers of seagoing vessels in 2010 was estimated as 532000, which is 32 %
more than in 1990, and 14 % more than in 2005. Therefore, the shortage is 29800 (5.6
%). According to the forecast the number of officers should have increased up to
607000 people in 2014 (14 % more compared with 2010). Shortage is anticipated to
halve to 14300 (2.4 %). As of 2015, the number of officers required to man the total
fleet is estimated at 562,000, with this calculation taking into account vessel numbers,
typical on-board officer numbers per vessel type and average back-up ratio to cover
leave. Referring to the assessment of experts this shortage of officers in the world
shipping will make 5.9 % - about 25000 persons by 2015 pursuant to the investigations
of BIMCO.

Besides, Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. annually publishes reports based on their
own research devoted to the topic considered [4]. The Drewry/PAL Global Manpower
Model distinguishes the following the main supply regions:

• Western Europe 15 %;

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• Eastern Europe 22 %;

• Far East 37 %;

• Rest of World 26 %.

The top officer supply areas in 2010 were Far East, India and Eastern Europe.

In this concern, it is necessary to mention that Admiral Ushakov Maritime State

University is a member of BSAMI (Black Sea Association of Maritime Institutions).
The University has its own crewing company and does their best to investigate the
situation in this area. It should be highlighted that Eastern Europe, which includes the
Black Sea region countries such as Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and
Ukraine, has been assuming even greater importance due to the increase in the number
of officers over the recent years. The Black Sea region has seen the fastest proportional
increase in officers supply over the period from 1990 (see Table 1).

Table 1. Number of officers and ratings in the countries of the Black Sea Region
(according to BIMCO/ISF [3])

№ Country-Supplier of Crew Officers Ratings

1 Turkey 36734 51009

2 Ukraine 27172 11000

3 Russia 25000 40000

4 Romania 18575 5768

5 Bulgaria 10890 22379

6 ... ... ...

Total in the world 624062 692542

It should be noted that although Turkish seafarers occupy the leading position in the
region, more than a half of their officers have licenses with restrictions in areas of
navigation, tonnage or power plants capacity [5, 6]. According to the quantity of the
seafaring officers, Ukraine is the 4th in the world (6.2 % of total number).

The European ship-owners and managers facing the ratio “cost-quality” tend to prefer
the seafarers from Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.).

It is sometimes believed that seafarers from most Black Sea countries are most willingly
employed by international companies as they are ready to work for small payment as
low-cost workforce. However, it does not appear to be proved. For example, the table
below shows the average pay rates of a tanker master in 2010 for different countries
(see Table 2).

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Table 2. Average Pay Rates in 2010 on the International Labour Market

at the Tanker Fleet for Masters from different countries in US Dollars
(according to Drewry Publishing information [4])

Country-Supplier of Crew Pay Rates

India 13500

China 10500

Croatia 15750

Philippines 11250

Ukraine 13750

Romania 14700

Russia 13550

The figures show that Romania is the leader as for salaries following only Croatia with
Ukraine and Russia being third and fourth. This can serve as an evident proof that
seafarers from the Black Sea Region are employed not because of low salaries, but due
to high professionalism of theirs.

Following the adoption of the Bologna Declaration, Admiral Ushakov Maritime State
University started using a graded system of seafarer education. The graded system
involves navigational practice lasting 6-12 months. The above mentioned system has
the following features: it meets the requirements of STCW Convention, combines
theory and practice (working knowledge) and successfully prepares students for work
on board.

2. CROSS CULTURAL DIFFERENCES ON BOARD AND WAYS TO SMOOTH

THEM OVER

Quality shipping relies heavily on well-educated and trained seafarers. The STCW
Convention (Standards of Training, Certification and Watch-keeping for Seafarers) is
the benchmark against which countries (both EU and non-EU) providing EU flagged
vessels with seafarers are measured. This international convention provides a minimum
standard for maritime education and training (MET) and certification systems. The
emergence of cross-cultural communication, business etiquette and of English as a
genuine world language achieved especial prominence during the 1990s. To gain
optimum working synergism on board, it is necessary to realize the differences in
values, beliefs as well as the practical issues such as language, religion and diet.

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Each voyage has immediate linguistic consequences. A language has to be interpreted,

learned, imposed, and over time a cross-cultural trend can develop into a major
influence. Recent studies in the area have displayed a contemporary movement towards
global English use [8], therefore, we would expect it to be particularly noticeable in this
domain. For seafarers, whose international travel brings them into the world of cross-
cultural voyage, business meetings, international conventions, professional occupations
and other ‘official ‘ gatherings, the domains of transportation and language are of vital
importance. Safety instructions on international sailings, information about emergency
procedures, and directions to major locations are now routinely in English. Most notices
which tell us to find life-boat stations or check the location of the emergency stairs give
us an option in English.

A special aspect of safety is the way that the language has come to be used as a means
of controlling international transport operations, especially on water. English has
emerged as the international language of the sea, in the form of Essential English for
International Maritime Use, often referred to as ‘Seaspeak’. Progress has also been
made in recent years in devising systems of communication between organizations
which are involved in handling emergencies on the ground-notably, the coast guards,
the fire service, the ambulance service and the police.

The foundation of any strategy has to be an awareness of the real differences in various
cultures. Every officer should answer the following questions at the very beginning of
the voyage:

- what is the degree of difference between the cultural norms within the crew?
- what is the relative status of the different cultures within the crew?
- what impact can officers and shipmasters have on the effective working of the crew,
based on an understanding of their own cultural norms as well as those of the different
groups on the vessel ?

In case critical moments or incidents occur, feelings of discomfort can arise as seamen
face the realities of confronting issues of diversity. Therefore, sensitivities and
understanding on the part of the officers can turn these into breakthroughs.

Differences need to be understood, acknowledged and respected by all members of a

crew, before any effective work relationships can be built.

Training in cross-cultural awareness is common in many multinational companies and

national companies, Novoship, for example. Such trainings play a valuable role not only
in building better teams, but also in creating more enriching working experience, and
boosting morale as well as motivation.

It should be stressed that multicultural teams are a new reality. They need active
cultivating in terms of understanding and handling the cultural differences to maximize
the potential of everyone and create an even more enriching and effective working
environment.

The main issues which are to be addressed and which can turn into real problems on
board ship are as follows:

a) Hierarchy and Status

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In Eastern cultures and as it has already been mentioned in this article many seafarers
are from such countries as the Philippines, India, Pakistan, China and etc., one is not
expected to question authority. A particular challenge in this respect is that of the “yes”
culture, whereby people will always say “yes” when the real answer may be a “no”, or
the question or instruction is not understood.

There can occur serious equipment damage or delay in cargo operations due to such
difference in cultures. European seafarers usually try to clarify things for themselves if
they do not understand the instructions of senior officers while Asian seamen do not.

b) Face Saving

Face saving means being sensitive to preserving personal status and dignity. Being
criticized or belittled in public can be considered as shameful in many Eastern cultures.
In Russian maritime universities and academies, including Admiral Ushakov State
University both deck and engine cadets live on campus in dormitories. During the
whole five years period of their studies, every morning before classes they have
morning formation on the parade ground where their commanders-tutors praise them for
their success in studies or reprimand for poor studies or bad behavior. In the Russian
culture it is considered that it is good to have both positive and negative examples.
When our students graduate from the University and become senior officers, some of
them try to criticize and reprimand seafarers of other cultures in public considering that
it is good for everybody. As a result, at the next port of calling the seafarer who
considers that the Russian officer offended him complains to the inspectors or trade
union representative about the behavior of the officer. This is a situation of a real
conflict and sometimes it is very difficult to solve it.

b) Implied Context
The implied context is important for non-western cultures in their thinking and
communications. Europeans tend to be focused in a linear way, and therefore,
frustrations can result.
c) Diet
Cultural distinctions are observed in every aspect of everyday life on board including
food preferences, for instance, Muslim seafarers do not eat pork and do not drink
alcohols while Hindus are pure vegetarians. All crew members should be aware of such
customs.
d) Religion
Muslim seafarers require praying five times a day as well as fasting in the month of
Ramadan
e) Language proficiency
The English language in maritime shipping clearly impacts matters of safety, effective
communications and following or giving instructions and the potential for enriching
experience.

Being a seafarer implies the need for constant improvement and knowledge verification
due to rapid development of equipment, risks affecting the safety of crew, cargo and
ship. Seafarers are submitted to permanent knowledge and skill verification on the
international labour market. Consequently, seafaring requires continuous education
provided by some certified training centers offering upgrading, refreshing and
specialized courses.

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3. MARITIME INSTITUTIONS INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN THE

SOLUTIONS TO CROSS CULTURAL DIVERSITIES

Recently there has been observed a tendency of the Black Sea countries to consider the
necessity of cooperating with each other in order to make efficient efforts to solve
current regional problems.

The six Black Sea countries sharing 20 % of the currently existing seafaring officers of
the world and having a logical reason for founding a common platform of collaboration
has taken innovative initiative in the sectors of capacity building of qualified maritime
human resources of the 21st century.

Thus, maritime universities from six countries – Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy
(Bulgaria), Batumi State Maritime Academy (Georgia), Constanta Maritime University
(Romania), Admiral Ushakov State Maritime University (Russia), Maritime Faculty of
Istanbul Technical University (Turkey) and Odessa National Maritime Academy
(Ukraine) founded the Black Sea Association of Maritime Institutions (BSAMI) on the
2nd of April, 2010 at Maritime Faculty of Istanbul Technical University.

BSAMI considered supporting the exchange of information and experiences with regard
to the modernization of the educational systems in the BSEC Member States aimed at
increasing sustainable growth and the establishment of knowledge based societies.

The issue of cross-cultural communication in a mixed crew is urgent not only for our
University but for the majority of higher institutions training cadets for work at sea. It is
one of the most urgent problems at sea. It is realized by all maritime international
teaching community. We have very impressive practical results of our research. Thanks
to the close cooperation with the Maritime Faculty of Istanbul Technical University
(Turkey) and a joint project on cross cultural training with the exchange students and
visiting professors who deliver lectures and seminars on work in a mixed crew, we have
generally managed to eliminate nearly all the divergences and cultural misunderstanding
which existed among Russian and Turkish students in our Universities, in spite of the
very complicated and unfavorable political situation between the two countries.

The objectives of BSAMI are to meet the liabilities as a team to further promote
ourselves as the major global center of the highest quality maritime human resources
through knowledge, innovation and implementation towards the future.

Currently, the Black Sea Association of Maritime Institutions is in the process of

establishing partnership with the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization
(BSEC), which came into existence as a model of multilateral political and economic
initiative aimed at fostering interaction and harmony among the Member States, as well
as to ensure peace, stability and prosperity encouraging friendly and good-neighbourly
relations in the Black Sea Region.

CONCLUSIONS

The study has revealed that the Black Sea countries, and Admiral Ushakov Maritime
State University in particular, have a potential for further increasing of the amount of
maritime professional's training, paying special attention to cultural training, and good

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prospects for successful competition on the world labour market under the conditions of
increasing demand for qualified maritime professionals in global maritime shipping.
The existing issues of the mixed crew require special attention. They can be divided into
two categories, such as core issues, typical of all cultures and nationalities including
religion, diet and language aspects, which should draw the attention of all shipping,
manning and crewing companies and soft issues requiring specific understanding and
treatment on the part of the officers on board. Shipping companies’ cultures tend to
reflect their “home” countries. However, special cross-cultural training will enable
future officers of merchant marine, sensitive to the complexity of international cultures,
to increase the necessary flexibility without trying to impose excessive company
“culturalisation” and bring out innovative potential of a multicultural crew.

REFERENCES

1. Review of Maritime Transport 2012 / Report by the UNCTAD secretariat. – New

York and Geneva: UN, 2012. – 179 p.

2. Review of Maritime Transport 2010 / Report by the UNCTAD secretariat. – New

York and Geneva: UN, 2010. – 194 p.

3. Manpower 2010 Update: The world demand for and supply of seafarers//
BIMCO/ISF. – 2010. – 117 p.

4. Manning – 2010/11: Annual Report // Drewry Publishing. – London, 5 November

2010.–56 p.

5. Sag O. Turkish Maritime Education and Solution Recommendations// Denizden.- No.

3, 2010. – P. 84-110.

6. Sag O. The Impact of the Black Sea Maritime Cluster on the Global Shipping
Industry// 14-th European Manning & Training Conference: Black Sea Crewing. –
Istanbul, May 12-13, 2011. – 37 p.

7.http://www.imo.org/OurWork/HumanElement/trainingcertification/documents/rptpart
yaddresses.pdf - National authorities maintaining registers of certificates and
endorsements.

8. David Crystal. The Language Revolution. Polity Press. Cambridge, UK 2004.

9. Laxmi Chaudhry. Cultural Understanding Is Key To New Crewing Challenges. Lloyd

List. Dec . 08, 2005
10. V.F. Tenischeva, L.B. Fishkova. The Basics Of Business Etiquette: Linguistic and
Psychological Training in English . Novorossiysk. Admiral Ushakov University Press;
2007

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METHODS OF DEVELOPING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN

MARITIME ENGLISH TEACHING

Alexey Ivanovich Kondratiev, Professor, Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University,

Novorossiysk, Russia.
Igor Olegovich Smirnov, Professor, Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University,
Novorossiysk, Russia.
Bozhena Borisovna Dokuto, Associate Professor, Novorossyisk Branch of Pyatigorsk
State Linguistic University, Russia.

Abstract
Intercultural communication which is realized, first of all, at the linguistic level is an
inseparable part of seafarers’ and off-shore workers’ professional activities. The
objective of the present study consists in developing methods of forming and improving
cadets’ intercultural competence within the compulsory course of professional English
taught at Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University.
The study has attempted to incorporate the intercultural approach to the traditional
course of the English language for seafarers, and work out original methods of the
language intercultural competence development on the basis of analyzing and modeling
true-to-life on-board situations of intercultural interaction.
Key words: Intercultural communication, intercultural competence, intercultural
awareness.

INTRODUCTION
The topicality of the paper is conditioned by the fact that a successful ability to
communicate with representatives of foreign cultures, avoid and resolve conflicts
caused by ethnic or cultural differences maintains safety and security on board,
prevention of the sea pollution, fulfilling IMO Conventions, international and national
law.
Tolerant relationship among members of international crews and a tolerant attitude to
foreign cultures should be realized through studying one’s own and other cultures on the
basis of professional cooperation by linguistic means. Intercultural communication can
be taught through building cadets’ discursive activities and behavioral patterns. The
study has offered an original teaching technology including three methods of cadets’
intercultural competence forming on which the corresponding language skills are based.
The study has enabled us to select the language and speech material for topics having
taken into account the criteria of authenticity.

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1. CONCEPT OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN LANGUAGE

TEACHING
The concept "competence" is defined as an intellectually and individually caused ability
of the person to fulfill practical activities [1] or as a substantial component of this ability
in the form of knowledge, techniques, skills and possession experience [2].

The notion of intercultural competence should be regarded in connection with the issue
of the human factor, which, according to IMO recent studies, plays one of the leading
roles in providing safety, security in the marine environment protection as well as in the
industry development [3]. Defining a human factor as a physical
or cognitive property of an individual or social behavior, which is specific to humans,
everybody admits that it influences functioning of technological systems within a
particular industry [3]. Thus, being an integral constituent of the human element
intercultural competence also promotes improved operational performance on the basis
of effective cross-cultural communication, and cultural awareness. It forms an ability to
avoid or resolve conflicts, to work in a team, which limits the chance of human error.

The intercultural competence is an important component of modern training program of

the future seaman. It is caused by the presence of an intercultural aspect in the
professional work of the sea area expert involving the interaction of different cultures
representatives and performing communicative functions.

Forming cadets’ intercultural competence is necessary for the achievement of the

consent within the limits of professional interaction, for resolving conflicts as the
competence in question implies an ability to make a compromise and overcome
communicative barriers. The importance of forming cadets’ intercultural competence in
the process of learning foreign languages is caused by the prospect of their work in a
mixed crew, and the integration of Russia into the global economic space. A seaman
should possess an ability to co-exist with representatives of other cultures in the
common area on board a vessel, i.e. to be able and ready to build a constructive
dialogue with all subjects of the space called a mixed crew.

The intercultural competence promotes achievement of mutual understanding in the

course of intercultural communication. Nevertheless, there is still no unified approach to
the definition of the intercultural competence.

While defining the concept of the intercultural competence, a number of foreign

researchers single out some behavioral qualities of a person which make up the
competence while communicating with representatives of other cultures [4].
However, such approach to the definition of intercultural competence does not consider
a variety of cultural situations in which a seaman can find themselves while dealing
with representatives of other cultures. Besides, no cultural elements, knowledge of
language or cultural facts are included in this definition. In our opinion, no formation of
the intercultural competence may be provided unless a person has a set of behavioral
qualities, including a cognitive component.

Most foreign scholars have proposed to define the intercultural competence as an ability
to reach equally successful understanding of both representatives of other cultures and
representatives of their own culture. They distinguish three components of this ability:

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knowledge of models and communicative actions and their interpretation both in one’s
own culture, and in a foreign culture, and also in a language; general knowledge of
relations between culture and communication, including distinctive features of national
mentality; a set of strategies for interaction stabilization, i.e. for solving problems
arising during communication [5] .

A number of Russian scholars define intercultural competence as knowledge of vital

habits, customs, traditions, social standards which build up group and individual norms;
individual motivations, forms of behavior, non-verbal components (gestures, mimicry),
national-cultural traditions, system of values [6]. From this point of view, one of the
components of intercultural training is teaching tolerance to a variety of other cultures
and readiness to question your own norms [7].

The fullest model of intercultural competence covers different qualities, abilities and
skills of a person. According to this model, the intercultural competence consists of five
components: relations, knowledge, abilities to interpret and correlate, abilities to
discover and interact, critical comprehension of culture [6].
The base for building relations between representatives of various cultures with high
level of the intercultural competence should be the readiness to refuse prejudice against
other cultures.

Russian instructors of intercultural communication define intercultural competence as a

person’s ability of self-realization within the frame of the cross-cultural dialogue, which
consists of three components:
-pragmatic (practical skills of a foreign language);
-cognitive (awareness of your own and foreign cultures);
-affective (empathy and tolerance) [3, 6, 8, 9].

The presented definitions and models of the intercultural competence enable us to

conclude the following: the intercultural competence is a complicated entity that
contains the following components: features of thinking, relations, knowledge, and
abilities, all of which belong both to native and foreign cultures.

Having analyzed the above-mentioned approaches the present study have concluded that
intercultural competence, on the one hand, is a complex comprising awareness of your
own and foreign cultures, skills to interpret cultural phenomena as well as individual
emotional and psychological features. On the other hand, it contains a communicative
element including linguistic, strategic, pragmatic and social skills.

2. THE TRIAD OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE DEVELOPING

METHODS IN TRAINING SEAMEN IN THE COURSE OF MARITIME
ENGLISH

The analysis of the compulsory professional English language course and Basics of
Business Etiquette course taught at Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University
conducted in the present study has shown that they span most components of
intercultural competence in the form of knowledge and skills. We suggest applying a
triad of methods that, in our opinion, work best in forming intercultural competence of

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future ship officers. The triad consists of three methods: SWOT analysis, a professional
cross-cultural mini-project and a method of training. This triad has proved quite
effective in Maritime English teaching at Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University
and can work quite efficiently in instructing cadets on work in mixed crews.

Thus, the initial stage of intercultural competence development involves SWOT

analysis. SWOT analysis (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) is a structured
planning method used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
involved in a project or in a business venture. In terms of intercultural competence it can
be applied to studying the topic of Eastern and Western Cultures. Cadets investigate
cultural similarities and differences of Eastern and Western Cultures with the purpose to
predict possible soft and hard issues that enable them to work out future opportunities
and deal with potential problems in particular situations of professional communication
in a mixed crew. The analysis covers the following subtopics: history, geography,
economics, industrial and natural resources, art and cultural heritage, shipping industry.

At the second stage of the intercultural competence forming process cadets prepare a
professional mini project. The method of mini project may also be used to form cadets’
intercultural competence within the scope of Maritime English course. It enables
trainees to project their pragmatic, linguistic sociological and psychological strategies in
the context of solving concrete professional problems on the basis of their own and
foreign cultures awareness and skills of cultural distinctions interpretation as well as
their communication partners’ emotional and psychological features interpretation
formed within the course of training.

The mini project is aimed at accomplishing practical tasks, related to the professional
work of a seaman and reflects a great variety of topics in different communicative
situations such as pilotage, mooring, cargo operations, emergency drills, shifting,
bunkering, oil spill response drills, etc.
Projecting the above-stated communicative situations of professional activities involves
the description of the following basic steps:
Step1 consists in analyzing scientific literature on a mini project topic, revealing
possible sources of cultural discrepancies.
Step II includes selecting basic lexical units of Maritime English including the
corresponding terminology.
Step II1 implies the systematization of grammatical structures of the English
language potentially involved in modeling texts related to the project topic.
Step IV means developing communicative formulas applicable in situations
corresponding to the mini project topic.
Step V assumes the generalization of the strategies which can be applied by
seamen while performing professional duties in the context of the mini project topic.

The application of the mini project in the English language course has proved
that this method provides cadets with the following skills:
1) to conduct an intercultural professionally focused dialogue at a high level of foreign
language competence;
2) to cooperate with representatives of foreign cultures taking into account their national
values, norms and conceptions;
3) to create a positive spirit in a professionally focused dialogue in English;

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4) to choose communicatively appropriate ways of verbal and non-verbal behavior

based on knowledge of culture of other crewmembers;
5) to keep national self-identification amid international integration and mobility

The third stage in the triad involves a method of language psychological training [8,
10]. Training prepares seamen to be ready to diagnose and analyze concrete situations
of intercultural dialogue and to generate all available knowledge and skills of verbal and
non-verbal dialogue in English to overcome conflict situations and effectively interact
on board and ashore. The experimental study has demonstrated that Basics of Business
Etiquette course taught at Admiral Ushakov Maritime State University provides
students with communicative strategies in the frame of typical on board and ashore
situations.

Such training is classified as a cultural-specific training which intentionally prepares a

person to communicate within this or that concrete culture. It is a cognitive training as it
gives the information on another culture [10]. On the other hand, it can be characterized
as a behavioral one as it instructs on practical skills of interaction in a mixed crew [].
Besides, it is of an attributive character as it explains how representatives of different
ethnics groups and cultures interpret behavior and results of performance from the point
of view of other cultures [8]. Training should result in the formation of experience of
tolerance and consideration of other cultures values. Each section in the English
language course provides cadets with information, regards communicative strategy in a
concrete situation of professional interaction, equips them with bilingual speech
formulas, which serve the concrete situation and suggests applying this knowledge and
skills in practice. The last task is called animation, a kind of a role-play, for example:

Your goal is to negotiate on putting vessel "Star" for repair in port Mumbai so that your
proposals are accepted. Use the offered speech stimulus, taking into account the
national-cultural features of the country.

Practical experience in carrying out personal and psychological trainings in English

with cadets enables us to mark out this training as one of the most effective methods of
preparation ship officers to perform their duties successfully on board and ashore, as it:
·combines informational and practical aspects;
· develops an ability to build an effective model of mutual relations with partners –
representatives of different cultures in communication, to prevent and structurally
resolve conflicts in a mixed crew;

· promotes formation of an openness and readiness to accept intercultural distinctions;

· develops tolerance to representatives of different cultures;

· allows to fix skills of intercultural communications within English course with no

natural foreign environment around.

RESULTS

As it was mentioned above, the triad of methods under consideration has been tested in
the course of experimental teaching. The latter included three phases: a diagnostic check
of cadets’ intercultural awareness, experimental integrating of SWOT analysis,

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professional mini project and language psychological training in the maritime English
language course and final check of cadets’ intercultural competence at the end of the
course.
At the initial stage, cadets were to fulfill professional problem – solution tasks which
were presented in the form of professionally conditioned scenarios typical of a mixed
crew. The tasks contained intercultural competence elements and, therefore, required
the use of intercultural awareness and skills. The analysis of the diagnostic test showed
that cadets lacked both knowledge of cross-cultural specificity and an ability to react to
such communicative challenges.
The second stage consisted in building the triad of the intercultural competence forming
methods under discussion in the maritime English language course.
At the final stage, cadets were given a series of real-professional life situations in which
they were to process information implying cultural distinctions and make decisions
leading to a successful communicative outcome. The situations were identical to the
situations of the initial check. The comparison with the results of the initial check has
displayed cadets’ acquired skills to size up and pattern their behavior in a varied socio-
cultural environment. Thus, the results of the final check have allowed us to note cadets’
improved intercultural awareness as one can see in fig. 1. The diagram presents a
significantly enlarged area of cadets’ intercultural competence after training with the
application of the methods triad under discussion.

Figure 1- The diagnostic and final checks results compared

scenario 1
100%
80%
scenario 7 scenario 2
60%
40%
20%
0%

scenario 6 scenario 3

scenario 5 scenario 4

diagnostic check final check

Summing up it is necessary to emphasize the results of the final check serve as an

evidence that the triad of methods tested in the course of the conducted experiment have
proved to be an effective tool of forming future officers’ intercultural competence. They
have demonstrated their acquired abilities to comprehend foreign cultures’ phenomena,
to apply to their own cultural background, to recognize, analyze and interpret elements
of foreign cultures in the verbal and non-verbal context.

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Basing on the results of the experiment we can claim the efficiency of the suggested
triad of methods have been proved. So we hope the choice of strategies as well as
sequence of stages can be of interest to all scholars involved in the process of training or
retraining sailors in the framework of cross-cultural context, which contributes to
targeting the industry’s problems related to the field of the human element.

CONCLUSION

By way of conclusion it is necessary to highlight that verbal and non-verbal

communication in a mixed crew aimed at dealing with situations of professional
interaction on board and ashore implies intercultural competence realization. Since
intercultural competence is an integral part of human element it promotes the task of
maintaining safety, security and marine environmental protection in the industry. It
should be regarded with the view of the development of cadets’ ability to communicate
in English taking into consideration differences in national cultures and mentality
relying on the principles of mutual respect, tolerance and readiness to overcome
national barriers.
Intercultural competence in the course of maritime English can be formed with cadets
by means of a special teaching technology involving a triad of methods in the following
sequence: SWOT analysis of different cultures, professional mini-project and language-
psychological training.
The first two methods provide cadets with awareness of different types of cultures,
types of communication, its functions, and ways of resolving conflicts, international
cooperation and prospects of the shipping industry.
The method of language-psychological training enables cadets to foster skills of
intercultural cooperation in simulated situations of professional communication.
The results of the study can be applied in developing textbooks and teaching materials
not only for seafarers, but also for off-shore workers, who form multinational and
multilingual community uniting representatives of various cultures for whom English is
the main means of communication.
All the methods described in the present study are implemented in Admiral Ushakov
Maritime State University and meets the requirements of the Model Courses of STCW
Convention as amended.
It is hoped that the results of the study can have a certain value for research into the
human factor in the shipping industry and promote to safety, security and environment
protection elements both on board and ashore.

REFERENCES

1.Bardilovskaya S,A., Intercultural Competence Building/ Bardilovskaya S,A.,

Pakhirko V.V.//Management in Social and Economic Systems: XXIII International
Scientific-Practical Conference, Minsk, 15 May 2014 – Minsk, 2014. – pp.195-196
2. Sinitsina, U.A. Intercultural Communicative Competence: Requirements for Level of
Possession and Some Ways of its Formation//Foreign Languages at school; 2002.

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3.Tenischeva V.F., Fishkova L.B. Basics of Business Etiquette. Linguistic and

Psychological trainings in English. Novorossyisk. Admiral Ushakov University Press;
2007.
4. Wiseman, R.L. (2001). Intercultural communication competence. Retrieved
December 11, 2001 from http://commfaculty.cullerton.edu/rwiseman/ICCCpaper.htm
5. Alvino E. Fantini. A Central Concern: Developing Intercultural Competence. www.adam-
europe.eu/prj/.../develop-I-com.pdf
6. Kurkina A,U. Methods of intercultural competence developing in teaching foreign
cultures’ modern press discourse. Moscow: Moscow State Linguistic University; 2015.
7. Fayvisovich A., Makashina I., Truschenko I. Joint Educational Programs within the
Frame of BSAMI: conditions, problems, prospects// Science and Technology for
Sustainable Maritime Development:International Scientific Conference, Varna, 13-14
May 2015- Varna, 2015.- 37-40
8. Malkhanova I.A. Communicative Training. Moscow. Akademichesky Project; 2006.
9. Dokuto B.B., Dubovsky U.A., Pereyashkina L.N. Basics of Effective
Communication. Pyatigorsk. Pyatigorsk University Press; 2013.
10. Pugachov V.P. Tests, Role plays, Trainings in Personnel Management. Moscow.
Aspekt Press; 2001.
11. Ter-Minasova S. G. Language and Intercultural Communication. Moscow. Slovo;
2000.

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WORKING CONDITIONS ON MARITIME TRANSPORT:

COMPARATIVE SURVEY BETWEEN GALICIAN PROFESSIONALS
AND SPANISH SHIPPING COMPANIES.
Dr. Julio Louro Rodríguez (I)
Dr. Rosa Mary De la Campa Portela (I) (II)
Professor Ramon Freire Piñeiro (I)
(I) Universidade da Coruña.
(II) Corresponding and presenter author. rosamary@udc.es . Paseo de Ronda 51. 15011
A Coruña

Abstract
The last report on the evolution of maritime workforce published by BIMCO in 2010
places the officers’ current deficit in almost 14000. This data shows a trustworthy and
growing problem of shortage of qualified personnel to work on board.
Nowadays the Spanish shipping companies are reporting an increasing difficulty to
recruit Spanish experienced seafarers in the last years.
There exists a series of determinant factors in the reduction of the number of persons
who follow the maritime career: the slightly attractive image of the merchant marine,
the complexity of the seafarer professional career, and the increasing hardness of life
on board.
The main objective of the present paper is to compare the professionals’ opinions about
working and living conditions on board and those offered by shipping companies, and
desired seafarers’ qualifications. The aim is to know the degree of satisfaction of
professionals and shipping companies with several aspects of maritime profession.
With such a purpose a questionnaire on working and living conditions on board was
designed and distributed among graduates from the Higher Technical College of
Nautical Science and Marine Engineering from University of A Coruña and Spanish
shipping companies.
The results were compared and shown that there are important differences between the
professionals’ expectations and the real employment conditions. This could be the main
reason why many professionals decide to abandon their jobs at sea
Job instability, working hours distribution, workload, and work-life balance conditions
are problematic areas for professionals. The important difficulties to hire qualified
personnel to work on board are the shipping companies’ main concern.
Key words: seafarers shortfall, working and living conditions, labour market

1. INTRODUCTION
Approximately 90 % of worldwide transport of goods is done by sea and the world fleet
has experienced a growth near to 1 % per year in the last decade, increasing the labour
force demand in the sector. However the last report on worldwide maritime workload
evolution published by BIMCO and ISF1 places the officers’ current deficit in almost
14000. This data shows a trustworthy and growing problem of shortage of qualified
personnel to work on board.

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The shortage of trained seafarers has negative consequences for the safety of navigation,
and results in gradual lack of staff with the expertise and experience at the professional
level, qualified to perform shore activities related to the maritime domain, such as
inspection of ships, surveillance, management, rescue, and pilotage. In view of the
seriousness of this information the IMO secretary -general announced the launch of the
campaign “Go to sea!” in November 2008. In this campaign IMO, ILO, ICS/ISF,
BIMCO, INTERTANKO, INTERCARGO and ITF co-operated to attract new seafarers
to the profession and to keep the in-service seafarers in the Merchant Marine. The
campaign also was aimed to make known the nature and scope of the problem of world
seafarers shortage, as well as to coordinate the efforts to approach this concerning
matter 2,3.
Likewise, this problem concerns to the European Union in such a way that in 2006 the
European Commission agreed the Communication to the European Parliament, the
Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the
Regions Reassessing entitled “Regulatory social framework for more and better
seafaring jobs in the EU”. This Communication is related to the harmonization, amongst
member states, of a common policy towards sea work 4 (European Commission 2007)
and presents the several aspects to deal with the aim of improving attractiveness of sea
work.
Moreover, in January 2009 the European Commission adopted the Communication on
Maritime Transport Strategy, 2009-2018. The Commission highlights the need to
support EU world leadership in the maritime transport (it controls 41% of the world
fleet in DWT) and the shortage of European seafarers which implies "the risk of losing
the critical mass of human resources that sustains the competitiveness for the European
maritime industries in General" 5.
In addition, the European transport Worker's Federation (ETF) shows interest in the
difficulties experienced by shipping industry to provide EU nationals with job prospects
and the downward trend in the number of European seafarers. In this regard, the ETF
carried out during 2010 the project Enhancing recruitment and training in the shipping
industry in Europe. The was organized around three thematic workshops in the area of
seafarers training and recruitment: how to address skills-gaps and the deficit in the
number of European seafarers; enhancing the image of the sector and promoting quality
working and living conditions at sea; and how to ensure a better career path and long
term prospects in the maritime cluster 6.
Likewise, the European Community Shipowners Association carried out in 2010 a
survey with the support of the European Commission, whose results are published under
the title: ECSA workshop, Report On The Project On Enhancing Recruitment And
Training In The Maritime Sector In Europe. Such a study consisted of a questionnaire
prepared and sent to all ECSA members setting out a number of questions concerning
views on: the national manpower situation and recent trends, recruitment trends,
recruitment methods, maritime cluster job mobility, improved training techniques,
examples of good practice and EU co-operative recruitment and training initiatives7.
With regard to the Spanish on board workforce, there are not official, public and
accurate statistics of Spanish seagoing personnel, neither on foreigners employed on
Spanish flagged vessels, nor on how many Spanish seafarers work in non-Spanish
flagged ships. In any case the Spanish shipping companies are reporting an increasing
difficulty to recruit Spanish experienced seafarers in the last years, especially regarding

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graduates of engine room department, who disappear of the labour market, in many
cases, even before beginning a professional maritime career8.
Moreover and in spite of the fact that Nautical Studies have a great tradition in Spain
there exists a series of determinant factors in the reduction of the number of students
who follow maritime career. We can find among these factors the slightly attractive
image of the merchant marine that is offered by the mass media in general, the
complexity of the seafarer professional career, and the increasing hardness of life on
board9.
The shortage of seafarers in Spain is so problematic that Spanish Government has
declared some jobs on board (deck officer, engine room officer, chief engineer and
radio-communications engineer) as “jobs with very difficult filling”, allowing shipping
companies to employ foreigners to fill these vacancies10.
In the present article a comparative analysis between the on board living and working
conditions perceived by sea professionals and the working and living conditions offered
by shipping companies in Spain is carried out. The objective is to establish the gap
between the working and living conditions offered by Spanish shipping companies and
the working and living conditions desired by Spanish ship officers. This analysis shows
the degree of satisfaction and dissatisfaction of both ship officers and shipping
companies that could lead to abandon the professional career at sea and the loss of job
opportunities on board.

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to reach the objectives
previously proposed. The base of this study is the carry out of surveys to Spanish deck
and engine officers working on board Spanish flagged ships or ships managed by
Spanish shipping companies.
The steps followed for each of the proposed surveys were the next:
1. Determination of target population and sample size.
2. Questionnaire design.
3. Check and distribution of the survey.
4. Data analysis.
Once analysed the data of each sector in a separate way, a comparative analysis of the
results between both sectors was performed: ship officers and shipping companies. The
research steps for each sector are next detailed.
2.1 SURVEY AIMED TO SHIPPING COMPANIES.
A survey was designed and distributed to the Spanish shippers. The objectives of this
survey were to know the undoubtedly important role that shipping companies have on
working and living on board conditions, the problems they experience with regard to
recruitment of ship officers and the training needs that they notice in these workers.
1 Determination of target population and sample size. The target population are the
Spanish shipping companies affiliated with ANAVE, The Spanish shipowners
association. This Association has 37 full Members and 9 Associate Members

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representing almost the full Spanish shipping sector. Instead all member were invited to
participate, the final sample was shaped by 6 full members (16,2 %), 2 associate
members (22,2 %) and 2 companies that are not members of ANAVE. Due to the low
level of co-operation of shipping companies, the information available at this stage is
not sufficient to draw firm conclusions.
2. Survey design. The survey aimed at shipping companies was structured in four points:
Shipping company: information is needed with regard to the number and type of vessels
managed and the kind of navigation (coastal, high sea, etc.)
Human Resources management: the main aim of this point is to know if the company is
currently having difficulties to recruit personnel.
Recruitment Conditions: In this point the employees' contractual benefits offered by the
company were establish. Also data about the company policies, the company perception
on workers training needs, and the skills and qualifications needed for highest level
workers is required.
On board living conditions: This point establishes the company commitment with
several aspects related to living conditions on board.
This survey has 21 questions but the company could offer information for more than
one hundred items due to the existence of multiple questions. The 21- item
questionnaire used in this research is shown in detail in Annexe 1.
3. Survey checking and distribution. In view of the small number of shippers, all of
them were contacted by telephone in order to request their co-operation. The
corresponding survey was sent later through e-mail or postal mail. The obtained results
are detailed hereinafter.
2.2 SURVEY AIMED TO SHIP OFFICERS
The main objective of this survey was to know the current employment situation of
Spanish experienced deck and engine officers as well as their perception of working and
living conditions on board.
1. Determination of target population and sample size. The target population was the
graduates of the Higher Technical College of Nautical Science and Marine Engineering
of the University of A Coruña, which have completed their studies and obtained their
professional qualifications between 1990 and 2010. This population as formed by 951
individuals, 499 of them graduated on Nautical Sciences and 452 graduated on Marine
Engineering. The final sample consisted of 136 respondents. 52% of sample was of
marine engineering speciality and 48% of nautical sciences.
2. Survey design. Key issues of ETF project Enhancing recruitment and training in the
shipping industry in Europe, and data of Kahaveci11 study on port based welfare
services for seafarers were taken into account to design the questionnaire used in this
study. Such a questionnaire elicited information related to the next four categories:
Respondent identification: information on gender, age, speciality, current employment
situation and academic qualifications.

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Career knowledge and study motivations: this section is aimed to compare their
expectations as students and real job conditions.
Current employment Situation: unemployed or jobless, working on board, employed
ashore inside the maritime sector, employed ashore out of maritime sector, and retired
or unable to work. Each one of these five employment condition options lead to
different more detailed questions. Likewise there is series of 19 questions on on-board
working and living conditions to be covered by all participants with working at sea
experience.
Labour Market: the objective of this section is to know the respondents’ expectations in
the short and medium term with regard to their job prospects.
This survey has 51 questions but ship officers could offer information for more than one
hundred items due to the existence of multiple questions. The 51- item questionnaire
used in this research is shown in detail in Annexe 2
3. Survey checking and distribution. Data was collected through the web page www.laboramar.es
specifically designed to this survey. This web page allows the direct exporting of the information
both to Excel and SPSS format files for the later statistical treatment.

3. RESULTS
3.1. SHIPPING COMPANIES RESULTS
1. Identification. 100 % of companies are Spanish and manage a total of 189 ships
(including special services vessels). The sample includes almost all kinds of vessels:
Ferries, fast ferries, oil tankers, gas tankers, chemical tankers, container ships, Ro/Ro,
ships, general cargo ships, multipurpose ships, oceanographic vessels, bulkcarriers and
rescue ships. Car carriers are not represented in the sample. As for the type of
navigation the sample includes all kinds of navigation: coastal navigation, national and
international short sea shipping, high sea navigation, regular lines, tramp, etc.
2. Human resources management. 90 % of respondent companies manage directly their
seafarers. 66 % of these companies had experienced difficulties for recruiting qualified
personnel, and 83,5 % of them has difficulties for recruiting deck and engine officers,
as well as Captains and Chief Engineers. Only 16,5 % has difficulties to recruit engine
ratings, usually electricians. Also 16,5 % has difficulties to recruit deck ratings. 75 % of
the companies that are experiencing difficulties for recruiting qualified personnel stated
that these difficulties are related to the generational renewal, 50 % stated that these
difficulties are related to labour market wages and 25 % attributed these difficulties to
the lack of motivation, problems to find the wished profile and the students’ shortage in
the Maritime Education and Training Centres.
3. Recruitment conditions. In this point shipping companies were asked about
employees' contractual benefits, onboard/holiday ratio, company policies, crew training
and recruitment criteria.
Employees’ contractual benefits: 100% of respondent companies declared to offer
ongoing training for their employees. 90% of them offer paid holiday and is in charge of
health care contributions. 78% is in charge unemployment and pension contributions.
67% offer short-term promotion. 56% offer the possibility of embarking relatives and
job stability. 22% declared to offer employment possibilities of worker’s descendants.

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Onboard/holiday ratio. The on board/holiday average ratio in the Spanish shipping

companies is 4 months embarked/ 2 months leave. The most extreme cases are 22 % of
respondents with 1/1 ratio and 11 % of them with 5/2 ratio.
Company policies. 100 % of respondents stated to have clearly established policies on
Occupational Risks Prevention. 89% declared to have policies on recruitment
conditions, equal treatment and non-discrimination and ongoing training. 77,8 % of
them declared to have policies on job promotion and 66,7 % has clearly established
policies on work-life balance.
Ship officers’ nationality. (Captain, Chief Engineer, deck and engine officers). 100 % of
respondent companies declared to recruit Spanish ship officers in a general basis. Also
officers from Latin America (22,2 %), Centre - Europe (11,1 %) and Eastern Europe
(11,1 %) are recruited.
Linguistic, religious and cultural criteria. 55 % of respondent companies declared not to
follow any linguistic, religious or cultural criteria at the moment of recruiting their crew
members. The criterion followed by the rest of the respondents (45 %) is in all cases a
linguistic one.
Theoretical and practical education and training of Spanish officers (Captain, Chief Engineer,
Deck and Engine Officers): 89% of shipping companies stated that Spanish officers have a
sufficient and comprehensive theoretical education. The same percentage, 89 %, declared that
the practical education and training is also sufficient and comprehensive.
Education and training on specific topics. Figure 1 shows the satisfaction of respondent
companies with the level of education and training of Spanish officers (Captain, Chief
Engineer, Deck and Engine Officer) with regard to specific topics. The average
satisfaction is 84,4%. It is necessary to emphasize the percentages of dissatisfaction
with education and training on English language (33%) and human resources
management (22%).
Figure 1. Companies’ satisfaction with ship officers’ education and training

Leadership and Human Resources Management 22,2 66,7 11,1

Garbage management on board 77,8 22,2

Marine Pollution Prevention, Preparedness and… 11,1 66,7 22,2

Maritime Technical English 33,3 66,7

Occupational Risks Prevention 11,1 66,7 22,2

0% 50% 100%

Ineffective Poor Enough High

Need to increase the education and training of these crew members in some specific topics:
22,2 % of respondent companies stated that it is not necessary to increase the education and
training of these crew members. Whereas the 77,7 % declared that such increasing is
necessary. In addition to the topics described in the previous paragraph it were highlighted
the next ones: maritime law, Information Technology, cargo loading and stowage, hoisting
equipment and operation, external audits (MOU, Vetting, etc.), ISM and ISPS Codes.

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Captain’s most important skills to be employed at the company. All companies, 100 %,
considered that leadership and decision-making skills are the most important ones for
their ship’s Captains. 78% considered also very important to have an extensive
experience at sea, the so-called good seamanship. 56 % considered teamwork skills also
very valuable. 30 % of respondent companies stated that being a good communicator, to
have command skills and to have a good academic background are also important
abilities. To be good in bureaucracy, the capacity of self-criticism and be disciplined are
scarcely considered important abilities.
Chief engineer’s most important skills to be employed at the company: 89 % of
respondent companies considered to have an extensive experience: good seamanship as
the most important characteristic. 78 % considered also teamwork as a very valuable
skill. 67 % highlighted the decision-making ability. 56 % considered that leadership and
to have a good academic background are very important skills. 30% considered also
very valuable to be disciplined. To be good in bureaucracy, the capacity of self-criticism
and command skills are scarcely considered important abilities.
4. On board living conditions. Figure 2 shows the degree of agreement with several
statements regarding on board living conditions.
Figure 2. Statements regarding on board living conditions

SC carries out improvements in the ship

11,1 89
accomodation frequently

SC provides on board leisure areas 11,1 66,6 22,2

SC provides monthly allowance to on board

11,1 22,2 44,4 22,2
leisure
SC provides crew with several communication
22,2 55,5 22,2
means

SC has up-to-date technology on board 66,6 33,3

SC monitors working and rest hours 11,1 55,5 33,3

SC monitors adaptation and update of

55,5 44,4
certificates
SC monitors crew qualification and
22,2 77,8
certification

SC monitors on board diet 77,8 22,2

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%100%

Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree

3.2. SHIP OFFICERS RESULTS

1. Respondent Identification. The sample consists of 136 respondents. 52% of sample
are of marine engineering speciality and 48% of nautical sciences. 77% of respondents
are male and 23% female. The mean age of sample is 34,93. As for the current
employment situation, 28 respondents were unemployed (21%), 30 (22%) were working
on board, 41 (30%) were working ashore in maritime sector and 28 (21%) were working
ashore out of maritime sector. 1 % is retired / unable to work.

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The sample used in the present study is formed only by those respondents that are
currently working on board (30 respondents accounting for 22 % of the sample
population) and those respondents that worked previously on board (48 respondents).
This sector of sample population has 78 respondents (57%). The identification data of
these respondents is as follow:
Position on board: Captain: 10 %, Chief Engineer: 4 %, Chief Officer: 26 %, Second
Officer: 34 %, Third Officer: 4 %, Cadet: 17 %.
Kind of navigation: 35 % of respondents were engaged in international coastal
navigation, 33 % in national coasting trade and 26 % in high seas navigation.
Type of ship: the sample includes almost all kinds of vessels.
Flag: 74,3 % of respondents were working on board Spanish flagged ships
Number of years of experience on board: 59 % had less than 5 years on board
experience and 41 % had more than 5 years of experience.
Employment Situation: 53 % of respondents had a temporary contract, and 38 % had
indefinite or permanent contracts. 9 % of workers did not answer this question.
2. Employment conditions.
Wage: 49 % of respondents stated their wages were nor low neither high, 23% high, 14
% low and 5 % very low. None of respondents considered his wage very high. 9 %
workers did not answer this question.
Net monthly wage: 13 % <1500 €; 48 % 1500-3000 €; 21 % 3000-4000 €; 6 %> 4000 €.
12 % did not answer.
Onboard/holiday ratio: In Spain, the standard on board/holiday ratio is 4/2. 18 % of
respondents had this standard ratio. 26,9 % of respondents had a 1/1 ratio, that could be
considered the best one.
Employees’ contractual benefits: Figure 3 shows the contractual benefits offered by the
companies.
Figure 3. Contractual benefits offered by companies

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Ship conditions: Figure 4 shows the opinion of respondents with regard to several ship
conditions: hull and machinery condition, technological equipment, ergonomics,
occupational safety policies, work organization, work and rest hours’ distribution and
ship route.
Workload: being 0 a little workload and 10 too much workload, 25 participants (32%)
said they had a mean workload (scoring 5) while 37 (48%) said their workload was high
or very high (scoring 8 to 10). Only 1% of respondents said their workload was low
(below 5).
Continued hours for sleeping: the importance of this item resides in sleeping is essential
for physical and mental health. 41 (52%) participants had less than 8 continued hours
for sleeping; this shows that most seafarers have no enough rest time. Average
continued sleeping hours is 7.60.
Stress frequency: being 0 never stressed and 10 always stressed, 59(76%) declared a
mean-high stress frequency (scoring 5 to 8).
Social and personal life on board: Figure 5 shows the opinion of respondents with
regard to several items of social and personal life on board: communication with
relatives, internet availability, cabins and personal hygiene facilities, leisure places,
number of crew members from a social point of view, turnaround and social
environment.
Figure 4. Ship officers’ opinion with regard to ship conditions

Figure 5. Ship officers opinion on personal and social life on board

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Job satisfaction: Table 1 shows the participants’ level of satisfaction with regard to
labour conditions offered by the company, ship conditions, workload, personal and
social life conditions, crew conditions, and the on board working life. Being 0
absolutely nothing satisfied and 10 completely satisfied, the Table shows maximum and
minimum values, mean and standard deviation.
Table 1: Job satisfaction values

Minimum Maximum Mean Standard

value Value Deviation

Satisfaction with the labour conditions offered 0 10 5.56 4.74

by the company

Satisfaction with the ship condition 0 10 5.94 4.69

Satisfaction with workload 0 10 5.22 4.41

Satisfaction with social and personal life 0 9 5.55 4.89

condition

Satisfaction with crew conditions 1 10 5.52 5.53

Satisfaction with on board working life 2 10 5.24 5.72

4. DISCUSION
The results obtained on experience and opinions of ship officers and needs of shipping
companies could be compared in two ways: working and living conditions offered by
shipping companies can be compared with working and living conditions experienced
by ship officers, and also working and living conditions offered by shipping companies
can be compared with ship officers most valued working and living conditions.
In view of the low number of answers obtained on the part of the Spanish shipping
companies and the low number of respondent ship officers, the first proposed data
comparison has to be approached bearing in mind that 30% of respondent ship officers
had on board experience in foreign companies. The parameters that we can compare in
this section are the employees’ contractual benefits offered by the companies, the
onboard/holiday rate and the education and training needs.
Figure 6 shows the data comparative study between the employees’ contractual benefits
offered by the Spanish shipping companies and those that workers are actually enjoying.
Minor discrepancies with regard to paid holidays, contribution for medical assistance
and the short-term promotion can be observed. However major differences with regard
to ongoing training and educational scholarship for workers’ children are shown.
Employees’ contractual benefits that ship officers considered to be more important
were: a competitive wage, paid holidays, job stability, 1/1 onboard/holiday rate and
contribution for medical assistance. With regard to wage it is necessary to highlight that
only 23 % of ship officers stated that their wage was high.
The most profitable onboard/holiday rate from ship officers point of view was 1/1, but it
was not the most usual offered rate by the companies (offered only by 22% of shipping
companies).

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As for the education and training needs both shipping companies and ship officers agree
with the need for a most exhaustive training in maritime technical English. Human
Resources Management, pollution prevention and occupational risks prevention are
topics considered as problematic by the company. To a lesser extent these areas need
also reinforcement from the point of view of ship officers. Ship officers give major
importance to maritime law and new information and communication technologies.
Figure 6. Comparative data on contractual benefits

Employment Possibilities of Workers' 22,5

Descendants 19,23

Educational Scholarship for Workers' 0

Children 10,26

Short- term Promotion 66,6

55,13

Job Stability 55,5

51,28

Posibility of Embarking relatives 55,5

52,56

Posibility of Continuous Training 100

46,15

Contribution for Retirement 77,8

76,92

Contribution for Unemployment 77,8

71,79

Contribution for Medical Assistance 89

79,49

Paid Holidays 89
75,64

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Shipping Companies Ship Officers

5. CONCLUSIONS
Though later studies will allow to establish more strong conclusions (a similar study
with a six times bigger sample is being carried out), it is possible to establish clear
trends with regard to satisfaction degree of ship officers with working and living
conditions on board offered by the Spanish shipping companies.
Among the positive trends it is interesting to highlight a clear general satisfaction with
working and living conditions on board. This point is confirmed by the data on
employees’ contractual benefits satisfaction, the information on social and personal life
conditions, and satisfaction with crew conditions.
However, among the negative trends it is necessary to emphasizes the lack of job
instability, the working hours distribution and the workload, the on board social

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conditions with regard to work-life balance (on board/holiday rate, Internet availability
and turnaround) and the stress increasing. With regard to shipping companies an
important difficulty for recruiting qualified personnel, especially, Navigation and
Engine senior officers is notified.
It is stated a clear trend to consider that the difficulties for recruiting qualified personnel
are close related to the lack of generational renewal. Labour marked wages, lack of job
stability and the limited opportunities of embarking relatives are emphasized as
variables that might influence the generational renewal, but they are weak points that
should be improved. Moreover the lack of clearly established company policies on
work-life balance, the lack of on board facilities in order that seafarers could
communicate with their relatives and friends (telephone, fax, Internet, etc.) and the lack
of professional career path, especially for engine room senior officers, which use to
have better job opportunities ashore, are considered weak points.
Furthermore and with regard to the general satisfaction degree of shipping companies
with ship officers, it is highlighted that a high percentage of respondent companies
stated that Spanish ship officers have an appropriate and comprehensive education and
training to work efficiently at their vessels. However there are established topics that
should be improved in ship officers’ education and training.
It seems clear the unanimity in the opinions about the main desirable skills of Captains
and Chief Engineers. In general, the main skills are seamanship, decision making,
leadership and team-work, though the skills priority is different for each position.
A relation could exist between shipping companies with difficulties to recruit qualified
personnel and the working and living conditions they offer. Shipping companies with
long campaigns and those with a disadvantageous onboard/holiday rate might have
problems to recruit qualified personnel. Likewise, these companies neither might stand
out for their working conditions: paid holidays, contribution for medical assistance and
retirement, etc, nor for on board the living conditions and questions related to the well-
being on board. These companies might be characterized by recruiting foreign crew,
may be due to the fact that the offer wages lower than the rest.

REFERENCES
[1] BIMCO/ISF. BIMCO/ISF manpower 2010 update. The worldwide demand for and
supply of seafarers. Coventry: Warwick Institute For Employment Research, 2010
[2] Mason T. Go to sea! A Campaign to attract entrants to the shipping industry.
Opening Remarks. International chamber of shipping/ International Shipping
Federation, 2008, Accessed 6 April 2012.
http://www5.imo.org/SharePoint/blastDataHelper.asp/data_id%3D23844/TonyMasonIC
SISfspeechseafarerscampaign.doc
[3] International Maritime Organization. Go to sea! A Campaign to attract entrants to
the shipping industry. Campaign document,2008, Accessed 15 March 2012.
http://www.imo.org/MediaCentre/HotTopics/GoToSea/Documents/Gotosea!campaignd
ocument.pdf
[4] European Commission. COM (2007) 591 final. Comunicación de la Comisión al
Consejo, al Parlamento Europeo, al Comité Económico y Social Europeo y al Comité de

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las Regiones. Reevaluación de la normativa social con vistas a más y mejores puestos
de trabajo en el sector marítimo en la UE. Bruselas., 2007, Accessed 10 April 2012.
Disponible en: http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0591:FIN:ES:PDF
[5] European Commission. COM(2009) 8 final. Comunicación de la Comisión al
Consejo, al Parlamento Europeo, al Comité Económico y Social Europeo y al Comité de
las Regiones. Objetivos estratégicos y recomendaciones para la política de transporte
marítimo de la UE hasta 2018, 2009, Accessed 20 May 2012. http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0008:FIN:ES:PDF
[6] European Transport Workers Federation. How to enhance training and recruitment
in the shipping industry in Europe- Final report. Brussels: ETF, 2010
[7] European Community Shipowners Asssociation. Report on the Project on Enhancing
Recruitment and training in the maritime sector in Europe. Brussels: ECSA, 2010
[8] Basurko A. El futuro de la profesión náutica. Problemática, consecuencias y posibles
soluciones a la actual escasez de jóvenes profesionales. XXI Jornadas de la Gente de
Mar. Barcelona, 2007, Accessed 24 May 2009.
http://www.telefonica.net/web2/aosbcn/documents/Basurko.pdf
[9] de la Campa Portela R, Louro Rodríguez J, Bouza Prego MA, García Sanchez MM,
Freire Piñeiro R. On board labour conditions and Spanish seafarers shortfall: the
Galician seafarers experience”. 6th International Congress on Maritime Transport
Technological Innovations and Research. UPC, Barcelona, 2014: 88-109.
[10] SEPE Spanish Government. Catálogo de Ocupaciones de Difícil Cobertura 2016.
Accessed 12 February 2016
https://www.sepe.es/contenidos/empresas/profesiones_demandadas/pdf/CatalogoOcupa
cionesDificilCobertura.pdf
[11] Kahaveci E. Port based welfare services for seafarers. Cardiff: Seafarers
International Research Centre. Cardiff University, 2007.

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ANEXXE 1.QUESTIONNAIRE ON WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS ON BOARD

IDENTIFICACIÓN
1. Nacionalidad de la empresa:
2. Número de buques que gestiona:
3. Tipo o tipos de buques:
 Ferry  Fast ferry
 Gasero  Portacontenedores
 Petrolero  Quimiquero
 Ro/ro  Crucero
Car carrier  Otro. Especificar ….. Carga general (o multipurpose)
4. Tipo de navegación
 cabotaje nacional  cabotaje internacional  altura
 otro , especificar …………………………… Línea regular

GESTIÓN DE PERSONAL
5. ¿Gestiona su empresa directamente al personal embarcado?
 Si  No (pase a la pregunta número 22)
6. ¿Posee su empresa un departamento específico para la gestión del personal embarcado?
 si  no
7. ¿Está experimentando su empresa dificultades para la contratación de personal cualificado?
 no  si, ¿a qué nivel?:  subalternos de cubierta
 subalternos de máquinas
 mandos de navegación
 mandos de máquinas
8. En caso de que su empresa esté experimentando dificultades para la contratación de personal cualificado ¿a
qué cree que es debido?
CONDICIONES DE CONTRATACIÓN
9. ¿Cuáles de los siguientes beneficios contractuales son ofrecidos a los trabajadores de abordo?
 Vacaciones remuneradas  Estabilidad en el empleo
 Cotizaciones para la atención médica  Promoción a corto plazo
 Cotizaciones para el desempleo  Becas por la empresa para el pago de los
estudios de sus hijos
 Cotizaciones para la jubilación
 Posibilidad de continuación en la
 Formación continuada empresa de sus descendientes
 Posibilidad de embarque de familiares
10. ¿Cuál es la proporción media embarque/vacaciones para los trabajadores a bordo?
11. Señale sobre qué puntos establecidos a continuación posee su empresa políticas claramente establecidas:
 Condiciones de contratación  Prevención de riesgos laborales
 Promoción en el empleo  Formación continuada
 Igualdad de trato y no discriminación
12. Los mandos de sus buques (capitán, jefe de máquinas y oficiales) son, por norma general:
 Españoles  Europeos  Latinoamericanos  Asiáticos  De otras nacionalidades, especificar..
13. Los tripulantes subalternos de sus buques son, por norma general:
 Españoles  Europeos  Latinoamericanos  Asiáticos  De otras nacionalidades, especificar..
14. ¿Sigue su empresa algún criterio lingüístico, religioso o cultural a la hora de reclutar a sus tripulantes?

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15. Los mandos de sus buques (capitán, jefe de máquinas y oficiales) son, por norma general:
 No  Si, especificar ……
16. Cree que los mandos de nacionalidad española (capitán, jefe de máquinas y oficiales) poseen una formación
académica teórica suficiente y completa para trabajar de forma eficiente en los buques de su compañía:
 si  no
17. Cree que los mandos de nacionalidad española (capitán, jefe de máquinas y oficiales) poseen una formación
práctica suficiente y completa para trabajar de forma eficiente en los buques de su compañía:
 si  no
18. ¿Cree que sería necesario ampliar la formación teórico/práctica de estos tripulantes en alguna materia
concreta?
 no  si, especificar:
19. Señale las cuatro características más importantes que debe poseer un capitán que desee trabajar en su
compañía:
 capacidad de liderazgo  capacidad de autocrítica
 ser buen comunicador  ser un buen burócrata
 capacidad para la toma de decisiones  poseer una experiencia dilatada: gran
profesionalidad
 capacidad para trabajar en equipo
 poseer una buena formación académica
 autoridad
 disciplina
20. Señale las cuatro características más importantes que debe poseer un jefe de máquinas que desee trabajar en
su compañía:
 capacidad de liderazgo  capacidad de autocrítica
 ser buen comunicador  ser un buen burócrata
 capacidad para la toma de decisiones  poseer una experiencia dilatada: gran
profesionalidad
 capacidad para trabajar en equipo
 poseer una buena formación académica
 autoridad
 disciplina
VIDA A BORDO
21. Indique el grado de acuerdo con las siguientes afirmaciones
Muy en En De Muy de
desacuerdo desacuerdo acuerdo acuerdo
La empresa realiza asiduamente mejoras en la habilitación del buque
La empresa pone a disposición de los tripulantes lugares para el ocio a
bordo y los mantiene actualizados (p.e: gimnasio, biblioteca, sala de cine,
etc.)
La empresa destina un dinero mensual para ocio (videos, revistas, libros,
etc).
La empresa facilita a los trabajadores a bordo diversos medios para que
éstos puedan comunicarse con sus familiares y amigos (p.e.: telefono, fax,
Internet, etc)
La empresa dispone que la tecnología de abordo sea moderna y esté
actualizada
La empresa realiza un control exhaustivo de las horas de trabajo y
descanso de todos los tripulantes
La empresa exige a los tripulantes que sus certificados sanitarios estén
actualizados
La empresa exige a los tripulantes una titulación y certificación acorde
con el puesto que han de desempeñar a bordo según la normativa STCW
78/95
La empresa provee al buque de las materias primas necesarias para
posibilitar una alimentación sana y variada

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ANEXXE 2. QUESTIONNAIRE ON WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS ON BOARD

IDENTIFICATION
1. Speciality:  Marine Engineering  Nautical Science
2. Gender:  Man  Woman
3. Age:
4. Academic qualification:
5. Professional qualification:
 Bridge Officer Class II  Engine Officer Class II
 Bridge Officer Class I  Engine Officer Class I
 Captain  Chief Engineer
 Cadet  I have no professional qualification
6. Do you have another academic qualification?
 no
 yes, ……………………………
 Cadet

CAREER KNOWLEDGE AND MOTIVATION FOR THE STUDY

7. How did you know these maritime studies?
 Family  Internet  Informative leaflets
 Friends  Informative talks  Own Collage/ University
 Other ……………………………….
8. It was this career your first option?  yes  no
9. Did you have some knowledge on this professional field before beginning the studies?
none a little a lot very much
10. Why did you choose these maritime studies?
 Job opportunities  It seemed easier than other engineering
 Subjects seemed interesting studies
 I like all related to the sea  I had not enough admission mark to
 Travelling possibilities follow other studies
 High income  The possibility of complementing my
 Interest of the family previous studies
 Collage is near to my home  To do something different
 I like sailing  Another ………………………..
 To promote in my current job

11. In relation to studies difficulty, this career was:

 More difficult than expected
 Easier than expected
 As difficult as I expected
12. Give your opinion with regard to the next statements
Strongly Disagree agree Strongly Don’t know/
disagree agree no answer
I received enough information about academic matters
I received enough information about professional matters
In a general basis, the contents of the academic
programme were useful for my professional life
I had the chance of knowing the professional area
The technological resources used during the career were
the suitable ones
I learnt the necessary matters to be a good aseafarer
I think ongoing training is necessary
13. What would you do if you had the opportunity to choose a career again?
 I would choose the same studies  I would look for a work
 I would choose another university studies  Other ………
 I would do not university studies

CURRENT LABOR CONDITION

14. My current labor condition is:
 Unemployed (go to question 15)  Working ashore out of maritime sector
 Working on board (go to question 32) (go to question 24)
 Working ashore in maritime sector (go to  Retired (go to question 29)
question 19)
15. I am unemployed:

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 for less than 6 months  more than 1 year but less than 2 years
 more than 6 months and less than 1 year  more than 2 years
16. This is a condition:
 Voluntary because i don’t want to work
 Voluntary because i am studing for public examination
 Forced because i don’t find an employment
17. Where do you want to work again:
 On board  ashore in maritime sector  ashore out of maritime sector
18. My previous labor conditon was:
 Working on board (go to question 32)
 Working ashore in maritime sector
 Working ashore out of maritime sector
 Student
If you didn’t work on board go to question 44
19. I am working ashore in maritime sector:
 less than 6 months  more than 4 years but less than 10 years
 more than 6 months and less than 1 year  10 years or more
 more than 1 year but less than 4 years
20. My current job is related to:
 Maritime traffic control  Other in public administration,
 Ships inspection specify….
 Maritime industrial maintenance  Pilotage
 Maritime Education and training  Other, specify ….
21. Did you work on board previously?
 no  yes, but i abandoned the career at sea because
 higher income
 better labor conditions other than income
 better living conditions
 family reasons
 other reasons, specify ….
22. My future expectation is :
 to continue in the same job
 to change for other job ashore in the maritime sector
 to change for other job ashore out of maritime sector
 to work on board
23. My previous labor condition was:
 Working on board (go to question 32)
 Working ashore in maritime sector
 Working ashore out of maritime sector
 Student
If you didn’t work on board go to question 44
24. I am working ashore out of maritime sector for:
 less than 6 months  more than 4 years but less than 10 years
 more than 6 months and less than 1 year  10 years or more
 more than 1 year but less than 4 years
25. Which kind of job are you developing? …….
26. Did you work on board previously?
 no  yes, but i abandoned the career at sea because
 higher income
 better labor conditions other than income
 better living conditions
 family reasons
 other reasons, specify ….
27. My future expectation is :
 to continue in the same job
 to change for other job ashore out of maritime sector
 to change for other job ashore in the maritime sector
 to work on board
28. My previous labor condition was:
 Working on board (go to question 32)
 Working ashore in maritime sector
 Working ashore out of maritime sector
 Student
If you didn’t work on board go to question 44
29. I am retired for:
 less than 6 months  more than 1 year but less than 4 years
 more than 6 months and less than 1 year  more than 4 years but less than 10 years

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 10 years or more
30. Your retirement is due to:
 Common retirement  disability due to:
 Occupational accident  common accident
 occupational illness  common illness
31. My previous labor condition was:
 Working on board (go to question 32)
 Working ashore in maritime sector
 Working ashore out of maritime sector
 Student
If you didn’t work on board go to question 44
32. Currently post on board or post on board in your last campaign
 cadet  3rd officer  2nd officer  1st officer  Chief Engineer  Captain
33. Kind of navigation
 national coasting trade  international coasting trade  high-sea navigation
34. Kind of ship:
35. Flag:
36. Nationality of shipping company:
37. Years of on board experience:
38. Kind of Contract:
 steady  temporary
39. In relation to wage condition
a. In your opinion, your wage is/was:
 very low  low  nor low neither high  high  very high
b. Your net monthly wage is/was?
 less than 1500 euros  from 1500 to less than 3000 euros
 from 3000 to less than 4000 euros  4000 euros or more
c. What is/was your onborad/holiday ratio?
d. Point to the labour conditions offered by your shipping company
YES NO
Paid holidays
Contribution for Medical assistance
Contribution for unemployment
Contribution for retirement
Posibility of continuous training
Posibility of embarking relatives
Job stability
short- term promotions
Educational scholarship for workers’ children
Employment possibilities of worker’s descendants
e. Point in a 0 to 10 scale your satisfaction with the labour conditions offered by your company
(0 absolutely nothing satisfied and 10 completely satisfied):
40. In relation to ship conditions and working conditions
40.1 Give your opinion about the next ship conditions
Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly
disagree agree
Hull and engines are in good condition of maintenance
The technological equipment is modern and updated
I have an Ergonomic workplace
Labour risk prevention policies are followed and well established
There is a well established working system organization
There is an appropriate distribution of working and rest hours
The commercial route is safe and secure
I think that my company shows commitment with occupational safety

40.2 Point in a 0 to 10 scale your on board workload (0 a little workload and 10 too much workload):
40.3 When the ship is moored, and I’m not on watch:
 I can leave the ship until my next watch
 I cannot leave the ship because minimum crew
 I cannot leave ship because short turnaround
 I don’t need to stay on board until the ship departure
 I don’t need to stay on board in holiday or weekend
40.4 How many hours for sleeping do you have?
40.5 How many hours of free time do you have?
40.6 Pont in a 0 to 10 scale how often do you feel stressed (0 never stressed and 10 always stressed)

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40.7 Point in a 0 to 10 scale your satisfaction with the ship condition (0 absolutely nothing satisfied and 10
completely satisfied):
40.8 Point in a 0 to 10 scale your satisfaction with the workload (0 absolutely nothing satisfied and 10
completely satisfied):
41 In relation with social and personal life on board
41.1 Give your opinion about the next statements
Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly
disagree Agree
I have several means for communication with home
I have Internet availability for personal use
There are individual cabins with personal hygiene facilities
I have leisure places (library, gym, cinema, etc.)
The number of crew members is adequate for the promotion of
social relations
Time in port is enough
There is an environment of trust

41.2 Your cabin is located

below the main deck on the main deck
below navigation bridge Over main deck but not inmediately below
bridge
41.3 Point in a 0 to 10 scale your satisfaction with social al personal conditions (0 absolutely nothing
satisfied and 10 completely satisfied):
42 In relation to crew conditions
42.1 Crew is/was:
 national  multilingual  multicultural
42.2 The working language is/was:
 spanish  english  other: ……..
42.3 Give your opinión about the next statements
Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly
disagree agree
Crew have an adequate academic qualifications
Crew have an adequate professional experience
There is a common language
There are cultural common interests
There are religious common interests
Command style is adequate

42.4 Point in a 0 to 10 scale your satisfaction with crew conditions (0 absolutely nothing satisfied and 10
completely satisfied):
43 Point in a 0 to 10 scale your satisfaction with life and work at sea (0 absolutely nothing satisfied and 10
completely satisfied):

THE MARITIME PROFESSION

44 Give your opinion with regard to the next statements
Strongly Disagree agree Strongly Don’t
disagree agree know/ no
answer
Sailing is/was a positive experience to my professional life
Working on board provides with an experience that is
difficult to attain working ashore
On board experience makes it more likely to find a job
ashore
Seafarer profession has a high social status
Seafarers have a high income
Seafarers have a position of authority by working on board
Seafarer profession allows team working

LABOUR MARKET
45 Arrange the conditions that a shipping company must offer to the crew members according to the
importance they have to you (1- the most important, 10- the less important) :
 Competitive wages  1/1 proportion between on board
working/vacation
 Paid holidays  Contribution for Medical assistance
 Contribution for retirement

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 Contribution for unemployment  Job stability

 Posibility of continued training  short- term promotions
 Posibility of embarking relatives
46 Arrange the conditions of ship and on board work organization for an adequate professional carry out (1 –
the most important, 7 – the less important)
 hull and engines are in good condition of  Well established working system
maintenance organization
 Modern technological equipment  Appropriate distribution of working and
 Ergonomic workplace rest hours
 Well established labour risk prevention  Safe and secure commercial route
policies
47 Arrange ship conditions to allow a suitable social and personal life ( 1- the most important, 5- the less
important)
 The possibility of communication with home
 Internet availability
 Individual cabins with personal hygiene facilities
 Leisure places (library, gym, cinema, etc.)
 Adequate number of crew members for the promotion of social relations
48 Arrange crew conditions to allow a suitable labour and social life ( 1- the most important, 5- the less
important)
 Crew adequate academic qualifications
 Crew adequate professional experience
 Common language
 Cultural common interests
 Religious common interests
49 Arrange the most problematic areas of maritime transport (1- the most problematic, 14 – the less
problematic)
 Piracy  Seafarer isolation
 Personal and labour Safety  ship detentions derived from inspections
 Ship safety  Dangerous goods transport risks
 captain criminal offence  Crew abandonment
 Commercial pressure  Excess of paperwork
 Lack of job stability  Mixed crews spreading
 Fatigue  minimung manning spreading
50 Give your opinion with regard to the next statements:
Very Difficult Easy Very Don’t know/
difficult easy no answer
To find a job on board Spanish flagged ships
or managed by Spanish companies is …
To find a job on board foreign flagged ships
or managed by foreign companies is …
To find a job in maritime sector ashore …
To find a job out of maritime sector ashore
51 From your current professional experience, Do you think it is necessary to increase or reinforce
the education and training of any particular subject?
 no  yes, specify: …

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DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN AND HARMONIZED TRAINING OF

SEAFARERS

Tanja Brcko, Marko Perkovic

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Maritime Studies and Transport
tanja.brcko@fpp.uni-lj.si

Abstract
Modernization and harmonization of the maritime education and training (MET)
curriculums with the STCW Convention and Manila amendments 2010 is a challenge
for maritime educational institutes around the globe. One of the working packages of
the EU project Tempus MArED (Modernizing and Harmonizing Maritime Education in
Montenegro and Albania) is the development of new curricula and syllabuses for IMO
Model Courses in Montenegro and Albania, together with EU partners
from MET institutes in Slovenia, Spain, Croatia and Romania. A particularly important
part of the educational process is the role of the bridge simulator, which achieves its
purpose only with a certified trainer able to prepare adequate tasks and apply the
simulator to training. This paper highlights STCW requirements which must be
achieved by trainers on ship simulators, analyses which courses are most common
among EU partners and why, what the market requirements are for training seafarers
and how reformed institutions compete with other training centers in the Adriatic Sea
area, all with the addition of an introductory that includes a bit of a cautionary note for
today’s educators.

Key words:
Maritime education, training, Tempus MArED, IMO Model courses, STCW Convention

Acknowledgements:
This paper highlights Tempus MArED project, funded by the European Commission
through TEMPUS project (544257-TEMPUS-1-2013-1-ME-TEMPUS-JPCR).

INTRODUCTION
The first figure shows the curriculum of the Adriatic maritime school of Dubrovnik for
the academic year 1852/53. A lot stands out, depending of course on which pair of eyes
set upon it. For instance, one may note that three hours of week of practical seamanship
is taught in the first year and none in the second. Perhaps that is because the mid - 19th
century was during a transition period from a time when most seafarers began their
careers onboard ship. Also note that navigation, which presumably comes under
nautical science, merits the same number of hours, but in the second year – probably in
the hope that the knowledge will not be forgotten in so short a time. Paradoxically,
today, despite the extraordinary advances in navigational techniques, far more time is
spent studying the topic. And of course vessels are far more complicated machines now
than they were then, far more advanced in virtually every way – yet the study of safety,
what is called the creation of a safety culture, is now considered necessary, as is the
study of environmental issues. Our students are now going to sea with a great deal more
on their minds than ever, and it is perhaps worth giving some thought to why it has

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become standard to attempt to instill in our students teamworking abilities and

managerial skills yet those whom they work for are struggling with such an elemental
human task as engaging harmoniously with the environment. The percipient student
perhaps wonders where the limits to team work are, why preventable accidents,
incidents, cases of pollution, are not prevented, that the lunatic independence of profit
prevents the seafarer from being on the same team as the ship owner.
Figure 1 - Curriculum of the Adriatic maritime school

Source: Basic D. [1]

For some, perhaps the sailors, more significant is the question whether the seafarer of
today is better off than the seafarer of yesterday. They study a great deal more, so we
must hope it is worth their while. Yet are they better off today, are they as well off as
they ought to be? Unfortunately, our honorable profession 'is the second deadliest job
on the planet after fishing, according to a recent article in The Telegraph of London,
which went on to state the following:
'... today’s man of the sea is also probably poor, probably exploited, and living a life that
contains, at the least, chronic fatigue and overwork; boredom, pirates and danger. Suicide
rates of seafarers are triple those of land-based occupations and carrying sea cargo is the
second deadliest job on the planet after fishing.' [11]

Add to that the chronic (and historical) stresses of lengthy stretches of time at sea, away
from home, and such absurd abuses of going unpaid, which is far more common than
most of us realize, it is safe to say that along with our well-planned curriculum we owe
an extensive overhaul of the conditions of workers at sea, lest we remain responsible for
aiding and abetting the hardships of the world's seafarers.
All work that goes into creating curricula, harmonization of maritime institutional
training, all work on the bridge simulator, should be informed by the day to day
circumstances of the seafarers; those of us in course design, teaching, and research must
never allow ourselves to become detached from the circumstances in which our students
will find themselves one day. This is perhaps a dramatic introduction to a benign topic,

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but much of our work is already towards increasing safety – all problems in the
maritime profession are our subjects and deserve our attention.
Moving on to the main topic – while keeping in mind our introduction - the European
Union (EU) with its projects promotes economic growth of its member countries and
the strategy of integration also allows non-EU countries’ development in areas of
economics, education, etc. The Tempus project supports the modernization of higher
education in the EU and its surroundings.
In January 2012 new amendments to the STCW Convention (International Convention
on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) came into
force. Consequently, maritime educational institutions had to modernize and harmonize
their curriculums and syllabuses according to the Manila amendments. In the light of
these changes the Tempus MArED project was launched representing Modernizing and
Harmonizing Maritime Education in Montenegro and Albania. Both countries have
difficulties in the area of maritime education, especially with financial resources, the
qualifications of teachers and teaching facilities. With the help of EU partners Slovenia,
Croatia, Spain, Austria and Romania, both the Maritime faculty of Kotor (Montenegro)
and the Faculty of Technical Science Vlöre (Albania) have successfully finished
revision of existing and development of new undergraduate study programs, upgraded
teaching materials and methodology, completed (re)training of teaching staff and
(re)accredited undergraduate study programs.
The curricula and syllabus catalogues were prepared in order to harmonize study
programs to the latest international requirement for the education and training of
seafarers. Representatives from project partners’ universities (18 of them) participated
in (re)training activities in order to improve existing teaching methods (both theoretical
and practical). Teachers and teaching assistants from PCs who were (re)trained will be
directly involved in the teaching process aiming to improve existing methods at their
institutions. Faculties also upgraded teaching materials by buying nautical simulators.
Upgraded and purchased educational sources will be used for education and training of
both students and seafarers which will additionally increase their professional
competences [13].

1. CURRENT WORK ON A MARED PROJECT

At the moment, the MArEd project is at the stage of work package 4, were both
faculties will accredit professional marine STCW courses. WP 4 already went through
the three stages:
• IMO model courses overview.
• Analysis and comparison of current IMO model courses at maritime faculties
in Slovenia, Romania, Croatia and Spain.
• Organized meetings with universities from EU and PCs on topic IMO courses.
In a table below is an overview of organized IMO Model Courses at EU partners:
Faculty of Maritime studies and Transport (FPP), Slovenia; Romanian Maritime
Training Centre (CERONAV), Romania (Constanta Maritime University is not
organizing courses according to their law); Maritime Training Centre Split (MTCST),

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Croatia; and Barcelona School of Nautical Studies (UPC), Spain. The Faculty of
Maritime Studies Split has all courses incorporated in the regular study, which is why
IMO Model courses trainings are organized by MTCST. UPC and FPP organize courses
for professional seafarers. For full time students additional courses are not obligatory at
all faculties since they are part of the regular study.
Table 1 – List of IMO Model Courses in EU partner counties.
Course FPP CERONAV MTCST UPC

1.01 Tanker Familiarization x

1.02 Specialized Training Programme On Oil Tanker x

Operations

1.04 Specialized Training For Chemical Tankers x

1.06 Specialized Training Programme On Liquefied Gas Tanker x

Operations

1.07 Radar Navigation – Operational Level x x

1.08 Radar Navigation – Management Level x x x x

1.09 Radar Simulator x

1.10 Dangerous, Hazardous & Harmful Cargoes x

1.13 Elementary First Aid x x

1.14 Medical First Aid x x x

1.15 Medical Care x x

1.19 Personal Survival Techniques x x

1.20 Fire Prevention And Fire Fighting x x

1.21 Personal Safety And Social Responsibilities x x

1.22 Ship Simulator And Bridge Teamwork x x x

1.23 Proficiency In Survival Craft And Rescue Boats Other x x

Than Fast Rescue Boats

1.24 Proficiency In Fast Rescue Boats x

1.25 General Operator's Certificate For The GMDSS x x x x

1.26 Restricted Operator’s Certificate For Gmdss x x

1.27 Operational Use Of Electronic Chart Display And x x x x

Information Systems (ECDIS)

1.29 Proficiency In Passenger Safety, Cargo Safety, Hull x

Integrity, Crisis Management And Human Behaviour
Training On Passenger And Ro-Ro Passenger Ships

1.32 Operational Use Of Integrated Bridge Systems Including x

Integrated Navigation Systems

1.34 Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) x

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1.38 Marine Environmental Awareness x x

1.39 Leadership And Teamwork x x x

2.03 Advanced Training In Fire Fighting x x

2.05 On-Board Ship Administration Course + Compendium x

2.07 Engine Room Simulator x x x

3.11 Marine Accident And Incident Investigation With x

Compendium

3.12 Assessment, Examination And Certification Of Seafarers x

With Compendium

3.17 Maritime English x

3.19 Ship Security Officer x x x

3.20 Company Security Officer x

3.26 Security Training For Seafarers With Designated Security x x x

Duties

3.27 Security Awareness Training For All Seafarers x x x

6.09 Training Course For Instructors x

6.10 Train The Simulator Trainer And Assessor x

Source: Authors

Most common courses at all four institutes are 1.08, 1.14, 1.22, 1.25, 1.27, 1.39, 2.07,
3.19, 2.07, 3.19, 3.26 and 3.27. These IMO Model courses provides a validated
framework for obtaining:
- Basic training certificate,
- Automatic Radar Plotting Aid (ARPA) certificate,
- Operational Use of Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS)
certificate,
- Advance fire-fighting certificate, etc.
According to STCW requirements, cadets must obtain these certificates prior to being
assigned a job on board the ship as an officer - except for engine officers, who do not
need APRA and ECDIS certificates. Also, all future officers must obtain certificates for
Ship Security Officers and Leadership and teamwork. Therefore, it is very important for
maritime faculties to offer the possibility of education and training, assessment and
certification not only for their students but also for other trainees, who want to obtain
different STCW certificates in their own county.

2. MET REQUIREMENTS
The essence of maritime education and training (MET) within an institution are not their
teaching facilities, but the maritime educators and instructors. They must have excellent
professional knowledge, teaching skills and assessment experiences for different
maritime areas, as well as, preferably, a keen understanding of the global maritime
circumstances and a lively imagination. Unfortunately, the STCW Convention asks only
that educators are "appropriate”, which is not very good, and they also fail to define the
word.

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The STCW Convention sets minimum standards for education and training of seafarers.
Part of the Convention is a Code which specifically deals with education and training of
deck and engine officers and other ratings employed on ships. The Code, on the other
hand, sets very superficial requirements for training staff. STCW Convention
regulation I/6 says that “those responsible for training and assessment of competence of
seafarers must be appropriately qualified in accordance with the provisions of section
A-I/6 of the STCW Code for the type and level of training or assessment involved” [6].
Even A-I/6 does not specify what constitutes adequate qualifications of the maritime
educators or training staff.
Directive 2008/106/EC of the European parliament and of the council on the minimum
level of training of seafarers requires that each person who conducts the training of
seafarers takes into consideration the training program and an understanding of the
specific objectives of the particular type of training; is qualified for the task for which
training is being conducted, and if using a simulator an educator received appropriate
guidance in instructional use of simulators and gained practical operational experience on
the particular type of simulator being used under the supervision and to the satisfaction of
an experienced assessor [9]. Therefore, it is understood that a teacher shall have participated
in the course “Assessment, examination and certification of seafarers”, which is based on
IMO Model Course 3.12 and “Train the simulator trainer and assessor”, based on IMO
Model Course 6.10. But none of them are obligatory. Thus, in the STCW Code and EU
Directive nowhere can it be found that the teacher must have professional experience or a
certificate of competency for deck or engine officer, at least not directly.
Aware of these failings and so to enhance the quality of maritime education, maritime
faculties, colleges and universities in general set higher requirements for teaching staff.
In Slovenia, the Faculty of Maritime Studies and Transport requires teachers in the
maritime department to have in addition to a Master’s degree professional experience as
deck or engine officers. The case is similar in Romania and Croatia. In this manner the
quality of education meets the STCW and national requirements for training staff.
Unfortunately, not every good seafarer is a good teacher. Problems which arise are in
preparing teaching material, teaching ability and methodologies; understanding the
fundamentals of pedagogy and strategies, lesson planning, etc. A maritime educator
must, in addition to all, be an experienced professional in his/her own field of maritime
studies, and as well be known to succeed in conveying acquired knowledge in an
interesting and challenging manner.
The International Maritime Organization ‘solved’ the problem of lessons planning and
curriculums according to the STCW Convention with implementation of IMO Model
Courses, covering all maritime subjects and are of a big help for MET institutions and
for maritime administration institutions, enabling those willing to provide appropriate
training and assessment of maritime personnel/seafarers. One of the items in the IMO
Model Course is a staff requirement, which specifies in detail the recommended
qualifications of teachers of a particular field.

2.1. SHIP’S BRIDGE SIMULATOR

Here we are going to concentrate on education and ship simulators, in particular those
that simulate work on the navigation bridge. These should primarily satisfy the
requirements of the STCW Code, section A-I/2. Today, the simulator market has grown
to include many companies, but FPP began collaborating with Transas (which offers

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best-in-class navigation systems and integrated bridge solutions, recognized training

and simulation solutions, renowned VTMS and coastal surveillance systems, fleet and
port management systems, onboard and individual decision support systems for
professional crew and pilots, as well as popular applications for leisure and the marine
mass market [12]), which is important in that the value of the collaboration cuts both
ways. A good simulator company works closely with researchers and stays up to date
through their practical knowledge of the applications of their machines.

At the Faculty of Maritime Studies and Transport, University of Ljubljana, (FPP) we

possess three Transas navigational simulators:
- One full mission multipurpose bridge, with visual representation of the
navigation environment in a 180˚ sector. It enables training in the navigation,
ships handling and port operations using various vessel types with different
propulsion systems.
Figure 2 – Ship’s bridge simulator; integration concept

Search & Rescue

Helicopter

Source: Perkovic M [10]

- Two virtual navigation bridges with visual representation of the navigation

environment in a 120˚ sector. These virtual navigation bridges allow the adjustment of
the system to different propulsion systems. One of the bridges is equipped with a
conventional Voith-Schneider mechanism and rudder, and the other with two control
levers that allows the simulation of the operation of azimuth propulsion systems.

Each bridge can be used individually or integrated into a scenario in which, for instance,
one ship is proceeding alongside while two other vessels act as tugs. The simulator
offers the choice of more than 250 different vessels that can be used in highly complex
scenarios in more than 150 navigation areas. When a complex scenario includes, for
instance, communication with the VTS centre in San Francisco, VTS simulation and
GMDSS communication can be integrated into the navigation scenario. If training of the
crew in human resources management (deck department – engine room department) is

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required, the “full scope” version of the engine room simulator can be integrated into
the scenario. This is a replica of the control console in the engine room control cabin.
Other simulations that can be integrated into the navigation scenario include those of
liquid cargo handling, maritime communications (integrated GMDSS training) and
crisis management response in case of an oil spill at sea. Thus, training in the most
complex scenarios can be provided. These may include engine breakdown, stranding,
squat effect, grounding, oil spill, transfer of oil to a barge, communication, formation of
a Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, search and rescue operations. The simulator
records data on meteorological conditions at sea, sea currents, and vessel traffic [7]. We
may conclude that currently a full mission bridge is realistic enough to simulate Bridge
Team Management (BMT) and crisis management procedures, an achievement, though,
that depends mostly on instructor qualification and capabilities.
Another important facet of the simulator applies to its research value. At FPP many
projects have been accomplished, for instance solving problems for the port of Koper –
and perhaps as valuable as even achieving the desired resultant knowledge is the fact
that seafarers are able to come in and work alongside researchers and students to help
determine the feasibility, for instance, of an approach to a basin. Students interact with
professionals in their field, and professionals have the opportunity to up-grade their
knowledge along with professors.

2.2. THE ROLE OF THE INSTRUCTOR

The teacher is the most important element in simulator training. He/she must be skilled
in the use of simulation tools, know the hydrodynamic characteristics of ship, should
hold a certificate as a master, have at least two years’ experience in handling ships and
have the training and experience necessary to operate a ship handling simulator as a
training aid. Although STCW Convention, Code and EU Directive do not directly imply
this in their regulations, it is clear that a simulator instructor, according to IMO Model
Course 6.10 must fully understand the personality of a seafarer, the importance of
simulation in maritime training, and have pedagogical skills in order to impart sound
and practical training to the seafaring community, have the qualification and experience,
a seafaring background, and the aptitude to not only pass on the knowledge, but have
the imagination to motivate the students [5]. A skilled and enthusiastic trainer can very
well make the difference between one maritime training center or faculty and another.
Figure 3 – Simulation base training; from the right, Pilot, Trainee and Instructor

Source: Authors

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3. TRAINING CENTERS IN THE ADRIATIC SEA AREA

Even without our introduction, we know from basic knowledge of the Venezian
Republic, the Uskoki, Ragusa, and even the century or so of the port of Trieste’s
primacy, that maritime educational institutions on the Adriatic coast have a long
tradition of education and training of merchant navy officers. Croatia and Italy have
around 20.000 seafarers [8], Montenegro 4.300, Albania 2.000 [2] and Slovenia around
300. Therefore, there are many maritime training centers and faculties along the Adriatic
coast: The Faculty of Maritime Studies and Transport and Maritime High School in
Slovenia, which teaches nautical and marine engineering as well professional courses for
active seafarers; Croatia has 29 MET training centers (governmental and private), Italy has
approximately 60 MET (mostly private); Montenegro has 6 MET institutions and Albania 4
(Figure 4). Smaller numbers of students are an automatic educational advantage for
maritime faculties but in Montenegro and Albania due to the rapid growth of private
training centers, it is necessary to make significant investments into existing public
educational institutions in order to maintain a certain level of competitiveness in the
country. At public institutions the sense that the student has a stake in the studies even on
the national level remains, something that is eroded by private institutions run rather more
as companies. And as it is necessary to maintain connections with IMO and the SCTW
courses, to constantly adapt to changes even at times to accommodate the industry, the ship
owners, as well as the knowledge obtained by researchers, the smallest of maritime
countries requires an excellent maritime training capacity.

Figure 4 – Distribution of MET institutions in Adriatic Sea area and its surrounding

Source: Authors

4. CONCLUSION
The traditional concept of seafarers training based on “ex cathedra” followed by
practical “on board” training has significantly changed from the days seafarers came of

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age onboard ship. Simulators have advanced to the point where we can be more
confident that they can make up for lack of time onboard. Project Tempus MArEd is a
comprehensive approach to the successful reform of curricula and the establishment of
professional maritime courses at maritime faculties in Montenegro and Albania based
on utilizing various marine simulators. But we should once more stress that the success
of this project will owe more to the teachers who make the most of simulators,
including keeping up to date with changes in the technology.
Each educational institution must, to be competitive, comply with two essential
conditions: (i) be equipped with the most advanced simulator equipment, (ii) employ
such training staff as will be able to pass their experience and knowledge on to the
younger generation of seafarers who are beginning their sea career. Although we have
seen that educational institutions provide ‘adequate’ training of teachers, it would be
advisable that the STCW Convention and consequently national legislation gives
concrete expression to the requirements for maritime education instructors and teachers
– in other words, that we expel the word ‘adequate’ from our pedagogical vocabulary
and replace it with the word ‘excellent’.

REFERENCES

1. Basic D. Dubrovacka Nautika - Pomorska skola u Dubrovniku od 1852. godine (U

povodu Noci muzeja, 31. Sijecnja 2014.). Pomorski zbornik 49-50 (2015), 333-377.
2. Castells M, de Osés, FXM, Ordás S, Borén C, Nikolic D. Modernizing and
Harmonizing Maritime Education in Montenegro and Albania. Mared Project.
Proceedings 16th IAMU Annual General Assembly 2015.
3. IMO. IMO Model Course 1.22, Ship simulator and bridge teamwork, 2002 Edition,
International Maritime Organization, London, United Kingdom.
4. IMO. IMO Model Course 3.12, Assessment examination and certification of
seafarers Vol. 1&2, 2000 Edition, International Maritime Organization, London,
United Kingdom.
5. IMO. IMO Model Course 6.10 Train the simulator trainer and assessor, 2012
Edition, International Maritime Organization, London, United Kingdom.
6. IMO. International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and
Watchkeeping for Seafarers, (STCW) 1978, as amended in 1995/2010, International
Maritime Organization, London, United Kingdom.
7. Marine Simulators at University of Ljubljana Faculty of Maritime Studies and
Transport, Brief overview of available simulators and courses. Available on:
http://www.fpp.uni-lj.si/studij/tecaji/
8. Marinov E, Maglic L, Buksa J. Market competitiveness of Croatian seafarers.
Scientific Journal of Maritime Research 2015.29, pp 64-68.
9. Official Journal of the European Union (2008). Directive 2008/106/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on the Minimum
level of Training of Seafarers. Strasbourgu, France.
10. Perkovic M, Suban V, Petelin S, David M. First Results from Practical Usage of
Complex Maritime System Simulator Centre in Connection with Real Equipment,
Proceedings Marsim 2006, Maritime Institute Willem Barentsz (MIWB),
Terschelling, p.p S34.
11. The Telegraph. Sea no evil: the life of a modern sailor. Available on:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/8273847/Sea-no-evil-the-life-of-a-
modern-sailor.html

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12. TRANSAS Company profile website. Available on: http://www.transas.com/

13. University of Montenegro. Intermediate Report on implementation of the project
(IR), Statement of the costs incurred and Request for Payment, TEMPUS IV (Sixth
Call for proposals EACEA No. 35/2012), Joint Project / Structural Measure,
544257-TEMPUS-1-2013-1-ME-TEMPUS-JPCR/2013-4538/001-001, 2015
Podgorica, Montenegro.

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TECHNICAL AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS BETWEEN DIESEL AND

DUAL-FUEL PROPULSION ENGINE
Denny Patriot
Technical Manager, Maxima Maritima Indonesia

Abstract
As the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL)
Annex VI strengthening air pollutants including sulfur oxides (SOx) and nitrous oxides
(NOx), dual-fuel engine has become one promising solution. The study will cover a
comparison case study between Caterpillar’s MaK brand 9M46DF dual-fuel engine
and 9M43C diesel engine on an 868 TEU container feeder vessel sailing in Baltic Sea.
The data for this study were mainly provided by Caterpillar Motoren GmbH in Kiel and
Zeppelin Power System GmbH in Hamburg, Germany.
This research discusses the advantages and challenges in both technical and
economical consideration of dual-fuel engine. The technical analysis discusses engine’s
performance, fuel consumption, exhaust-gas emission, and fuel storage system; while
economic analysis covers fuel cost, initial investment, and payback period. It is
concluded that dual-fuel engine has a significant lower pollutant emission and lower
fuel cost, but high initial investment and LNG fuel system is required. Simple payback
period calculation as function of price difference between LNG and MGO, and initial
investment is shown.
Keywords:
Ship propulsion, emission reduction, dual fuel, payback period

Acknowledgements:
The author expresses his profound gratitude to Carsten Seeburg, Leif I. Gross, Detlef
Kirste, Georg Gillert, and Frank Anders from Caterpillar Motoren GmbH & Co. KG,
who played a pivotal role in the accomplishment of this paper by commenting and
providing data. We also appreciate Lars Hansen from Zeppelin Power Systems GmbH
& Co. KG and all who contributed by supporting this research.

1. INTRODUCTION
Global shipping is taking a major portion of cargo transportation around the world,
approximately 90% of the global trade. To maintain their operational cost as low as
possible, majority of ships are using marine fuel oil (MFO) or called heavy fuel oil
(HFO) that contain relatively high sulfur content.
The growing global concern over ship’s emission in recent years has driven
international policy change towards more stringent vessel emissions standard. It is
estimated shipping takes account for 3.1% of annual global CO2 and 15% and 13% of
global NOx and SOx[1]. Following this concern, International Maritime Organization
(IMO) has decided regulations which limit pollutants such as SOx and NOx.
Under the revised MARPOL Annex VI, the global sulfur cap was reduced progressively
from time to time. The final result is SOx and particulate matter (PM) reduction into
0.10% m/m in Emission Control Areas (ECAs) from 1 January 2015 and from 3.5%

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m/m to 0.5% m/m in the global area effective from 1 January 2020, subject to a
feasibility study to be completed before 2018.
Progressive reductions in NOx emissions from marine engines are also included. “Tier II”
emission limit is a mandate for engines installed on or after 1 January 2011. With more
stringent emission limit, “Tier III” regulates engines installed on or after 1 January 2021[2].
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is one of the most promising alternatives out of other
solutions with clear emission. Burning natural gas will provide great savings in NOx,
SOx, and PM which will meet the forthcoming emission regulations.
Marine engine manufacturers have started to research and race to be the leader of the
gas engine technology. With the introduction of LNG as the new future marine fuel, two
types of engines are developed: dual-fuel engine and pure gas engine. The major benefit
of dual-fuel compared with pure gas is that the ship can choose fuel according to
operational and economical condition. When clean emission is required, the engine can
be run by gas, and when it is no longer needed, the fuel can be switched to oil fuel.
Thus, the dual-fuel engine has two fuel alternatives: gas and liquid. In case of a gas
system failure, the engine will automatically switch to diesel operation.
The development of dual-fuel engine has been driven by LNG advantages not only for
clean exhaust emission, but also economic benefits – LNG price is lower than global
low-sulfur bunker fuel price on unit of energy basis. Given the potential advantages of
LNG as a bunker fuel and the pace of recent developments, the probability of dual-fuel
engine displacing conventional diesel engine will continue to rise.
On the other hand, LNG as bunker fuel also faces number of challenges: high initial
investment, LNG bunker price volatility, and LNG supply availability. Relatively high
initial investment is required for dual-fuel engine and LNG fuel system. With these
challenges faced, to what extend can dual-fuel engine develop? How long is the
payback period and will it be attractive for the shipowners?
This paper discusses the advantages and challenges in both technical and commercial
consideration of dual-fuel engine. The study will cover a comparison case study
between MaK brand 9M46DF dual-fuel engine and 9M43C diesel engine on a reference
container feeder vessel.

2. METHODOLOGY
For good understanding of the comparative analysis, a distinction is made between two
different type engines (cases): dual-fuel engine M46DF and diesel engine M43C. Both
are MaK brand products manufactured by Caterpillar Motoren GmbH in Kiel, Germany.
The data for this paper is collected mainly from two types of sources: Academic
research literatures and experimental data from Caterpillar.

3. DESCRIPTION OF ENGINES
The MaK M43Cis a four-stroke diesel engine, non-reversible, turbocharged and
intercooled with direct fuel injection. The fuels are either gas oil (MGO), diesel (MDO)
or heavy fuel oil (HFO).

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The MaK M46DFis a dual fuel engine based on M43C design. It has similar main
dimensions and is relatively close to M43C’s performance. In conventional diesel mode,
it is possible to burn MGO or HFO. The premixed air-fuel mixture is compressed and
ignition is provided by using a relatively small amount of injected diesel fuel. In gas
mode, the working principle is based on the Otto-cycle; when running only MGO or
HFO, the working principle is Diesel.
Dual fuel engine offers multi-fuel flexibility. However, to support different fuels
availability onboard, installment of respective facilities are required, particularly LNG
special features such as LNG tank, gas valve unit, double-walled pipeline, safety
system, ventilation, and leakage detection system.
Figure 1 - Engine M43C (left) and M46DF (right)[3][4]

4. TECHNICAL COMPARISON
The maximum continuous rating in Table 1 follows the reference conditions according
to International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) for main and auxiliary
engines in tropical conditions:
- Air pressure : 100 kPa (1 bar)
- Air temperature : 318 K (45°C)
- Relative humidity : 60%
- Sea water temperature : 305 K (32°C)
- Ambient temperature : 25°C
Table 1 - Engine performance comparison[3][4]

Performance data 9M43C 9M46DF

IMO430608 IMO460601
1) Bore diameter [mm] 430 460
2) Stroke [mm] 610 610
3) Max cont. rating (Diesel/Gas) [kW] 9,000 8,100/8,685
4) Speed [rpm] 500 500
5) Minimum speed [rpm] 300 300
6) Brake mean effective pressure [bar] 27.1 22.8
7) Charge air pressure [bar] 3.65 4
8) Firing pressure [bar] 208 190

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9) Combustion air demand (ta = 20 °C) [m3/h] 49,410 51,425

10) Specific fuel oil consumption 100 % 176 185/7,350
Diesel/Gas + Pilot [g/kWh, kJ/kWh] 85 % 175 183/7,445
n = constant 75 % 177 184/7,490
50 % 184 188/7,740
25 % 192 203/9,030
11) Lubricating oil consumption [g/kWh] 0.6 0.6
12) NOx-Emission (Diesel/Gas) [g/kWh] 10 10.3/2.6
13) Methane slip, sp. Pilot oil injection 100% - 2.0/72
[%, kJ/kWh] 50% - 2.1/96
15% - 6.9/272
14) CO2 100% (Diesel/Gas) - 5.4/4.5
15) Turbocharger type ABB TPL 76 ABB TPL 76

4.1 POWER OUTPUT

As shown in Table 1 and engine description, the M46DF has power output of 965
kW/cyl for gas-mode and 900 kW/cyl for diesel-mode compared with M43C with 1000
kW/cyl, even though M46DF has a bigger bore dimension. This is caused by air-fuel
ratio limitation when burning gas.
4.2 SPECIFIC FUEL CONSUMPTION
Compared to 9M43C, 9M46DF-gas mode has 13% lower specific fuel consumption in
average (figure 2) with assumption of LHV is 49.39 MJ/kg[5]. Fuel consumption in
9M46DF engine-diesel mode is approximately 6% higher than in 9M43C pure diesel
engine.
The lower efficiency of M46DF in diesel mode is caused by a lower compression ratio.
It is set lower than M43C engine to optimize the engine performance in gas-mode and
to avoid knocking. This limits the temperature in the combustion chamber when running
on gas.
Figure 2 - Specific fuel consumption

9M46DF - gas mode 9M46DF - diesel mode 9M43C

210
Specific fuel cons [g/kWh]

200
190
180 avg. +4%
170
160 avg. -13%
150
140
25% 35% 45% 55% 65% 75% 85% 95%
Power Output

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4.3 AIR-FUEL RATIO

Initially, it seems that burning natural gas will generate higher heat of combustion due
to increased heating value of the fuel, but there is another factor that prevents high
temperature, which is the increase ofair-fuel ratio (AFR). The increase of AFR in the
combustion chamber leads to lower fuel percentage in the air-fuel mixture and decreases
the net heat in the combustion cycle.
Base on the thermodynamic analysis: the greater heating value of a fuel will result the
higher amount of air required to reach stoichiometric combustion[5]. Since dual-fuel
engine uses a very small amount of MGO for pilot fuel, the lower heating value for gas
+ pilot fuel can be assumed equal to natural gas’ LHV.
Engine’s AFR value could not be achieved due to Caterpillar’s confidentiality;
therefore, a more qualitative approach is performed. For easier analysis of combustion
engine, natural gas is assumed as 100% methane and 21% oxygen of total air. By
chemical analysis assumption: natural gas’ AFR is around 17.25 and HFO’s AFR is
around 14.4-14.7[5]. These numbers explain that more air is required to burn one
kilogram natural gas than to burn one kilogram HFO in stoichiometric condition.
With the bore of 460 mm, M46DF has 12.8 liter bigger swept volume per cylinder than
M43C. This is purposely designed to compensate the requirement of more air to achieve
stoichiometric combustion. 9M46DF-diesel mode energy input can closely compete
with 9M43C. However, the 9M46DF-gas mode energy input in the cylinder is still
lower by 5% than 9M43C.

5. CASE STUDY
The case study is aimed to make a simple payback period calculation of a specific
reference ship that uses MaK 9M43C diesel engine as the main propulsion engine
compared with a newly built ship with same specification, but using the MaK 9M46DF
dual fuel engine as the main propulsion engine.

5.1 SHIP DETAILS

The vessel chosen for the case study is “MT Henneke Rambow”, an 868 TEU container
vessel built in 2007.The main details of the ship can be seen in the following table:
Table 2 - Ship's Specification[6]

Main data Description

Type of vessel : Container ship
Classification : Germanischer Lloyd
Length overall : 134.44 m
Length BP : 124.76 m
Beam : 22.5 m
Depth : 11.3 m
Draught : 8.71 m
Tonnage : 9,981 GT
Deadweight : 11,274 DWT
Main engine : 9 M 43 C

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Propulsion : CPP
Max Speed : 18.5 knots
Auxiliaries : 1 x 856 kW
1 x 1,020 kW
Side thruster : Bow thruster 750 kW
Container capacity : 868 TEU
Reefer container capacity: 234 FEU

Figure 3 – Henneke Rambow[7]

5.2 DISTANCES AND SAILING ROUTE

A common container ship sailing route in North Sea and Baltic Sea with 100% ECA
operation is chosen for the reference vessel:

Antwerp–Rotterdam–Brunsbuttel–Kiel–Klaipeda-St.Petersburg–Helsinki-
Antwerp

The specific route is chosen due to LNG bunkering availability in the area and
information accessibility. All distances are calculated by using
NetpasDistance[8](software to calculate sailing distance and time between different
ports) with ship’s average speed assumption of 16 knots, approximately 85% from her
maximum speed.

Table 3 - Ship's route

Port name Distance [nm] Duration at sea [days]

Antwerp 0 0
Rotterdam 122 0.32
Brunsbuttel 266 0.69
Kiel Canal 35 0.09
Kiel 24 0.06
Klaipeda 398 1.04
St.Petersburg 479 1.25

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Helsinki 175 0.46

Antwerp 1,205 3.14
Total 2,703 7.04

Figure 4 - Ship's route and ports (from Netpas Distance software)

Main engine is assumed to be operated only at sea. Loading and discharging activities
are carried by in-land facility due to gearless ship. Fuel consumption of the auxiliary
engines will not be included in the further analysis.

5.3 LNG TANK DESIGN

LNG tank volume calculation details can be seen in the following table:

Table 4 - Assumptions for LNG tank volume calculation

Ship data
Type Container feeder
100% ECA
Operation route
0% non-ECA
Engine spec.
Engine rating 9M46DF
Power Output 8,685 kW
LNG Data
Specific density[9] 0.425 ton/m3
LHV[5] 49.39 MJ/kg
SFOC
MCR Gas mode Diesel mode
100% 7,350 kJ/kWh 185 g/kWh

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85% 7,445 kJ/kWh 183 g/kWh

75% 7,490 kJ/kWh 184 g/kWh
50% 7,740 kJ/kWh 188 g/kWh
25% 9,030 kJ/kWh 203 g/kWh
Tank Design
Net volume 82%
Load Profile
MCR Duration
100% 5%
85% 20%
75% 40%
50% 25%
25% 10%
SUM 100%

Typical maximum LNG tank filling is between 90- 95%. However, 82% is considered
as “safe design”[10].
Two reference scenarios will be conducted in the LNG tank volume calculation: round
trip endurance and half-round trip endurance. In round trip scenario, LNG bunkering
occurs in Antwerp, Belgium. Half-round trip endurance scenario is taken due to
LNG fuel tank investment cost reduction. Potential LNG bunkering infrastructure in
Helsinki or Tallinn in the future makes it possible to reduce the LNG fuel tank by
50%.
As stated before, dual fuel engine run with approximately 1% MGO as pilot fuel. The
total consumption of MGO may be calculated by taking 1% of the LNG fuel
consumption in mass unit.
The final decision of bunkering scenario is in the hands of ship operator or owner.
Common factors of the consideration are tank cost, reliability, voyage plan, and
unexpected risks.
The result of the calculation is given in the table below:
Table 5 - Calculation result for necessary tank volume

Ship's energy consumption

Gas mode 1,057 GJ/day
21 ton/day
50 m3/day
1,001 mmBTU/day
Pilot fuel - MGO (~ 1%) 0.21 ton/day
Diesel mode 25.87 ton/day
Round trip energy consumption
Round trip time 7 days/trip

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Gas mode 151 ton/trip

355 m3/trip
Pilot fuel - MGO (~ 1%) 2 ton/trip
Diesel mode - ton/trip
Necessary tank volume (Round trip + reserve)
Reserve 10 %
LNG tank 476 m3
15 GTC
Pilot fuel tank 2 m3

Necessary tank volume (Half-round trip + reserve)

LNG tank 238 m3

8 GTC
Pilot fuel tank 1 m3

Therefore 476 m3 tank capacity (15 GTC) is required for complete round trip and 238
m3(8 GTC) for half-round trip; both with 10% additional reserve volume. The term
GTC means Gas Tank Container and is defined in the following section.

5.4 LNG TANK TYPE AND LOCATION

Normally, the pressurized insulated and cylindrical type C tanks are preferred to store
LNG onboard of gas fueled ships. In this case, ISO LNG tank containers are used. The
result is a more flexible bunkering process with reduced risk for spill and incidents
during handling of the LNG fuel.

Figure 5 - Containerized LNG fuel tank[11]

The LNG containers imply a cargo space loss of 32 TEUs caused by 15 FEU LNG fuel
tank containers plus 1 FEU gas handling container (GHC). The GHC unit is placed on
the side of the fuel tanks and beside the sidewalk to have an easy access for the crews
onboard.

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The following figure shows the location of the fuel tank containers:
Figure 6 - LNG fuel tank placement

5.5 INITIAL INVESTMENT

Initial investment analysis is based on two scenarios of round trip and half-round trip.
Round trip is the condition that the tank volume is sufficient for a full voyage for 7.04
days and half-round trip is for 3.52 days. This factor will determine the total investment
cost for the LNG system onboard or usually called Capital Expense (CAPEX).
Investment cost consist seven components:
1. 9M46DF engine
2. LNG fuel tank (container type)
3. Piping system
4. Gas Handling Unit
5. Safety & unforeseen margin from vendor
6. Engineering cost
7. Other cost (ventilation, safety &monitoring, inert gas system)

Table 6 - Round-trip endurance investment cost (2014 price)

9M46DF + dual-fuel system 9M43C

*All price in USD
Round trip Half-round trip Round trip
Additional investment cost relative 8,900,000 6,600,000 0
to 9M43C propulsion system 3.4 X 2.8 X 1

The initial investment cost for dual-fuel system has to be returned with a lower
Operational Expense (OPEX) and will be discussed in the following section.

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5.6 PAYBACK PERIOD

Payback period calculation is performed by applying LNG bunker price as the variable.
No interest rate is applied.
This calculation is aimed to determine the time period in months: when the additional
initial investmentof dual-fuel system will be returned to the investor by saving fuel cost
in OPEX. Fuel cost saving is anticipated by using LNG as fuel in 9M46DF engine
compared to using MGO in 9M43C diesel engine.
Payback period calculation is performed with the following assumptions:
Table 7 - Payback period calculation assumptions

Ship data
Operation route 100% ECA
Operating hours/year 6,000 Hour
Engine spec.
Engine type 9M46DF
Manufacturer Caterpillar
Engine rating 8,685 kW

Annual fuel consumption

LNG 250,363 mmBTU/year
Pilot fuel MGO 53.53 ton/year
Fuel price (EU Gas Price 2014)[12]
LNG 4 $/mmBTU
MGO 500 $/ton
Charter Hire
T/C rate 8.19 $/TEU/day
[13]
(HAX Dec 2015)
Max. capacity 868 TEU
Charter rate 7,109 $/ day

Operating hours of 6,000 hours is assumed as a typical number for a container feeder in
North and Baltic Sea.
With above assumptions, a simple payback period calculation is performed for both
round trip and half-round trip scenario. Loss of earning due to LNG fuel tank space
consumption is also considered.
Table 8 - Payback period calculation

A) Additional investment cost

Total 8,900,000$
*6,600,000 $ for half-round trip
B) Annual fuel cost 9M46DF
LNG 1,000,000 $/year
Pilot fuel-MGO 30,000 $/year

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Total annual fuel cost 1,030,000 $/year

Loss of earning
Loss of container space 32 TEU
Loss of earning 100,000 $/year
*18 TEU for half-round trip
Annual cost 9M46DF
Fuel + loss of earning 1,120,000 $/year
C) Annual fuel cost 9M43C
Fuel cons. per day MGO 23 ton/day
Total cost MGO 2,900,000 $/year
D) Cost saving per year
Total cost saving 1,780,000 $/year
E) Payback period 60 months

It can be concluded that for round trip and half-round trip, the payback periodis 60
months and 44 months, respectively.
This whole calculation is repeated with same parameters for both round trip and half-
round trip scenario, except LNG fuel price and MGO price. LNG price varies from 3 to
8 $/mmBTU, and MGO price from 300 to 1,000 $/ton.
Table 9 - Payback period calculation result

Payback period in months LNG Price [$/mmBTU]

Round trip scenario 3 4 5 6 7 8
300 121 169 282 834 - -
400 73 88 112 152 235 527
500 52 60 70 83 104 137
600 41 45 51 57 66 79
MGO Price [$/ton]
700 33 36 40 44 49 55
800 28 30 33 35 39 43
900 25 26 28 30 32 35
1000 22 23 24 26 27 29

Payback period in months LNG Price [$/mmBTU]

Half round trip scenario 3 4 5 6 7 8
300 87 119 190 470 - -
400 53 64 80 107 161 326
500 38 44 51 60 74 97
600 30 33 37 42 48 57
MGO Price [$/ton]
700 25 27 29 32 36 40
800 21 22 24 26 28 31
900 18 19 21 22 24 26
1000 16 17 18 19 20 22

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The difference between LNG and MGO price is the main attention for this analysis: the
greater the gap, the faster the payback period. Both prices may vary depends on the
current market situation.
The half-round trip scenario always has a shorter payback period than round trip due to
lower initial investment. A 60 months boundary (thick line on Table 9) is taken as the
upper limit of payback period.
For every each different case, the ship will have different parameter that will affect the
calculation, such as load profile, voyage route, and LNG tank capacity. The table above
could only be used as a rough benchmark for other cases. Each case should be
calculated with specific inputs to have more accurate result.

6. CONCLUSION
LNG as marine fuel is one of the solutions to meet SOx and NOx emission regulation,
but not the only solution. LNG offers environmental performance superior to any other
feasible marine fuel with approximately: 85% reduction of NOx, 20-25% reduction of
CO2, almost 100% reduction of SOx and particulate matters.
In the technical performance, dual-fuel engine has 3.5% lower power output compared
with conventional diesel engine in the same category, which leads to lower power
density. Dual-fuel engine also has lower specific fuel consumption in gas mode
compared with diesel engine, but higher fuel consumption when running in diesel mode.
Additional investment cost is significantly affected by dual-fuel engine price and LNG
tank quantity. Total investment for dual-fuel system is approximately 3 times higher
than conventional diesel engine.
From the economic perspective, payback period is primarily driven by the bunker price
difference between MGO and LNG, required initial investment, and ECA operational
time. However, due to low MGO price currently, which causes no significant difference
to LNG price, has made LNG not a favorable solution consequently. The higher the fuel
price difference, the more attractive LNG will be.
In the case study, payback period of the reference vessel with LNG price of 4
$/mmBTU and MGO price of 500 $/ton is 60 months for round-trip scenario and 44
months for half-round trip scenario.
To maximize the advantage of dual-fuel engine, the ship should operate in ECA as long
as possible to minimize fuel cost, thus shorter payback period. Diesel mode operation
should only be used in an emergency situation.

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REFERENCES
[1] IMO. Third IMO Greenhouse Gas Study 2014. London: International Maritime
Organization, 2014. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
[2] Imo.org, (2016). IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee meets for 66th
session. [online] Available at:
http://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/08-
MEPC66preview.aspx#.VsRNj7R97cs [Accessed 17 Feb. 2016].
[3] MaK. (2012). M 43 C Project Guide.
[4] MaK. (2015). M 46 DF Project Guide.
[5] Jafari, H. H., & Farhanieh, B. (2009). Thermodynamic Analysis of Replacing
Gas Oil with Natural Gas in Diesel Engine.
[6] S7d2.scene7.com, (2016). Henneke Rambow. [online] Available at:
http://s7d2.scene7.com/is/content/Caterpillar/C10709784 [Accessed 24 Feb.
2016].
[7] Ship-dreams, (2016). Henneke Rambow. [image] Available at: http://www.ship-
dreams.de/galerie/index.php/Container-Feeder-1500-TEU/Container-Feeder-
1500-TEU/Container-Feeder-1500-TEU/H/Henneke-Rambow/Henneke-
Rambow-01[Accessed 17 Feb. 2016].
[8] Netpas.net, (2016). Netpas - For your Smart Maritime Business. [online]
Available at: https://www.netpas.net/ [Accessed 24 Feb. 2016].
[9] Argus, (2014). Global LNG. LNG MARKETS, PROJECTS AND
INFRASTRUCTURE. [online] London: Argus Media, p.27. Available at:
https://www.argusmedia.com/Natural-Gas-LNG/Argus-Global-
LNG/~/media/B531F44A30B84157B68106052DE078C0.ashx [Accessed 26
Feb. 2016].
[10] Gillert, G. (2014). Dual-fuel engine Fuel System.
[11] MS. (2012). LNG Fuel Tank Container for Ships.
[12] DNV.GL, (2015). Current price development oil and gas.
[13] VHSS, (2016). HAMBURG INDEX© Containership T/C-Rates Results 2009 -
2016. [online] Available at:
http://www.vhss.de/fileadmin/user_upload/hax/HH_Index_2016.pdf [Accessed
17 Feb. 2016].

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CLEANING OF HYDROGRAPHIC DATA FOR DETERMINATION OF

THE WATERWAYS’ SEABED

Artur Makar
Institute of Navigation and Hydrography, Polish Naval Academy, Gdynia, Poland

Abstract

Multibeam echosouner MBES is a hi-tech hydroacoustic device which enables

acquisition of enormous amount of spatial data during hydrographic surveys. Variable
sound speed in water influences the inflection of the acoustic rays transmitted by the
multibeam transducer. Beams are diagonally skewed from the plumb line and cause
significant errors in depth measurement process as well as in determination of
reflection points on the seabed. The edges of the surveyed belt carry the highest risk of
errors. Therefore for a flat seabed surface the radiation sector for a beam equals 60-70
degrees. With each profile line the surveyed areas overlap.
Cleaning of data is one of the stages of the analysis of sea survey results conducted with
a multibeam echosounder. Its main purpose is to erase major errors and initially
smoothen the produced surface. Available methods allow manual, semi-automatic and
automatic clarification of data. The article introduces the issues of bathymetric data
cleansing in order to minimize potential errors in sea surface delineation, especially of
waterway.

Keywords:
cleaning of data, multibeam echosounder, seabed, waterway

INTRODUCTION

The safety at sea and the maritime safety are, among other things, the safety of people,
ships and transported goods and the safety of sea environment. Fundamental institutions
creating the infrastructure of seafaring are enterprises of transportation of people and
goods, ports and marines and institutions of national maritime services. On the other
hand institution of maritime safety and shipping protection services, named maritime
services or operational maritime services i.a. maritime administration, navigational
infrastructure service, hydrographic service, service of maritime safety information and
distress on the sea, Search and Rescue, Vessel Traffic Management System, Vessel
Traffic Monitoring and Information System [2, 3].
Realization of navigational-hydrographic and oceanographic-meteorological support
should provide accurate, useful and reliable maritime geospatial information
(navigational-hydrographic and oceanographic-meteorological) needed in a process of
situation analyze and making the decision during planning and realization navigational
processes and optimal using natural environment conditions.
For achieving these aims, basic tasks of navigational - hydrographic and oceanographic
- meteorological support are following [2, 3]:

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− environmental recognizing (hydrographic, oceanographic and meteorological),

− realization and controlling of hydrographic surveys and oceanographic
measurements,
− collecting, processing, analyzing and storage the data of maritime geospatial
information,
− circulating of information and products of maritime geospatial information.
Modern measurement systems used for realization of hydrographic tasks are mainly
multibeam echosounders and side scan sonars for measurements in water and satellite
positioning systems for determination the position of reflected point of acoustic wave
on a sea bottom.

SEABED CONTROL – HYDROGRAPHIC SURVEYS OF WATERWAYS AND

PORT AREAS

Bathymetric uncertainty management involves both the design of a bathymetric system and
the evaluation of results and products derived from bathymetric data. Uncertainties are of
three fundamentally different types: accidental, systematic and random. Each type must be
dealt with differently. A common characteristic shared by all three, however, is that the
reliability with which we can determine uncertainty is completely dependant upon the
degree to which the bathymetric data is redundant (repeated measurements of the same
seabed feature, or even footprint, which can be directly compared to ascertain consistency).

Using multibeam echosounder, the fundamental source of errors and uncertainties is the
refraction of the acoustic wave of beams diagonally skewed from the plumb line. It is a
result of variation of the sound speed in water. Extreme skewed beams diffract to lower
value of the sound speed. The sound speed changes in day and season periods in
relation to the water temperature in selected water layers.
Another factor influences on uncertainty is the width of the beam: increasing angle of
the beamwidth and the depth, interference significantly increases. Before survey angle
sector of transmitted beams is calculated, during survey is corrected and “illuminated”
sea bottom area is determined. For a flat seabed surface the radiation sector for a beam
equals 60-70 degrees.
In Fig. 1 bathymetry of the sounding area and the vertical slice with uncertain
bathymetric data of neighboring swathes have been presented. The spatial visualization
of the sea bottom on the basis of the raw data is shown in Fig. 2.
Figure 1 – Bathymetry of the sounding area (left) and the vertical slice (right)

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Figure 2 – The spatial visualization of the sea bottom on the basis of the raw data
collected using a multibeam echosounder

CLEANING METHODS OF BATHYMETRIC DATA OBTAINED BY

MULTIBEAM ECHOSOUNDER USING 3D SPLINE FILTER

For cleaning the bathymetric data can be used following profiles [4, 6, 7]:

− extremely high detail survey,

− profiles based on IHO S–44 Standard requirements using 3D surface spline
algorithm,
− NL NORM A and B Survey dedicated to Dutch Rijkswaterstaa,
− dedicated to specific multibeam echosounders: Kongsberg EM 3000 Series and
Reson 8000 Series.
In cleaning profiles can be used methods for disabling soundings above or below certain
level, flagged during recording, soundings that belong to a certain beam ID. There is
also possible to correct the refraction of the acoustic wave or use Surface Spline Filter
and Qlean++ method [4, 6, 7].
Surface Spline Filter basis on IHO S–44 requirements and guidelines: a sounding is
flagged if the depth uncertainty [5, 8] 𝑥𝑥 > √𝑎𝑎2 + 𝑏𝑏ℎ, where

− SMA Exclusive Order (0–20m) a = 0.15 b = 0.0040

− Special Order (0–20m) a = 0.25 b = 0.0075
− First Order (20–50m) a = 0.50 b = 0.0130
− Second Order (50–100m) a = 1.00 b = 0.0230
− Extremely High Detail (0–10m) a = 0.05 b = 0.0020

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Figure 3 – IHO S-44 guidelines for outlier detection

h = water depth
x

For example, for Swedish Maritime Administration SMA Exclusive Order and the
depth of 20m: x = 32cm and for Second Order and the depth of 100m: x =1.82m.
Depth uncertainty for IHO Special Order, SMA Exclusive Order and Extremely High
Detail for the depth up to 20m have been shown in Fig. 4. Extremely High Detail has
been shown in two colors: for 0 – 10m in relation to specific range of the depth and for
10–20m range as a prediction for comparison to IHO Special Order, SMA Exclusive
Order.

RESULTS
The data recorded through hydrographic surveys of a waterway has been cleaned. The
sea bottom is irregular and a slope is visible. On the basis of IHO S–44 guidelines [5]
the depth uncertainty for IHO Special Order, SMA Exclusive Order and Extremely
High Detail have been calculated and presented in Fig. 4.

Figure 4 – Depth uncertainty for IHO Special Order, SMA Exclusive

Order and Extremely High Detail

0,5
Special Order (0-20m)
depth uncertainty [m]

0,4

0,3 SMA Exclusive Order (0-20m)

0,2
Extremely High Detail (0-10m)
0,1

0
0 5 10 15 20
depth [m]

The data have been cleaned using presented profiles dedicated to shallow water and
Special and Exclusive Orders and Extremely High Detail. Slope of a waterway cleaned
using IHO Special Order profile has been presented in Fig. 5: red points are uncertain
with relation to IHO S–44 guidelines [5] and have been deleted by the filter (Fig. 6).

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Figure 5 – Slope of a waterway during cleaning using IHO Special

Order profile

Figure 6 – Slope of a waterway after cleaning using IHO Special

Order profile

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Figure 7 – The spatial visualization of the slope of a waterway during

cleaning using IHO Special Order profile

CONCLUSIONS

Data cleaning describes methods used to deal with accidental uncertainties, (also called
mistakes, blunders, or outliers). Comparison of a suspected outlier with its geographical
nearest neighboring data points (taking hydrographic judgment into account) is the most
powerful data-cleaning tool. A rule of thumb which has emerged for cleaning high
density bathymetric data is that real features are distinguished from points created
accidentally according to whether multiple consistent data points in close proximity are
observed or not.
Uncertainty data used for preparing paper charts and ENCs can cause a risk of contact
with the seabed and damage to the construction of the vessel. On 1 June 2013 the vessel
Twinkle Island of the Marshall Islands flag on its way from the Port Północny in
Gdańsk to Hamburg with a full cargo of coal hit the bottom east of the entrance into the
traffic separation scheme at the TSS Slupska Bank.
Polish hydrographic services had not detected the ill-fated shallows on the Polish
territorial sea, because the sea bottom sounding method which was applied during the
last sounding in that region, in 1992-1993, was based on measuring the depth on
profiles - parallel lines spaced at a specific distance, every 500 m, in this case. With this
method of sounding the objects and shallow areas found between the lines could not be
detected and presented on charts.
It was not until the adoption by Poland of the obligations resulting from the
Copenhagen Declaration of 2001 to develop a plan of systematic soundings of major
shipping routes to ensure safe navigation in accordance with the standard S-44 of the
International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) which forced a change in the method of
hydrographic surveys in the Polish maritime areas, in the regions most frequented by
ships (including those to the south of the Slupska Bank). The imposed IHO standard S-
44 assumes that at depths to 100 m soundings should cover full sea floor.

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On 16 June 2013 the hydrographic vessel of the Polish Navy, ORP Arctowski, made
measurements of the sea depth in the place indicated by the Commission in the early
alert. As a result, four shallows were detected using multibeam echosounder and
cleaning data methods.

REFERENCES

[1] C-13 Manual on Hydrography, 1st Edition (Corrections to February 2011):

International Hydrographic Organization, Monaco; 2011.
[2] Czaplewski K, Nitner H. Zabezpieczenie nawigacyjno - hydrograficzne dla
potrzeb Marynarki Wojennej RP: Zeszyty Naukowe AMW, nr 3 (182), Gdynia
2010.
[3] Kopacz Z, Morgaś W, Urbański J. The Maritime Safety System; Its
Components and Elements. The Journal of Navigation No 2, 2001.
[4] Liedtke W. Filtering the bathymetric data obtained using a multibeam
echosounder: Engineering dissertation, Polish Naval Academy; 2015.
[5] S-44 Standards for Hydrographic Surveys: International Hydrographic
Organization, Monaco; 2008.
[6] QINSy Quick start. A Total Hydrographic Solution: Quality Positioning
Services, Zeist, The Netherlands; 2006.
[7] Quick Start QLoud. Data Editing Tool: Quality Positioning Services, Zeist, The
Netherlands; 2006.
[8] Ruuben T, Derkats J. Some Methods of Signal Processing and Beamforming in
Hydrographic Applications: Electronics and Electrical Engineering, No. 6(86);
2008.

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TOWARDS NEW TECHNOLOGY IN VALVE MAINTENANCE

Ángel Varela (I), Eduard Montseny (II), Ramón Grau (III)

(I) PhD Student. Department of Nautical Science and Engineering. Barcelona School of
Nautical Studies, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. BarcelonaTech.
Correspondent author and presenter
(II) PhD. Department of Automatic Control and Computer Engineering. Barcelona
School of Nautical Studies, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. BarcelonaTech.
(III) PhD. Department of Nautical Science and Engineering. Barcelona School of
Nautical Studies, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. BarcelonaTech.
anvage@gmail.com

Abstract
The main objective of this paper is to present an innovative technology for valve
maintenance on ships. Maintenance benefits from a wide range of technologies, which
have often been developed for a different purpose. One of the new tools, which has led
to significant advances in the nuclear industry and energy plants, will be described in
this paper. It provides methodologies to evaluate motor operated valves functioning
under various conditions including design basis.
Valve diagnostics make it possible to implement a condition based maintenance
program, avoiding typically more extensive preventive maintenance procedures.

Keywords
Valve, predictive maintenance, diagnostic test, technological transfer.

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1. INTRODUCTION and BACKGROUND.

1.1 INTRODUCTION.

Good practices in nuclear power plants provide methods and ideas for improving
plant performance and safety based on practices that have been proved to be effective at
other member stations.
Valve diagnostics make it possible to provide the following plant improvements:

• Process efficiency and productivity gains

• Minimization of valve failures
• Spare parts inventory reduction
• Decrease in labour costs

It should be clear that a ship driven by a steam turbine is very similar to an energy plant
with a steam turbine and it is also very similar from a technical point of view in terms of
its equipment and system processes.
We think that the diagnostic valve is a condition based maintenance technology for
improving maintenance strategies in the naval industries.

1.2.BACKGROUND.

1.2.1. Motor Operated Valves (MOV) History of the issue.

In the early 1980s, both Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear
industry realized that MOV problems are generic in nature and require generic
solutions, as mentioned in EPRI MOV Performance Prediction Program. (1)
The Action Plan was developed to provide a comprehensive and integrated plan for
the actions now judged necessary by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to
correct or improve the regulation and operation of nuclear facilities based on the
experience of the accident at TMI-2 and the official studies and investigations of the
accident.
In the 1990s, EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) conducted a research
program to develop advanced methods for evaluating the performance of common
motor-operated gate, globe, and butterfly valves used in nuclear power plants. The
program was called the EPRI Motor-Operated Valve (MOV) Performance Prediction
Program. (1)
The MOV Performance Prediction Program provides a validated methodology for
predicting the performance of common motor operated gate, globe and butterfly valves
in power plant applications. This satisfies the utilities desire for an improved approach
to analytically demonstrate MOV capability at design basis conditions.
Although the EPRI program focused on predicting the performance of existing in-plant
MOVs, it also provided many insights related to valve design and manufacture.

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1.2.2. Power Operated Valve Problems.

The industry realized that MOV had some problems:

• Improperly sized motor operated valves (MOVs)

• Higher than expected operational force requirements

• Valve damage during operation

• Identification of other degradation mechanisms that reduce functional margins

• Butterfly valves hydrodynamic/aerodynamic torque predictions were unreliable

1.2.3. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requirements.

1.2.3.1. The Generic Letter 89-10 and seven supplements:”Safety Related Motor
Operated Valve Testing and Surveillance” (2)
The G.L. 89-10 was issued because valve problems and MOV research revealed that the
focus of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Code on stroke time
and leak-rate testing for MOVs was not sufficient to ensure safety. The NRC requested
that licensees ensure that the MOVs in safety related systems are capable of performing
their functions by:

• Reviewing MOV design bases,

The design-basis review should not be restricted to a determination of estimated
maximum design-basis differential pressure, but should include an examination
of the pertinent design and installation criteria that were used in choosing the
particular MOV. For example, the review should include the effects on MOV
performance of design-basis degraded voltage, including the capability of the
MOV's power supply and cables to provide the high initial current needed for the
operation of the MOV.

• Verifying MOV switch settings initially and periodically (to account for time
dependent degradation),
One purpose of this letter is to ensure that a program exists for selecting and
setting valve operator switches to ensure high reliability of safety-related MOVs.
Whether the switch settings are changed or not, the MOV should be
demonstrated to be operable by testing it at the design-basis differential pressure
and/or flow determined. Prepare or revise procedures to ensure that correct
switch settings are determined and maintained throughout the life of the plant.
These procedures should include provisions to monitor MOV performance to
ensure the switch settings are correct. This is particularly important if the torque
or torque bypass switch setting has been significantly raised above that required.
It may become necessary to adjust MOV switch settings because of the effects of
wear or aging.

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• Testing MOVs under design basis conditions where practicable,

Documentation of explanations and the description of actual test methods should
be retained as part of the required records for the MOV. This documentation
should include the maximum differential pressure expected during both the
opening and closing of the MOV for both normal operations and abnormal
events, to the extent that these MOV operations and events are included in the
existing approved design basis.

• Improving evaluations of MOV failures and necessary corrective actions,

and trending MOV performance and problems.

• Testing and Surveillance

• Review and document the design basis for the operation of each MOV.

1.2.3.2.In the Generic Letter 96-05 “Periodic verification of design-basis capability of

safety-related motor-operated valves” (3)
The NRC staff requested licensees to establish a program, or ensure the
effectiveness of their current program, to periodically verify that safety-related
MOVs continue to be capable of performing their safety functions within the current
licensing basis of the facility. The provisions in GL 96-05 superseded the long-term
aspects of GL 89-10.

1.2.4. CSN requirements.

In Spain, the Consejo Seguridad Nuclear (CSN) also requested that licensees of nuclear
power plants ensure that the MOVs in safety related systems are capable of performing
their functions.

1.2.5. State of the art on the ships.

Nowadays, in maritime industry, maintenance strategies depend on flag, ship type and
ship class.

Exigencies of international regulations and internal shipowner strategies also determine

the degree of standards applied in each type of ship.

Constructors using systems and equipment technologically advanced make more

attention to the newest advances in maintenance, like diagnostic test in the most
sophisticated and critical equipment, using Condition Based Maintenance, but in naval
sector, the valve diagnostic testing systems don't exist.

A good maintenance plan based on valve diagnostic test in critical valves could
avoid valve disassemblies of preventive maintenance, reduce losses of time and costs in
case of failure which could be identified by diagnostic test, and finally, this kind of
maintenance could achieve a spare parts inventory reduction.

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2. PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES

2.1.Purpose.
The EPRI MOV Performance Prediction Program provides validated methods that have
been shown to appropriately bound thrust/torque requirements for common gate, globe,
and butterfly valves as well as several alternative approaches for accommodating
potential "rate-of-loading" effects on actuator output thrust.
The research conducted as part of this program has resulted in a giant step forward in
the general understanding of MOV behaviour and the ability to predict MOV
performance.
The valve diagnostic testing systems have been developed to determine the condition of
the valve and actuator by monitoring the signals representing stem thrust and torque,
spring pack displacement, motor current, control switches, differential pressure and
flow rates. This information is used both to determine operability and to pinpoint
problem areas of the valve and actuator that require maintenance or repair.
2.2.Objectives.
The valve diagnostic testing program included the following phases:

• A plan of static diagnostic testing of safety-related MOVs at a frequency based

on risk and margin.
• A program to evaluate potential valve degradation with dynamic diagnostic
tests. (in situ or Motor Control Center Testing)
• Evaluation of MOV failures and necessary corrective actions, and trending
MOV performance and problems.

All methodology development activities, as well as testing activities that were used for
methodology validation, were conducted in accordance with U.S. Federal Government,
Code of Federal Regulations, 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Quality Assurance
Requirements. (4)

3. DESCRIPTION OF TECHNOLOGY

This section presents a brief introduction to MOV. The intent is to provide general
background information, including the principal components of a motor-operated valve.
On the other hand we’ll present valve diagnostic test.

3.1.Description and introduction to MOV.

3.1.1. MOV Assembly, Figure 1

• Valve
• Mechanical operator
• Yoke

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• Motor
• Switch compartment
• Hand wheel

Figure 1: Motor operated valve

Source: EPRI TR-106563-V1 (5)

3.1.2. Gate valve

Components of a typical bolted bonnet gate valve are shown in Figure 2
They include the following:

• Valve body
• Bonnet
• Yoke
• Stem packing
• Gland
• Stem
• Disc
• Backseat
• T-slot connection
• Seat rings

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Figure 2: Bolted bonnet gate valve

Source: EPRI TR-106563-V1 (5)

Stem packing is used to seal the stem opening in the bonnet, and the gland is used to
pre-load the stem-packing. The packing may be either live loaded (for example, by
Belleville springs) or torque preloaded. Figure 3
Figure 3: Stem packing with Belleville springs

Source: EPRI TR-106563-V1 (5)

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3.1.3. Motor Operator

A mechanical operator converts the rotary motion and torque provided by the motor into
stem nut rotation and torque to operate the valve. Figures 4 & 5
The major components of the mechanical operator are as follows:

• Gear train
• Stem nut
• Lost motion device (hammer blow)
• Spring pack
• Hand wheel
• Compensating spring pack
Figure 4: Mechanical operator, model SMB

Source: Limitorque SMB (6)

Figure 5: Mechanical operator assembly model SMB

Source: Limitorque SMB (6)

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3.1.4. Gear Train

Figure 6 shows a simplified motor operator. The motor shaft is oriented at a 90o angle
with respect to the threaded valve stem. The figure shows the motor, motor shaft, gear
train, and threaded stem nut and stem. The gear train includes the speed changing
(helical) gears, worm, and worm gear.
Together these components provide the stem nut torque, stem thrust, and stem speed.

Figure 6: Simplified Motor Operator

Source: EPRI TR-106563-V1 (5)

3.1.5. Spring Pack

Figure 7 shows a spring pack assembly that is used to measure motor operator output
torque.
The spring pack uses stacked, preloaded Belleville springs. The worm is internally
splined to match the splined worm shaft and is free to slide back and forth except that it
is restrained by the spring pack. Thrust washers on each end of the spring pack are
arranged so that the spring pack can be compressed in either direction of axial worm
movement. The limiter sleeve limits the maximum compression of the spring pack
length to prevent damage to the Belleville springs. The spring pack will not compress if
the worm axial load is less than preload.
The spring pack also acts as a shock absorber to reduce the inertial loads on the gearing
by allowing the motor and gearing to slow down gradually after the valve disc is fully
seated and stem nut rotation ceases. As a result, some of the kinetic energy of the
rotating masses is absorbed by the compression of the compression of the spring pack.

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Figure 7: Motor operator showing spring pack and thrust washers.

Source: EPRI TR-106563-V1 (5)

3.1.6. Motorized Actuators

Motor-operated valves (MOVs) are provided with reversible ac or dc electric motor
actuators. The electric motors are normally 15-minute duty motors and rarely are
continuous duty motors. Typically, the motor delivers torque and rotation through a
reduction gear arrangement to turn the stem nut, which causes the threaded valve stem
to move to either open or close the valve. Figure 4 is a cutaway view of an electric
motor actuator, which shows the electric motor, the reduction gears, the stem nut and
the valve stem. Figure 6 shows a simplified schematic of the operation of an electric
motor actuator. In gate valves, the stem speed is generally 12 inches per minute (305
mm/min). In globe valves, the stem speed is generally 4 inches per minute (102
mm/min).

3.1.7. Approach for wedge gate valve.

Required stem thrust consists of several components such as:

• stem and disc assembly weight

• packing friction

• stem rejection force (piston effect)

• torque reaction friction

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• differential pressure force, which is usually the most significant

component of the stem thrust

The approach used by the model is based on first principles, and is similar to the
industry approach summarized in the EPRI/NMAC Application Guide for Motor-
Operated Valve in Nuclear Power Plants (5)
The approach involves evaluating each term that contributes to the required stem thrust
and then calculating the total required stem thrust by combining the terms.

3.2.Diagnostic equipment and methods.

3.2.1. Introduction.
Proper assessment of valve condition or malfunction is highly dependent on the tools
used for diagnosis. Based on the diagnostic methods used, the assessment can be either
qualitative or quantitative and either static or dynamic.
In 1985, not many tools were available that could easily quantify the required thrust or
torque to actuate a valve. Since then, several tools have been developed and refined to
the point where accurate quantification of required thrust or torque is now easily
achievable. (7)
Diagnostic equipment in most cases is temporarily mounted or attached to the
valve/actuator but can also be permanently mounted for continuous monitoring.
Permanent monitoring is used on valves that:

• Have low operating margins

• Need to be trended
• Have high safety significance
• Are located in high radiation areas or are difficult to access
• Require excessive maintenance or have random problems
• Are critical to power generation
• Require leakage assessment and correlation to thrust

3.2.2. Methods for Measuring Stem Thrust/Torque

Diagnostic methods include: sensing spring pack displacement, yoke strain, and stem
strain or installing a load measurement device between the actuator base and the yoke
upper flange.

3.2.2.1.Spring Pack Displacement.

Stem torque measurements and stem thrust estimates are most easily performed using
spring pack displacement. Figure 8. This method indirectly measures stem torque by
sensing spring pack axial displacement and correlating it to the tangential force on the

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actuator worm gear. Using the worm gear geometry of the actuator, this tangential force
is then converted to stem torque.
Using spring pack displacement to measure stem torque is limited to Limitorque
actuators. Figure 9
Thrust measurements using this device are not accurate because of assumptions made in
the stem thread coefficient of friction, internal losses in the actuator, and the method of
calibration. Inaccuracies as high 40% have been observed in some installations.

Figure 8: MOV with torque sensor

Source: Teledyne. Inc. (8)

Figure 9: Spring pack sensor

Source: Teledyne. Inc (8)

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3.2.2.2.Strain Measurement of the Yoke Legs.

With this method, stem thrust is determined indirectly by measuring the strain in the
yoke legs. Figure10. This is accomplished by mounting strain sensors (such as strain
gauges) on the yoke legs and then correlating the measured strain to stem thrust. No
stem torque measurements can be made using this method, and the calibration range in
the valve opening direction is limited because of the technique used to calibrate the
strain in the yoke legs. Primary calibration of the yoke strain is achieved by loading the
disc against the seat, which subjects the yoke legs to tension. In the opening direction,
the amount of load is only a fraction of the closing direction load, which limits the
calibration range.
Stem thrust measurement using yoke leg strain is limited to valves installed with the
stems in the vertical orientation. This measurement technique is quite sensitive to lateral
load on the yoke, and care must be taken to minimize lateral load effects.
This method of measuring stem load does not require any modifications to the valve or
actuator but does require calibration of yoke strain before each test.
Figure 10: Strain sensors on the yoke legs

Source: Author

3.2.2.3.Strain Measurement of the Stem.

Strain measurement of the stem is the most accurate and direct method of determining
stem thrust/torque. This is accomplished by directly mounting strain gauges on the stem
or by attaching a strain sensing transducer to the stem. Figure11. Axial strain sensors are
easily installed, require no modification to either the valve or actuator, and can be
installed on either the smooth or threaded portion of the stem. However, axial strain
sensors may affect the stroke length of the valve due to their relatively larger size.

Strain sensing transducers can measure only axial strain in the stem; thus, they are
capable only of measuring stem thrust. Strain gauges mounted directly on the stem can
yield individual measurements of thrust and torque.

Two methods are used to attach strain gauges on the stem. In the first method, the strain
gauges are pre-mounted on a strip which is then bonded to the stem. This method allows

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installation on the stem without removing the stem from the valve, but it yields
measurement accuracies of about +/- 5%.

In the second method, the strain gauges are bonded directly to the stem, which typically
requires that the stem be removed from the valve. Bonding the strain gauges directly on
the stem yields the highest accuracy in measurement, especially when the stem is
removed from the valve. Accuracies as high as +/- 0.5% are typically achievable with
directly mounted strain gauges.

The disadvantage of this method is that the strain gauges may interfere with valve
stroking if there is insufficient stem length between the bottom of the actuator and the
top of the packing follower. If complete stroking is required and the smooth portion of
the stem is not long enough, then some of the stem threads may have to be removed to
permit installation of the gauges at the thread root diameter. Depending on available
space, threads can be machined using special tools without removing the stem from the
valve.

Figure 11: Strain gage location on gate valve stem

Source: Teledyne. Inc. (9)

3.2.2.4.Load Measurement at the Actuator Base

Stem thrust and torque can also be determined by measuring the load at the base of the
actuator. This measurement is attained by mounting a precalibrated sensor between the
actuator and valve yoke upper flange. Mounting of the sensor requires that the actuator
be removed from the valve and can only be used in valves that have enough stem length
to accommodate the displaced height of the actuator. Although thrust and torque
measurement accuracies as high as +/- 0.5% can be attained using this device,
displacing the actuator from its normal position subjects different stem threads to load at
the fully closed position than those in contact during normal valve operation without the
sensors in place. The effect of this difference is that the stem factor at the closed
position may be different, resulting in different closing thrusts for the same torque
switch setting.

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The advantage of this method is that it can be used on almost any type of valve or
actuator if the stem is long enough to permit actuator engagement throughout the valve
stroke. One size unit can be used on several actuator sizes by the use of simple flange
adapters. This method is commonly used to measure quarter-turn valve (butterfly and
ball valves) torque and to calibrate strain gauged stems and yokes
3.2.2.5.Electric Motor Power Monitor
Changes in MOV performance can be measured using electric motor power traces.
During initial static/dynamic valve testing, motor power traces are captured and
archived. These traces are then compared against subsequent traces to determine
changes in valve/actuator performance.
Sensors used to measure motor power require no modifications to the valve or actuator,
can be easily removed or installed even during plant operation, and are relatively
inexpensive compared to other means of monitoring MOV performance.
The disadvantage of electric motor power traces is that they provide a measure of
overall MOV performance and changes in the traces cannot be easily attributed to either
the valve or electric actuator.

3.2.2.6.Data acquisition.
Signals from each of the sensors described above can be captured, archived, and
analyzed using computerized portable data acquisition systems. These systems typically
acquire up to eight different signals at nominal rates of 1,000 samples per second.
Depending on the system configuration, sampling duration, and the number of channels
acquired, these data systems can capture data at rates as high as 100,000 samples per
second; however, sample rates of 1,000 per second are usually fast enough to capture
transient valve and actuator characteristics.

Generally, these systems are used to acquire the following signals:

• Stem thrust
• Stem torque
• Motor current
• Torque switch trip
• Spring pack displacement
• Pressure
• Flow rate
• Stem position
• Motor torque
• Motor speed
• Diaphragm/piston pressure
• Acoustic level
• Sound level
• Temperature

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Data acquisition is normally initiated manually by the test engineer but can also be
triggered automatically. Automatic triggering is accomplished by initiating data
acquisition when a threshold value is exceeded in the selected channels. However, false
indications can create problems with automatic triggering because data acquisition can
be initiated by spurious signal spikes. Most data acquisition systems can also export the
data for use with other data analysis software.

3.2.2.7.Electrical measurements and reference mechanical data. Figure 12

Figure 12: Motor measurements and stem force

Source: Author

3.2.2.8.Summary. Figure 13
Significant technological advances have been made in diagnostic equipment for various
types of valves. These advances provide the user with more options and accuracy to
assess the condition and determine the performance of the valve/actuator.
Permanent installation of diagnostic equipment permits continuous monitoring of
valve/actuator performance during plant operation to verify and trend valve
performance, minimize radiation exposure, and improve plant availability.

Figure 13: Diagnostic methods

Diagnostic
Application Accuracy Limitation Advantages Disadvantages
Method
Limited
Stem torque
Spring Pack Inaccuracies Limitorque
Limitorque actuators. measurements easily this device is not accurate
Displacement as high 40% actuators.
performed
It depend of
Strain calibration
Stem torque can’t Not require any Limited to valves installed
Measurement The thrust is determined yoke strain
be made using modifications to the with the stems in the
of the Yoke indirectly before each
this method valve or actuator vertical orientation
Legs test.

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Strain The strain gauges may

Accurately Direct method of
Measurement as high as interfere with valve
measure applied stem length determining stem
of the Stem +/- 0.5% stroking if there is
stem thrust/torque thrust/torque
insufficient stem length
This method is
commonly used to
Load
measure quarter-turn Direct method. Mounting of the sensor
Measurement
valve (butterfly and ball as high as It can be used on requires that the actuator
at the stem length
valves) torque and to +/- 0.5% almost any type of be removed from the valve
Actuator Base
calibrate strain gauged valve or actuator in existing plants.
stems and yokes

Sensors used to
Relatively Measure of overall MOV
Electric measure motor
Static/dynamic valve inexpensive performance and changes
Motor Power < 1% of power require no
testing, motor power compared to other in the traces cannot be
Monitor reading modifications to
traces means of monitoring easily attributed to either
the valve or
MOV performance the valve or actuator
actuator

Source: Author

3.2.3. Diagnostic equipments.

Several Valve Testing Products can be found in different engineering services:

• Teledyne Inc. (QUIKLOOK 3 Valve Diagnostic System)

• Crane. (Votes® Infinity Valve Diagnostic System),
• Kalsi engineering. (MOV test stand)
• Others

4. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.

For nearly two decades the technological leaders in nuclear industries have been
pioneers in the development of measurement and analysis tools used to obtain accurate
and reliable valve test data.
4.1.SMARTSTEM (Teledyne. Inc.)
Description: The SMARTSTEM measures stem thrust and/or torque using bonded
resistance strain gages directly mounted to the valve stem. SMARTSTEM transducers,
Figure 14, are direct replacements of the valve stems supplied by the valve
manufacturers.
Figure 14: Teledyne Smartstem

Source: Teledyne. Inc. (10)

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4.2.Condition monitoring. Figure 15

Figure 15: On-line-Stroke monitoring.

Source: Teledyne. Inc. (10)

4.3.Testing from the Motor Control Center.(MCC)

CRANE MC2 TM testing technology was developed to assist plants in meeting the
challenge of reducing valve testing costs. Designed to increase the performance,
reliability and safe operation of motor-operated valves; MC2 TM technology uses data
acquired from the motor control center to determine the condition and operability of the
MOV. Employing both time and frequency, domain signature analysis allows personnel
to quickly and accurately identify the valve condition. By performing this type of non-
traditional diagnostic testing with an easy-to- implement test process, plants can operate
for longer periods, at higher efficiencies, with greater safety, and at reduced cost for
maintenance. (11)

5. CONCLUSIONS
This paper provides users, who may be unfamiliar with the design and testing MOVs,
with an overview of the subject and background for understanding a new technology of
condition based maintenance.

Motor operated valves diagnostic play an essential role in the safety, reliability and
performance of energy power plants. They prevent the risk of component failure and
increase their service life.

Some industries, like the nuclear and energy industries, have already been using this
valves diagnostic for several decades.

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In the last years, significant technological advances have been made in diagnostic
equipment for various types of valves in nuclear power plants.
Valve diagnostics make it possible to implement a condition based maintenance
program, avoiding typically more extensive preventive maintenance procedures.
We can come to the conclusion that the practices that have been implemented in
maintenance strategies on the nuclear power plants could improve the valve
maintenance on ships.
In summary, the major objectives of this paper are to transmit the lessons learned from
the MOVs Performance Prediction Program of the nuclear industry and to provide the
best practices that have proven effective in maintenance.
Furthermore, we think that one of the University’s goals is to improve technological
transfer between different industrial sectors.

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REFERENCES

1. EPRI. EPRI MOV Performance Prediction Program. Alexandria, Virginia : MPR associates,inc,
november 1995. TR-103237-R1-T1.

2. NRC. GL 89-10 MOV. Washington DC : NRC, 1989. GL 89-10.

3. —. GL96-05 MOV. Washington DC : NRC, 1996. GL 96-05.

4. —. 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, Quality Assurance Requirements. Washington DC : NRC,

december 02, 2015. 10CFR50.

5. valves, MOV. Gate and globe. TR-106563, V1. Palo Alto, California : EPRI, 1999. V1, Final
report. TR-106563.

6. Flowserve. http://www.flowserve.com/Limitorque. http://www.flowserve.com/Limitorque.

[En línea] http://flowserve.com/Products/Automation/Actuators/Electric-Actuators/Multi-
turn/SMB-Electric-Actuators%2Cen_US.

7. NRC. NUREG 0737 Clarification TMI. Washington. DC : NRC, 1980. NUREG 0737.

8. Teledyne Instruments. http://teledyne-ts.com/valvetest.html. [En línea] [Citado el: 05 de 06

de 2015.] http://teledyne-ts.com/valvetest.html.

9. Paper Condition Monitoring. Teledyne. Massachusetts : Teledyne, 2008. QUG III.

10. Teledyne Instruments. http://www.teledyne.com/. http://www.teledyne.com/. [En línea]

[Citado el: 05 de 06 de 2015.] http://teledyne-ts.com/products/smartstem.html.

11. CRANE Nuclear. http://www.cranenuclear.com/. http://www.cranenuclear.com/. [En línea]

[Citado el: 25 de 08 de 2015.] http://www.cranenuclear.com/index.cfm?objectid=701E5BE0-
DE1C-F996-
1EC64FB1359DE11D&page=53D14835%2DBF65%2D4803%2D11CCEA1012DFA7DA.

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SHIP ROUTING APPLIED AT SHORT SEA DISTANCES

Manel Grifoll (I)

(I) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DECA), Barcelona School of

Nautical Studies (FNB), UPC-BarcelonaTech, Barcelona (Spain).

Abstract
New generation of high-resolution meteo-oceanographic predictions provides useful
tools for routing of ships. In this work, the optimal ship routing analysis is investigated
in a relative short distance maritime route: Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca. Dijkstra
algorithm is implemented in order to obtain the optimal path under an energetic wave
event. The optimized cost function is the travel time and is obtained considering the
added resistance due to waves. The results shows the influence this factor in the
optimum path recovered by the algorithm. The relevance of the relative direction
between wave and ship route is proven comparing back and forth routing results.

Keywords
Ship routing, optimization, Dijkstra algorithm, wave conditions

1. INTRODUCTION
A major factor of competitiveness in the maritime industry is the minimization of fuel
consumption for shipping routes. This agrees with an increase of the world tendency to
reduce air emissions in the framework to mitigate the climate change effects. From the
shipping industry point of view this may be achieved with an optimum route plan
design [1]. Academic research has focused the ship routing optimization through
pathfinding algorithms (e.g. [2], [3], [4], [5] and [6]) which take into account the meteo-
oceanographic forecasts (i.e. wind, waves or currents predictions). Some of these
contributions have been tested through a “proof-of-concept” based in oceanic distances
[1]. However, at relative short-distance the route shipping optimization remains
unexplored. In this case, the spatial resolution of the meteo-oceanographic predictions
are a severe restriction.
The implementation of ship routing produce multi-objective problem which involves
parameters such as the expected time of arrival (ETA), risk minimization or fuel
consumption. This leads to a multi-criteria problem solved with advanced optimization
algorithms (e.g. NAMOA, genetic algorithm, etc.). However, most of the ships are
equipped by weather routing systems to plan a route with the lowest fuel consumption
while arriving with a certain time slot [1].
The objective of this contribution is to implement and discuss a ship routing algorithm
in a relative short distance route (e.g. Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca; 132 nautical
miles) using high-resolution wave numerical products. The ship routing is defined as the
development of an optimum sailing course and speed for ocean voyages based on
nautical charts, forecasted sea conditions, and possibly the individual characteristics of a
ship for a particular transit [7]. The contribution is organized as follows: after the
introduction (Section 1), the Methods (Section 2) include the description of the
algorithm used for route shipping, the wave numerical model description, the estimated
of the speed loss due to waves and the grid discretization. The results are presented in

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Section 3 including the discussion of the wave effect on the ship routing. Finally, the
conclusions and future developments are underlined in the last section (Section 4).

2. METHODS
2.1. ALGORITM DESCRIPTION AND GRID DISCRETIZATION

The pathfinding algorithm used in this work is the well-known Dijkstra Algorithm [8].
This algorithm is applied at gridded scheme where each gridpoint (node) is connected to
a set of vicinity points. To each connection (edge) a weight related with the distance is
assigned. The orthodromic distance is used for the spherical coordinates of the grid
nodes. Dijkstra algorithm in gridded meshes picks the unvisited vertex with the lowest
distance, calculates the distance through it to each unvisited neighbor, and updates the
neighbor's distance if smaller. Dijkstra algorithm has been used previously in ship
routing applications (e.g. [3], [9]).
Nodal connections possibilities per node may varies in function of the grid resolution.
In consequence, the sequence of edges followed by the shortest path will be limited by
the grid resolution and the connected nodes. Figure 1 shows the edges connecting nodes
displayed by arrows for 4 different schemes: 4, 8, 16 and 24 edges. Each arrows
represents potential ship courses or directions. Different gird resolution has been tested
obtaining similar conclusions than [3], which stated that a minimum 16 edges are
required in a prototype level.
Figure 1. Scheme of the grid resolution in function of the number edges per node. In yellow 4
edges per node (top, left), in blue 8 edges per node (top, right), in green 16 edges per node
(bottom, left) and in red 24 edges per node (bottom, reight). For a grid cell, central node is the
origin and the desitination in the contiguos cell.

2.2.WAVE MODEL DESCRIPTION AND EFFECTS ON NAVIGATION

Recently, advanced wave numerical models implementation provide high-resolution

waves parameters due to an increase of the wind field resolution [10]. In this work,
modelled wave outputs generated by the implementation of SWAN wave model system
in the NW Mediterranean Sea is used [11] as a characteristic storm. SWAN model
solves the wave action balance equation simulating wind generation and propagation in
deep and coastal waters. Figure 2 shows the significant wave height and wave direction
for a typical low pressure system located in the NW Western Mediterranean Sea. These

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synoptic configuration may generate strong winds and large significant wave height in
the Catalan/Balearic Sea. In this academic example, the maximum significant wave
height correspond to 5 m.
Figure 2. Significant wave height and wave direction modelled in the
catalan/balearic sea. Arrows shown the propagation direction of the wave.

Wave action is the major factor that affect the ship performance [12]. Wave field affect
the ship motions decreasing the propeller thrust and adding a resistance in comparison
to absence of waves. A simple formula to include ship speed reduction to waves is
suggested by [7]. The final speed is computed in function of the non wave-affected
speed plus a reduction in function of the wave parameters:

𝑣𝑣 = 𝑣𝑣0 − 𝑓𝑓(Θ) · 𝐻𝐻 2 (1)

Where H is the significant wave height and f is parameter in function of the relative ship
wave direction (see Table 1).
Table 1. Values of the coefficient f.

Wave direction name from the

Ship-wave relative direction f (in kn/ft2)
ship point of view

0º≤Θ≤45º Following seas 0.0083

45º<Θ<135º Beam seas 0.0165

135º≤Θ≤225º Head seas 0.0248

225º< Θ<270 Beam seas 0.0165

270º≤Θ≤360º Following seas 0.083

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3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The algorithm and methodology presented in the previous section have been applied to
a relative short maritime route: Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca. The horizontal grid
resolution was established in 16 edges per node and has been consider a constant ship
speed of 13 knots. The first path recovered by the Dijkstra algorithm correspond to the
optimum path without considering the vessel resistance due to the waves (Figure 3.left).
In this case, the route correspond to the orthodromic distance between the origin and the
arrival. Figure 3.right shows the optimum path recovered by the Dijkstra algorithm
considering the added resistance of the wave field in the ship speed. Differences in both
routes are evident: the optimum path considering the wave field sail to the East avoiding
large significant wave height. Considering the wave direction shown in Figure 2, seems
clear how the optimum route avoid partially the most critical conditions which
corresponds to head seas. The result of the function cost (travel time) are summarized
for the different paths in Table 2. The travel time of the minimum distance path
(without the drag resistance due to the waves) is equal to 10.2 hours (minimum
distance). However, considering the drag resistance due to waves for the minimum
distance path, the value raise to 12.6 hours. Obviously, this value is larger than the cost
obtained by the shortest path recovered by the algorithm considering waves (i.e. 12.1
hours). In consequence, the implementation of the shortest path algorithm saves 0.5
hours with the consequent reduction in fuel consumption.
Figure 3. Optimum path recovered by the Dijkstra algorithm without (left) and with (right)
considering the added resistance to the ship speed according to equation 1. Color bar and 2D
color represents the significant wave height. Case Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca.

Table 2. Travel times (in hours) for the route Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca (and vice versa).

Route: Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca hours

Travel time for the minimum distance case (without wave resistance) 10.2
Travel time for the minimum distance case (with wave resistance) 12.6
Travel time for the optimum route considering wave resistance. 12.1
Route: Palma de Mallorca - Barcelona hours

Travel time for the minimum distance case (without wave resistance) 10.2
Travel time for the minimum distance case (with wave resistance) 13.0
Travel time for the optimum route considering wave resistance. 12.9

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Different picture occurs when the algorithm is applied to the inverse route: Palma de
Mallorca – Barcelona (Figure 4). In this case both paths recovered by the algorithm
(without and with waves) does not present substantial differences. The travel times
obtained are similar (Table 2) and the only differences are appreciated in the vicinity of
the West cape of the Mallorca Island where the beam sea is relevant. These results are
also consistent with the wave direction (see Figure 2), which for Palma – Barcelona
route was basically beam sea, in comparison with Barcelona – Palma where the head
sea was prevalent.
Figure 4. Optimum path recovered by the Dijkstra algorithm without (left) and with (right)
considering the added resistance to the ship speed according to equation 1. Color bar and 2D
color represents the significant wave height. Case Palma de Mallorca - Barcelona.

4. FINAL REMARKS
The work presented in this contribution is an implementation of the Dijkstra algorithm
for the optimum ship routing in a relative short oceanic distance. The methodology is
based on the inclusion of the drag resistance due to waves. The methodology has been
applied to the maritime route Barcelona – Palma de Mallorca. This represent a relative
short distance in comparison to mentioned applications oriented to oceanic maritime
routes. This application is possible due to the new high-resolution products for waves
and winds. The results showed here reveals how the wave direction have a relevant role
in the optimum path due to the relative direction with the ship. Future works include the
implementation of the system for dynamic wave states, heuristic formulas to reduce the
computational time, the implementation of the multi-criteria algorithm (e.g. NAMOA or
genetic algorithm), the inclusion of safety restrictions due to the wave conditions
(surfriding or rolling motions) in the methodology or the influence of currents and
winds in the optimum ship routing.

REFERENCES
[1] M.H. Simonsen, E., Larsson, W., Mao, and J.W. Ringsberg, "State-of-art within
ship routing." in Proc. ASME 2015, 2015.
[2] K. Takashima, B. Mezaoui, and R. Shoji, "On the Fuel Saving Operation for
Coastal Merchant Ships using Weather Routing." TransNav, the International
Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation, Vol. 3, No. 4,
pp. 401-406, 2009.
[3] G. Mannarini, G. Coppini, P. Oddo and N. Pinardi, "A Prototype of Ship Routing
Decision Support System for an Operational Oceanographic Service." TransNav,
the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea

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Transportation, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 53-59, 2013.

[4] J. Szłapczyńska and R. Śmierzchalski, "Multicriteria Optimisation in Weather
Routing." TransNav, the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety
of Sea Transportation, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 393-400, 2009
[5] E. Larsson and M.H. Simonsen, "DIRECT weather routing". Master’s thesis,
Department of Shipping and Marine Technology, Chalmers University of
Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2014.
[6] J. Hinnenthal, "Robust Pareto optimum routing of ships utilizing deterministic
and ensemble weather forecasts." PhD thesis, Technischen Universität Berlin,
Berlin, Germany. 2008.
[7] N. Bowditch, "The american practical navigator". National Imagery and Mapping
Agency, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. 2002.
[8] E.W. Dijkstra, "A note on two problems in connexion with graphs", Numerische
Mathematik, Vol.1, pp.269–271. 1959.
[9] A.A. Montes, "Network shortest path application for optimum track ship
routing". PhD‐Thesis, Monterey Naval Postgraduate School. 2005.
[10] L. Cavaleri et al. "Wave modelling – The state of the art", Progress in
Oceanography, Volume 75, Issue 4, 603-674, 2007.
[11] M. Grifoll, J. Navarro, E. Pallarès, L. Ràfols, M. Espino and A. Palomares
"Ocean–atmosphere–wave characterization of a wind jet (Ebro shelf, NW
Mediterranean Sea)" Nonlin. Processes Geophys. Discuss. 2016.
[12] Q. Hu, F. Cai, C. Yang, C.J. Shi, "An Algorithm for Interpolating Ship Motion
Vectors" TransNav, the International Journal on Marine Navigation and Safety
of Sea Transportation, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 35-40, 2014

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PARTIAL STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE ECDIS EHO

RESEARCH: THE SAFETY CONTOUR
Srđan Žuškin, David Brčić, Serdjo Kos
Faculty of Maritime Studies, University of Rijeka
Corresponding author and presenter e-mail: szuskin@pfri.hr

Abstract
As primary navigational mean, Electronic Chart Display and Information System
became an inevitable tool and decision-making assistance. ECDIS implementation
entails several issues, ranging from proper understanding, education, training,
handling and acceptance of this, still relatively new, technology. The navigational tool
has changed, however traditional navigational skills remain, or at least, they should
sustain.
ECDIS EHO is an education-based research project with comprehensive and
multidisciplinary ECDIS analyses at different levels, focusing on proper education and
training, knowledge required for safe navigation conducting, and all other maritime
segments which have found their place in the ECDIS system. Among other objectives,
the tendency is to create solid interaction with ECDIS end-users, i.e. officers of the
navigational watch. One of the research activities is an international survey
questionnaire placed among seafarers forming the part of the navigational watch,
ranging from deck cadets to pilots. The survey is focused on OOWs on ECDIS and
paperless vessels, containing questions regarding experience, system handling and
operation, knowledge, as well as mariners’ opinion. It refers specially to mandatory
carriage requirements and possible decommissioning of traditional paper charts which,
in fact, represent traditional navigation as such. The proposed paper elaborates
question concerning one of the main safety parameters in the ECDIS system: the safety
contour. Ways of settings the parameter are discussed, given that no clear regulations
exist. The importance of this interactive parameter is underlined, because it represents
safety of navigation in whole when sailing onboard paperless vessels in depth-restricted
water areas. Answers were analysed and discussed, together with interviews with
navigational officers, providing direct end-user feedback on the elaborated. Despite
dedicating maritime education and training ashore, inadequate use of ECDIS contour had
caused few significant accidents which are described and elaborated in this paper by using
several marine accident investigation data bases. The summary of findings is pointed out in
the concluding chapter, together with planned activities for the further research.

Keywords
Electronic Chart Display and Information System, safety contour, maritime education
and training, raising awareness, ECDIS EHO

Acknowledgments
The presented research was conducted within the project entitled Research into the
Correlation of Maritime Transport Elements in Maritime Traffic: Satellite navigation
segment, supported by the University of Rijeka, Republic of Croatia.
The authors are grateful to all the Officers of the navigational watch on their time and
they willingness for fulfilment of the questionnaire. Their answers have an immense
significance for the survey.

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1. INTRODUCTION
During 2015, a half of the implementation period of mandatory Electronic Chart
Display and Information System (ECDIS) on board vessels will be over and for the
optimum situational awareness the mariners and other related parties must recognize
certain issues to be solved timely and properly. In order to correctly manage ECDIS
system the interpretation of the chart display information, safety settings and alarms is
essential. Appropriate safety settings in the system have a great significance for
navigation safety, especially the values selected by the user.
The proposed paper deals with question concerning one of the main safety parameters in
the ECDIS system: the safety contour. This value provides a visible boundary between
“safe” and “unsafe” water and it’s not determined by the convention regulation. The
procedure for setting the safety depth and safety contour could be determined by the
company flag regulation, ECDIS manual or it could be calculated by using theoretical
navigational background. The end user is given the flexibility to choose the procedures
for determining the safety contour in a number of ways; therefore without a thorough
understanding of how the system works, there may be confusion with chart
presentation. Standard guidelines for mariners on determining vessel’s safe under keel
clearance (UKC) are described along with their advantages and drawbacks, pointing out
the possibility of calculated safety depth and contour in ECDIS system.
Meanwhile, during the period from 2012 to 2016 a survey in the form of international
questionnaire was placed among the seafarers as part of ECDIS Survey Analyses:
Experience, Handling and Opinion (ECDIS EHO), an education research project with
comprehensive and multidisciplinary ECDIS analyses at different levels, focusing on
proper education, training and required knowledge for safe navigation. The
questionnaire contains questions related to experience with ECDIS, personal opinion
regarding justification of ECDIS system as primary means of navigation, withdrawal of
paper chart and pointing other problems which officers and masters are facing with.
Questions and answers regarding safety contour were elaborated in this paper. The
results and differences in the parameter understanding were presented and analysed.
Answers and statements were elaborated focusing on defining the procedures for setting
the safety contour and safety depth. In this way a practical feedback was obtained,
identifying potential risks arising from sequence of events in operational navigation.
These unwanted chains of error are described and elaborated using case study reports of
marine accident investigation data bases, where the evidence is shown that the
insufficient knowledge of ECDIS parameter interpretations can lead to the vessel
grounding.

2. SAFETY DEPTH AND SAFETY CONTOUR

This chapter gives a short overview about general consideration of safety settings in
ECDIS pointing available methods to the user for highlighting available depth.
Choosing the right safety depth and contour in ECDIS system is directly linked to the
determination of vessel’s safe under keel clearance (UKC) which is used in traditional
navigation with voyage plan on a paper chart. In order to emphasize the importance of
determination of under keel clearance and safety contour a short overview of traditional
methods is presented.

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2.1. GENERAL CONSIDERATION OF ECDIS SAFETY SETTINGS; SAFETY

DEPTH AND CONTOUR
There are three standard methods available to the user for highlighting available depth
in ECDIS system (Norris 2010): safety contour, safety depth, and deep and shallow area
indication. Setting of the voyage safety features highlighting the safety depth is essential
where mariners will specify a safety area for the vessel. These values must be clearly
understood and entered to achieve a sensible and considered meaning. One of the key
factors is determination of available depth according to the vessel draught and other
additional safety factors.
Safety contour is a manually set depth by mariner in the ECDIS system that ideally
coincides with the contour available on the Electronic Navigation Chart (ENC) in use.
Safety contour than gives an adequate safety allowance for the actual draught of the
vessel and clearly marks with extra thick line “Safe water” from “unsafe” areas. If an
end-user does not set an own vessel safety parameters, ECDIS sets the default value of
30 meters (Weintrit, 2009, IHO S-52). If there is no contour available in ENC data the
next deeper contour will be automatically selected by the system. According to (IMO A.
817(19) 1995) performance standards, an ECDIS will initiate an alarm if the vessel
future track will cross the safety contour within a specified time which is set in
parameters.
Safety depth is a visible depth that will affect the appearance of spot soundings on an
ECDIS display. According to (IMO MSC 232(82) 2006) performance standard, ECDIS
should emphasize sounding equal to or less than the safety depth whenever spot
soundings are selected for display.
Besides performance standard, IHO Special Publication 52 (IHO S-52, 2010) and IHO
Special Publication 57 (IHO S-57, 2002) provide much more details about safety depth;
unlike other contours in the ENC, the own vessel safety contour is double-coded by a
thick line and with a visible change in depth shade. In the ENC, if the safety contour
previously in use is no longer available when the ship moves onto a new chart, the
ECDIS will select the next deeper contour and inform the end-user.
Deep and shallow area indication is also selected by the user. Shallow contour value in
a good seamanship practice is equal to the vessel draught approximated to the next
whole number, while deep contour is concerned value at which the navigation is
considered in deep water. According to (IHO S-52, 2010) specifications for chart
content and display aspects of ECDIS, there are two types of depiction; two-colour (two
shades) and four-colour (four shades) safety contour separately for day and night
settings, where four shades is more commonly used due to similarity with paper charts.
Analysing four-colour (shades) safety contour depiction for the day settings, depths less
than the shallow depth are shown in deep blue, depths between the shallow and safety
contour are shown in light blue, depths between the safety contour and deep contour are
shown in grey and depths greater then deep contour are presented by white colour on
ECDIS screen (Norris, 2010, Transas ECDIS User Manual 2012).
The aim of this paper is to point that there are no related standards and legal legislation
for end-users to set safety contour and safety depth in ECDIS properly. Meanwhile,
theoretical knowledge of safety parameters and their entering in the system is essential.
The parameter ignorance and lack of understanding could lead directly to the marine
accident.

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2.2. A SHORT OVERVIEW OF UNDER KEEL CLEARANCE (UKC)

In STCW Convention is prescribed mandatory minimum requirements for certification
of officers in charge of a navigational watch on ships of 500 gross tonnage or more and
also specification of minimum standard of competence for master and chief mates.
According to Convention at the operational level (STCW, Part A-II/1) minimum
knowledge, understanding and proficiency of the effects of draught, trim, speed, and
under-keel clearance on turning circles and stopping distance is required. In the
management level (STCW, Part A-II/2) is only prescribed manoeuvring in shallow
water, including the reduction in under-keel clearance caused by squat, rolling and
pitching. Meanwhile, the determination of vessel safe under keel clearance is used for
centuries in traditional navigation for preparing the voyage plan on a paper chart, as is
described in (IMO A.893 (21)) resolution. Nowadays, traditional methods for
determination of safe depth developed over time in pace with technology. Based on the
safe UKC on a paper chart today safety contour and safety depth on ECDIS are
determined using new navigational tools on the ENC, heretofore, what challenges
existing standards.
According to the (SAFE NAV 5-2014) guidelines, figure 1 presents detailed factors for
calculating vessel under keel clearance which consists of three main group factors;
water level factors, vessel related factors and bottom related factors.

Figure 1 - Under keel clearance determination

Actual waterline including tide and

environmental condition
Static
draft
Bottom of the hull (keel)
Allowance for static draft uncertainties
Draft increase due to heel/list
Vessel Draft increase/decrease due to water density
Dynamic
related
draft Draft increase due to squat and dynamic trim
factors
GROSS Draft increase/decrease due to dynamic heel
UKC
Wave response allowance

NET UKC

Bottom sea level including

related factors

Water level factors consist of minimum charted depth including tide offset during
transit and manoeuvring with allowance for unfavourable conditions due to
meteorological effects. Meanwhile, the vessel related factors are the most important to
emphasize the difference between static and dynamic draft. Gross under keel clearance
(GROSS UKC) is composed of allowance for static draft uncertainties, draft increase
due to heel and list, change in water density, vessel squat and dynamic trim, dynamic
heel due to wind or turning, wave response allowance and the Net under keel clearance

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(NET UKC). Bottom related factors consist of allowance for bed level uncertainties
(sounding and sediment conditions), allowance for bottom changes between dredging
and executing dredging tolerance. For the UKC calculation many factors should be
considered to ensure safety navigation and environmental protection according to the
voyage plan and area characteristics. Calculations should include vessel steering ability,
vessel speed, maneuvering characteristics, tide at the calculated passing time and
environmental characteristics (weather, current, waves, water density, ice conditions).
One of the main environmental parameters for the mariners to calculate depth below the
keel is water density. Furthermore, if the vessel passes into fresh water, the mean draft
will increase and contrary, if the vessel passes into salt water the mean draft will be
decreased.
For the detailed UKC calculations area characteristics such as port area, confined
waters, open coastal water and ocean passages, are also essential. One of the main
factors for NET UKC calculation is the effect of ship squat, steady downward
displacement consisting of vessel vertical movement in the water while underway due
to the flow of water passing the moving hull. Effect of squat increases approximately
proportional to the square of the vessel’s speed through the water, therefore
significantly increases in waters with limited space around vessel’s hull such as in
shallow water, narrow channels or other canals (Hewlett, 2002).
It is important to emphasize that these factors are guidelines solely. Currently, the IMO
related standards are not provided onboard vessels. This short overview about depth
below keel was given in order to present theoretical knowledge about factors
determination. Nowadays, their understanding is essential for setting safety depth and
depth contour in the ECDIS system on ENC.

3. ECDIS SYSTEM AND SAFETY SETTINGS DETERMINATION

This chapter consists of ECDIS system general overview with the main focus on alarms
and indications in order to emphasize the importance of safety parameters: safety depth
and safety contour and their settings in the system. Furthermore, the significant
accidents are elaborated using Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) study
report which is directly connected to the poor ECDIS settings and parameters
interpretation.
3.1. ECDIS GENERAL OVERVIEW
ECDIS system is a navigational information system with adequate back up
arrangements which can be divided into two main components; hardware and software,
with interruptible power supply (IMO MSC 232(82)). It is powerful tool for assisting
the mariner in route planning and route monitoring, and for displaying additional
navigation related information. ECDIS system can be accepted as complying with the
up to date chart required by regulation of the SOLAS Convention, displaying selected
information from a system electronic navigational chart (SENC) with positional
information from navigational sensors ((SOLAS 1974, IMO MSC 232(82), IMO A
817(19), IMO MSC 191(79), IMO SN/Circ. 248)).
According to (IMO-867E) performance standards, ECDIS system has indicators and
alarms in the system classified for various criteria. The condition requiring attention for

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mariners is labelled by an alarm which consists of audible and visual means, while
indicators are mostly visual indications giving information about the condition of a
system or equipment (IMO-867E).
The significant alarms additional division in the system consists of three main types: the
alarms that cannot be deactivated, alarms that can be activated and alarms that can be
deactivated but the user responsible for the safety protects them with a password
(Pietrzykowski et al. 2011). Navigation safety depth and safety contour parameters,
defined by mariner, are directly associated with underwater hazards and they represent
basic safety parameter generating alarms that cannot be deactivated, only
acknowledged.
3.2. SAFETY CONTOUR DETERMINATION IN THE ECDIS SYSTEM
Safety depth and safety contour determination in the ECDIS system are still not
established for the world maritime ship-owners fleet. Based on the above, it could be set
by company flag regulation, ECDIS manual or it could be calculated using theoretical
navigational background for determination of safe under keel clearance. Due to
determination diversities, significant error may occur in the different parameters
interpretation and values. Using total answers from the ECDIS EHO international
survey questionnaire placed among seafarers forming the part of the navigational watch
and their company ISM (International Safety Management) regulation, common
formula for safety depth determination in the ECDIS system is suggested in this paper

𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑ℎ = 𝑇𝑇 + 𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 + 𝑑𝑑ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 + 𝑑𝑑𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠 + 𝑑𝑑𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆 + 𝑑𝑑 𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇𝑇 + 𝑑𝑑𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍 (1)

where T = static vessel’s draft; ddensity = draft correction due to change of water density;
dheel = draft correction due to potential heeling angle; dsquat = draft correction due to ship
squat calculation; dSM = correction due to safety margin; dTIDE = correction due to tidal
heights; dZOC = correction due to Zone of Confidence.
Static vessel’s draft is the draft when the vessel is not making way or subjected to sea
and swell so the first draft correction (increasing or decreasing value) due to change of
water density should be applied only when the vessel is entering or leaving fresh or sea
water areas. Draft correction due to vessel heel should be considered if potential heeling
is expected according to the voyage plan and rate of turn which is set in ECDIS or
because of poor weather condition. Draft increase and change of trim due to squat effect
should be calculated for the maximum voyage speed considering all relevant effect
parameters in specific waterways or port approaches.
For simplify calculation, bearing in mind the safety of navigation, correction due to
safety margin is set for different navigation area (Kos et al. 2010);

• Harbour protected area – navigational areas protected from effect of swell and
waves in the port
(15% of the static draft should be applied as a correction),
• Road stead area – navigation areas protected from swell and turning area outside
the harbour
(20% of the static draft should be applied as a correction),

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• Sheltered waters areas – open navigational areas naturally protected from ocean
swell and waves and Inland waters (Fjords)
(30% of the static draft should be applied as a correction).
Displayed depth data on the ENCs is not adjusted for tidal height which is essential for
determination of safety contour. The ENC depth data could be referenced to a local
vertical chart datum based on a low tide definition. In a mean time, there are certain seas
without tides where chart datum is based on mean sea level. Therefore, chart datum the
Lowest Astronomical Tide (LAT) is mostly used for ENCs (Norris 2010, Kos et al.
2010). Depending on the state of tide the correction will be subtracted or added to the
safety depth.
Comparing parameters used for under keel clearance determination and common
formula for setting safety depth, an important attribute as difference is noticed which is
known as “Category of Zone of Confidence in Data” (CATZOC) (IHO S-57, 2009).
This information data on ENCs gives the survey, position and depth accuracy related to
the six category levels; CATZOC A1, A1, B, C, D and unclassified data U. Depth
accuracy due to Zone of Confidence (ZOC) is shown in a table below (IHO S-57, 2009).
Table 1 - Depth correction due to ZOC

CATZOC Depth accuracy

A1 dZOC = 0.5 +1% chart depth
A2 dZOC = 1.0 +2% chart depth
B dZOC = 1.0 +2% chart depth
C dZOC = 2.0 +5% chart depth
D Worse than ZOC C
U Unassessed

Depth correction dZOC due to Zone of Confidence category is strongly recommended for
vessel’s safety settings, especially safety depth. Theoretical knowledge of these terms
and total corrections are essential for mariner to lead the ship into the safety and to
ensure that navigation at all times is conducted with good safety margins in accordance
with good seamanship practices.

3.3. ECDIS ACCIDENTS VS SAFETY CONTOUR

According to marine accident investigation data bases (MAIB, BSU and BEMAER)
from 2008 till today several investigation reports demonstrated the share of ECDIS and
its inappropriate usage in marine accidents. Considering the importance, complexity and
utilization of the ECDIS system on vessels nowadays, proper and high quality training
of maritime officers plays an essential role in preserving the safety of navigation, sea
environment, and finally, human life at sea (Žuškin et al. 2013).
Despite dedicating maritime education and training ashore, inadequate use of ECDIS
contour caused few significant accidents. One of the significant groundings which is
related to the inappropriate settings of safety contour has occurred in 2008. According
to MAIB investigation, the ship was en route to the Suez Canal when run aground on a
sand bank in the English Channel early in the morning with a draught of 5.9 meters. The
safety contour in the ECDIS system was set at 30 meters (default value) and with great
chart scale (1:100000) the shallows over the bank were not readily apparent so the
wreck was almost undetectable. If the safety depth and safety contour were set on 20

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meters, the display would be even clearer. The passage between both sand banks would be
visible and more shipping obstruction and less wrecks would be displayed (Shannon, 2012).
In 2013 the UK MAIB investigated another grounding vessel in the Dover Strait where
the ECDIS system, as a primary means of navigation, was the main factor in the
accident. The safety contour setting, as distinct difference between safe and potentially
unsafe water, was set on 30 meters in the ECDIS system. Using formula in a vessel
Safety Management System ((Draft + Squat) x 1.5 in open water) the safety contour
value should have been set at 13.35 meters (MAIB, 2014).
In that case the ECDIS would set default value to the nearest deeper contour which was
the 20 meters contour in the chart in use. After the MAIB investigation was concluded
that safety contour of 20 meters would have provided a much cleaner picture of where
the safe water was available (MAIB 2014). Today, significance of ECDIS parameters
requires OOW's attention, theoretical knowledge and own concern to prevent vessel
accident. Over the years, standardisation for calculation safety depth and safety contour
has not been established yet. It is essential now and in the future to ensure that all
operational and functional issue will be clarified, understood and handled properly to
prevent vessel grounding. The aim of this research was to receive a practical feedback
from masters and navigational deck officers about safety contour and safety depth
determination to emphasize arising problems in the transitional period from paper to the
Electronic Navigation Chart in the ECDIS system.

4. THE SURVEY
The survey is a continuing project which started four years ago as a questionnaire to
seafarers which were attending the ECDIS Model Course (MC IMO 1.27 2010) at the
Faculty of Maritime Studies in Rijeka, Croatia and wider with seafarers on various
international shipping companies. The aim of the questionnaire was the assignment of
attendees in ECDIS simulator working groups, depending on their knowledge,
experience and familiarisation level. First research paper from the survey deals with
usage on secondary positioning inside the ECDIS system. The findings indicated that
the secondary positioning source is not used as it should be, which entails potential risks
regarding safety of navigation where the key answer for problem solving lays in the
proper education and good seamanship (Brčić et al. 2015). This survey is slightly
growing with new specific questions for analysis and with its spreading among
international shipping companies to provide end-users opinion on a global basis. The
questionnaire is shortly entitled “ECDIS EHO” and the acronym stands for “ECDIS
Survey Analyses: Experience, Handling and Opinion”. Besides general questions (rank
on board, years of onboard experience, etc.) and among a total of 24 questions, few
questions were elaborated in this paper:
1. In accordance with the SOLAS Convention and the ECDIS mandatory regulations,
what is the current status on your vessel?
a. Possession of paper navigation charts solely;
b. Possession of one official ECDIS system and appropriate folio of paper
charts;
c. Possession of two or more independent official ECDIS system, meeting the
requirements for paperless vessels;
d. Other ________.
2. Is the ECDIS system used as the primary means of navigation on your vessel?

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3. For how long do you operate with the ECDIS/ECS system? (circle or write down the
answer)?
a. Never had the opportunity to operate with the ECDIS system,
b. Less than 6 months,
c. Between 6 months and one year,
d. Between one and two years,
e. Between two and three years,
f. Between three and four years,
g. Between four and five years,
h. More than five years,
4. Based on which data do you define the safety contour in ECDIS, and in which way?

4.1. THE RESPONDENTS

The questionnaire was targeted to seafarers with experience on board where the usage
of the ECDIS system is expected. The masters and navigational deck officers are
affiliated with different international shipping companies and sailing on different type
of vessels; from DP offshore vessels to merchant navy vessels. Since its beginning, the
survey was conducted on 154 participants; Captains (43), Staff Captains (3), 1st officers
(41), 2nd Officers (36), 3rd Officers (8), Senior Dynamic Positioning (SDPO) Officer (4),
Apprentice officers (5), and undefined rankings (14). Undefined rankings comprise of
all the mentioned ranks including harbour pilots, port captains and port inspectors.
4.2. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Respondents forming part of the navigational watch and other persons encompassing
ECDIS handling are considered in this paper for significant and detailed analyses.
Summary of answers regarding current ECDIS status on board vessels are presented in
Table 2.
Table 2 - Current ECDIS status on board vessels

In accordance with SOLAS Convention and the ECDIS mandatory No. of

regulations, what is the current status on your vessels? answers
Possession of paper navigation charts solely 46
Possession of one official ECDIS system and appropriate folio of paper charts 57
Possession of two or more independent official ECDIS system, meeting the 28
requirements for paperless vessels
Other 23
TOTAL 154

The answers relating to the possession of paper navigation charts solely were eliminated
from further analyses due to credible and accurate results. In that case, Table 2 shows
108 respondents (70%) dealing with the ECDIS system which are experiencing the
transitional change. The most common case (37%) was the possession of one official
ECDIS system and Appropriate Chart Folio of paper charts (ACF) while the last
possible answer (15%) refers to specific cases on board.
Various specific cases could be installed on board but the common answer for the
option (d) is vessel equipped with two or more independent official ECDIS system
(DUAL ECDIS), meeting the requirements for paperless vessels and additional all
navigational paper chart according to the voyage plan. This mentioned possession is

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above SOLAS Convention requirement to increase safety of navigation in the transition

period. It is noticed in this survey research that possession of two or more independent
official ECDIS systems without paper charts becomes more common as the end of
implementation period is approaching.
Figure 2 - Noted scenarios regarding ECDIS carriage requirements on board

Noted scenarios
Possession of paper navigation charts
solely (46)

Possession of one official ECDIS

system and the appropriate folio of
paper charts (57)
Possesion of two or more independent
official ECDIS system without paper
chart (28)
Dual ECDIS + paper chart (23)

In the analysis, mariners without ECDIS experience were excluded, which resulted in
total number of 108 participants. The conditional respondent’s profile is presented in
Table 3 and Figure 3.
Table 3 - Profile of respondents as ECDIS operators

Profile of respondents as ECDIS operators No. of answers

Master 22
Staff Captain 3
1st Officer 35
2nd Officer 28
3rd Officer 5
SDPO 3
Apprentice officer 3
UNDEFINED 9
TOTAL 108

Figure 3 - Conditional profile of respondents as ECDIS operators

Conditional profile
Master (22)
Staff Captain (3)
1st Officer (35)
2nd Officer (28)
3rd Officer (5)
SDPO (3)
Apprentice officer (3)
UNDEFINED (9)

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Figure 3 shows that, according to the conditional profile, the survey mostly consist of 1st
officer answers (32%) among total ranks as ECDIS operators. A large share also
includes 2nd officer answers which improve the survey quality, especially related to
specific questions regarding ECDIS system, due to their navigational obligations
onboard vessels. Summary of answers regarding ECDIS as a primary navigation mean
is presented in table 4. These questions and respondent answers determine significant
importance which needs to be additionally elaborated.
Table 4 - ECDIS as primary means of navigation

Is the ECDIS system used as the primary means of No. of

navigation on your vessel answers
Yes 42
No 66
Total 108

The largest share of specific answers refers to respondents which are using paper chart
as primary means of navigation, meanwhile the share of respondents which are sailing
on ECDIS approved vessels are slightly increasing. Furthermore, the third question in
this paper: for how long do you operate with the ECDIS/ECS system, has a specific
importance for the survey. ECDIS sailing experience for 108 participants of the survey
is analysed and presented in Figure 4.
Figure 4 - Participants ECDIS sailing experience

ECDIS sailing experience

Less than 6 months (9)
Between 6 months and one year (6)
Between one year and two years (13)
Between two years and three years (8)
Between three years and four years (11)
Between four years and five years (10)
More than five years (43)
More then ten years (8)

The most common answer (40%) was that the ECDIS sailing experience is more than
five years, showing that participants have a great sailing experience with the system.
Furthermore, the main question from the survey for this proposed research is based on
dealing and setting safety contour in ECDIS system. Summary of answers regarding
knowledge for setting and usage of safety contour is presented in table 5 and the share
of specific answers is graphically illustrated on Figure 5.
Table 5 - ECDIS as primary means of navigation

Based on which data do you define the safety No. of

contour in ECDIS, and in which way? answers
No answer 54
Answer with an explanation 54
Total 108

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Figure 5 - Conditional profile of respondents as ECDIS operators

Knowledge and usage of safety

contour
Answer with an
explanation (54)
No answer (54)

When asked which data do they use for defining the safety contour in ECDIS system,
and in which way, respondents were equally divided for this survey analysis. Regarding
the analysis of the negative answer, it can be interpreted in the several ways;

• the respondents did not understand the meaning of the question,

• they don’t know on which data parameters safety contour is defined,
• they don’t know in which way safety contour could be set in ECDIS,
• the column remained blank instead of negative answer.

Therefore their answers could be divided in the several ways;

• Safety contour is set by default of 30 meters,

• Safety contour could be set using only few data parameters,
• Safety contour could be set using all relevant and significant parameters.

An answer which is related to the safety contour of 30 meters is default ECDIS set
value according to the manufacturer or ECDIS manual. When the safety contour is set
with only few data parameters (Vessel draft + squat + UKC) in most cases it’s
calculated by an officer on board using theoretically navigational background for good
seamanship on his own. When the safety contour is set with all relevant and significant
parameters in most cases the calculation is determined by company International Safety
Management (ISM) regulation (IMO ISM Code, 2014). The survey findings indicated
that the knowledge and safety contour determination is not used as it should be, which
entails potential risks regarding safety of navigation causing vessel grounding.
Furthermore, in this research paper the final outcome and the end results in the next two
chapters: discussion and conclusion are described.

5. DISCUSSION
The tendency in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 was to emphasize the importance of safety
parameters: safety depth and safety contour determination in ECDIS system in order to
improve navigation safety. General consideration of ECDIS settings has significant role
especially when sailing onboard paperless with official ECDIS system as primary
means of navigation. For safety parameters mentioned above significant error occur
during value calculation and data interpretation which can lead to the vessel accident.

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To emphasize the problem, safety contour provides a visible boundary between safe and
potentially unsafe water generating sound alarm in the ECDIS system while on ENC.
The main safety calculation parameters are rarely prescribed by company flag
regulation safety management and their determination is also without convention
regulation. The end user is given the flexibility to choose the procedures for
determining the safety contour in a number of ways using different data parameters so
the main problem is identified. Significant accidents from the marine accident
investigation data bases and survey analysis in the form of international questionnaire
which was placed among the seafarers are used for emphasizing safety contour problem
in this paper.
First case study vessel was fitted with one official ECDIS system and appropriate folio
of paper charts while second case study vessel was fitted with two ECDIS systems,
removing paper chart and all bridge officers including the master had completed generic
and ECDIS training course. Despite dedicating maritime education and training ashore,
inadequate use of ECDIS contour caused significant accident. Both vessels run aground
because they had been set inappropriate safety contour. These groundings lead us to the
inappropriate use of ECDIS safety contour from 30 meters which is usually set by
ECDIS default or manufacturer. After the MAIB investigation is concluded that in both
case studies safety contour of 20 meters would have provided a much cleaner picture of
where was safe water available and theretofore sand banks or wrecks would be more
visible. Again a human element as a factor in marine accidents is essential.
Besides safety contour, another unwanted chain of errors occur in mentioned case
studies accidents related to the ECDIS system; incorrect setting of watch alarms and
wrong inputs in ECDIS, inappropriate voyage plan without checking, significant ECDIS
overreliance, poor bridge team management, defective navigational equipment (no
sound alarm while crossing safety contour on ENC), inappropriate chart scale in
navigation, inadequate ECDIS generic and type-specific training.
Nowadays, significance of ECDIS parameters requires OOW attention, theoretical
knowledge and own concern to prevent vessel accident. Based on the safe Under Keel
Clearance (UKC) on a paper chart today safety contour and safety depth on ECDIS are
determined using new navigational tools on the ENC. Common formula for safety depth
determination in the ECDIS system with all relevant and significant parameters is
suggested in this paper using total answers from the international survey. In the
proposed formula significant difference in parameters occurred when comparing with
standard UKC calculation on a paper chart. The answer is Zone of Confidence in ENC
data which presents significant attribute indicating minimum criteria and the errors for
position and depth accuracy. For example, in shallow waters using ENC with CATZOC
category C the depth difference could be approximately 3 meters. Significant error is
essential information for safety contour determination and finally voyage plan. In
shallow water where critical UKC should be expected the navigators should be familiar
especially with ZOC errors and also should be able to understand and provide
navigation safety.
Besides case study accidents, potential risks regarding safety of navigation pointing
safety contour determination are visible from the ECDIS EHO survey. The core
question which was placed among the masters and navigational officers as a part of the
survey is: “Based on which data do you define the safety contour in ECDIS, and in
which way?”

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By analysing results and answers of the 108 survey participants, only few of them
mentioned ZOC as an important factor. Considerable number of respondents (50%)
doesn’t know which data is used for safety contour determination in ECDIS system at
all. Moreover, it refers even in greater extent, to participants of the survey which are
sailing on ECDIS approved vessel. This survey is also showing that participants have a
great sailing experience with ECDIS system (40% more than five years) so the potential
risk is even greater. The transition period from paper chart and traditional navigation to
the ENC and modern electronic navigation will find officers onboard unprepared
without proper theoretical knowledge and experience.
Heretofore, drawing conclusions has to be made with caution. Poor company ISM and
improper bridge usage procedures also caused grounding. Despite maritime ECDIS
training and education potential risks appear due to transitional period. The questions
which rose are: is it necessary to extend period for mandatory carriage requirements? Is
there enough course time for ECDIS Generic Training and Type Specific Training? Are
the ECDIS bridge procedures proper?
Authors suggest extending the period for ECDIS mandatory carriage requirement due to
owners and operators better implementation in order to make the best of it as complex
system navigational tool that will increase vessel's safety. Considering the causes of
maritime casualties following incorrect interpretations of the ECDIS data the issues of
the ECDIS training should be approached from various aspects. ECDIS training
functions on a general level involve an introduction into the system with a practical
application so attendants are trained to handle the system, recognize and use all
functions the system offers, which in some cases have proved to be a subject matter too
vast for a 40 hour course, meanwhile for attendants not acquainted with the ECDIS
matter, the scope of the received information may be too great and can achieve the
opposite effect (Žuškin et al. 2013). In addition, each ECDIS system comes with an
array of additional tools that improve voyage planning, voyage monitoring but also
other aspects of navigation that contains all the necessary information that can
significantly improve sea and sea environment protection (Žuškin et al. 2011).
For Type Specific (TS) Training on-line Computer Based Training (CBT) is mostly
used which covers the benefits and limitations of the specific ECDIS manufacturer.
Having TS training on-line for end-users is one of the great advantages but is also one
of the mayor disadvantages. TS on-line training is mostly handled without licence
ECDIS operational trainers but their experiences, exercises, discussions and knowledge
transfers could be essential to prevent ECDIS misunderstanding and wrong data
interpretation. The ECDIS bridge procedures should be properly enforced and installed
onboard with all relevant information to insure vessel safety and to prevent marine
accidents in the future. Considering the core question from the survey in this research
paper safety depth and safety contour determination should be implemented onboard
with company ISM regulation with bridge list procedures. Safety contour and other
ECDIS safety settings should be implemented also in accordance with company
regulations to avoid potential risk.
Taking identified problems into consideration as follows; no safety contour usage
(leaving the set value in the system), safety contour determination using insufficient
parameters, wrong interpretation of the ENC data, overreliance on the ECDIS system
and other potential risks due to transitional period, several activities have to be
employed.

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Activities which should reduce potential problem are: insuring sufficient theoretical
knowledge of the proper use of ECDIS system, raising standards of competences in
STCW Convention, raising level of education standard for ECDIS Generic and TS
training, improving bridge team communication onboard regarding ECDIS, raising
situational awareness of end-user and also company ship-owner management, insuring
practical and research activities to detect arising problems in advance ashore.

6. CONCLUSION
Implementing new navigational technologies onboard vessels and using ECDIS system
as primary means of navigation requires appropriate theoretical knowledge and its
practical end-user confirmation. A survey in the form of international questionnaire was
placed among the seafarers, which contains questions related to experience with ECDIS,
personal opinion regarding justification of ECDIS system as primary means of
navigation, withdrawal of paper chart and pointing other problems which officers and
masters are facing with. The question concerning one of the main safety parameters in
the ECDIS system: the safety contour and ways of its settings with relevant parameters,
is elaborated in the proposed paper. These findings indicated that the safety contour,
safety depth and their determination are not used as they should be should be which
entails potential navigational risk. One of the analysed questions from the survey shows
that 40% of total participants have ECDIS sailing experience more than five years.
Furthermore, the main question from the survey for this proposed research is based on
dealing and setting safety contour in ECDIS system and according to the question
answers and results, 54 participants (50%) gave the negative answer without any
explanation about parameters used. Despite dedicating maritime education and training
ashore, inadequate use of ECDIS contour had caused few significant accidents which
are elaborated in this paper, beside the survey, using few marine accident investigation
data bases with the summary of findings which is pointed out in the discussion chapter.
Using total answers from the international survey questionnaire and seafarers companies
ISM (International Safety Management) regulation, common formula for safety depth
determination in the ECDIS system is suggested in this paper. The important attribute
difference known as Zone of Confidence is pointed as potential risk for navigators to
determine safety contour.
The ECDIS EHO consists of 24 questions in total, so there is still future work left and
new activities should be proposed to focus on arising problems and navigational errors.
The ECDIS system is a complex system and for the mariner is the best friend in all
aspects of navigation with significant additional tools that improve voyage planning and
voyage monitoring but also could be the real enemy for end-user without proper
theoretical knowledge and proper usage.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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ECDIS User Manual, Multi-functional display. 2012. Version 2.00.320, Transas MIP
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Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation (BSU). 2009. Available at:
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Hewlett, C. et al. 2002. Dynamic squat and under-keel clearance of ships in confined
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International Hydrographic Organization. 2002. IHO Publication S-57, IHO transfer
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International Hydrographic Organization. 2009. IHO Publication S-57 Supplement, IHO
transfer standard for digital hydrographic data, Edition 3.1.2, Monaco: International
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International Hydrographic Organization. 2010. IHO Publication S-66e 1.0, Facts about
Electronic Charts and Carriage Requirements, Edition 1.0.0. Monaco: International
Hydro-graphic Bureau.
International Hydrographic Organization. 2010. IHO Publication S-52, Specifications
for chart content and display aspects of ECDIS, Edition 6.0. Monaco: International
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International Maritime Organization. 1995. Resolution 867(E), Code on Alarms and
Indicators. London: IMO
International Maritime Organization. 1995. Resolution A.817(19), Performance
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International Maritime Organization. 2000. Resolution A.893(21), Guidelines for
voyage planning. London: IMO.
International Maritime Organization. 2004. Circular letter SN/Circ.248, Guidelines for
the presentation of navigation-related symbols, terms and abbreviations. London: IMO.
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navigational displays. London: IMO.
International Maritime Organization. 2006. Resolution MSC.232(82), Adoption of the
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(ECDIS). London: IMO.
International Maritime Organization. 2010. Model Course 1.27, Operational use of
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International Maritime Organization. 2010. International Convention on Standards of

Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) 1978, with Manila
amendments 2010. Part A-II/1 - Mandatory minimum requirements for certification of
officers in charge of a navigational watch on ships of 500 gross tonnage or more
London: IMO.
International Maritime Organization. 2010. International Convention on Standards of
Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) 1978, with Manila
amendments 2010. Part A-II/2 - Mandatory minimum requirements for certification of
masters and chief mates on ships of 500 gross tonnage or more. London: IMO.

International Maritime Organization. 2014. International Safety Management Code

(ISM Code) with guidelines for its implementation. London: IMO.
Kos, S., Zorović, D. & Vranić, D. 2010. Terestrička i elektronička navigacija. Rijeka:
Faculty of Maritime Studies, University of Rijeka.
Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB). 2014. Report on the investigation of the
grounding of Ovit in the Dover Strait. Available at: http://www.maib.gov.uk/
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Norris, A. 2010. ECDIS and positioning. London: The Nautical Institute.
Pietrzykowski, Z. Wielgosz, M. 2011. Navigation Safety Assessment in the Restricted
Area with the Use of ECDIS, International Recent Issues about ECDIS, e-Navigation
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SAFE NAV 5-2014. 2014. Draft Guidelines on Under Keel Clearance, Group of
Experts on Safety of Navigation, Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission,
Denmark.
Shannon, A. 2012. ECDIS – The common problems. Safety Bulletin, Holman Fenwick
Willan, Singapore LLP.
Weintrit, A. 2009. The Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) – An
Operational Handbook. Abingdon: Taylor and Francis Group.
Žuškin, S., Brčić, D. & Šabalja, Đ. 2013. A contribution to improving the standards of
ECDIS training. Scientific Journal of Maritime Research. 27(1): 131-148.
Žuškin, S., Valčić, M. & Rudan, I. 2011. ECDIS System in Function of Sea
Environment Protection // Shaping Climate Friendly Transport in Europe: Key Findings
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Transport and Traffic Engineering, Belgrade, Serbia.

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ELECTRONICS AND HUMAN
INTERFACE
 MARITIME ENVIRONMENT AND ELECTRONICS AND HUMAN INTERFACE

PROTECTION FROM POLLUTION IN INLAND NAVIGATION IN THE

REPUBLIC OF SERBIA
Nataša Tomić-Petrović
Faculty of Traffic and Transport Engineering, University of Belgrade
e-mail: natasa@sf.bg.ac.rs

Abstract

In the Republic of Serbia in the last five years new laws were adopted introducing many
innovations, especially in separating regulation of maritime navigation from internal
navigation regulation. The Law on navigation and ports on inland waters (“Official
Gazette RS“no.73/2010, 121/2012) brings modern tendencies and harmonization with
international regulatory trends of inland navigation. In this paper new legislative
changes in our country in the field of protection from pollution in inland navigation are
analyzed together with practical problems. Study completed in year 2007. showed
increased pollution of the Danube in comparison to year 2001, the water quality was
deteriorated, especially in the middle and lower course. At the same time ecologists in
Serbia fought against construction of shipyard near the nature reserve “Carska bara“.

Effective environmental management system requires harmonized principles, but also

demarcated responsibilities and effective modern administrative measures. It is
necessary to raise awareness of citizens too.

Key words:

pollution, environment, law, inland navigation.

INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS
The tradition of famous Boka's sailors is still living in Serbia. In 2010 was celebrated
1200 years since the establishment of Boka Navy (parent tissue made always three
nations Serbs, Montenegrins and Croats). The greatest flourishing of seamanship was
recorded in the 18th century. Town Prčanj got the epithet of the nursery of patriotism,
and its permanent part represented a navy. It was created first as a war fleet to defend
the interests of the Venetian Republic.
International management of Danube was formally initiated by the Treaty of Versailles
in 1865. During this period, Serbia was acting as a consultant of the European
Commission of the Danube and has announced two sets of rules of the Commission,
concluded a Convention with Austria-Hungary on navigation (1882), and adopted the
Law on Water (1879 and 1905).
Otherwise, "Servia" (Serbia) is an old English name for modern Serbia of today. Well-
known shipping company "Cunard" decided to name this newly built ship “Serbia”, as
the country that just freed from Ottoman Turkey and gained international recognition
due to its reputation, which was then very great.
At the time of its launching 01.03.1881. year, it was the second largest ship in the world
with 515 meters long and 52.1 meters wide, after the famous SS "Great Easterm" (he
had four decks and a promenade deck). The ship's first voyage on 26.11.1881. was from

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Liverpool to New York. It has to be mentioned that SS “Servia” (Serbia) was the first
steel ship built for the company "Cunard Line". That transatlantic passenger steamship
with two chimneys was built in the shipyard "John Brown and Company," in
Scotland. It was also the first transatlantic liner illuminated with electric light. Although
it never won a famous blue ribbon for speed ("Blue Riband") however the first was
“Cunard’s transatlantic on which the steel hull and electric lighting were tested. SS
"Servia" crossed the Atlantic 171 times. Otherwise "Cunard Line" is a company that
still exists today, although no longer holds the transatlantic passenger lines but deals
with tourist cruises, and it is the best known as the owner of the legendary ships "Queen
Elizabeth" and "Queen Mary".
During 1891. in our country, the Assembly made decision on establishing the First
Serbian Steamship Company. It is interesting that with the appearance of cracks on the
"Cunard’s" ships SS "Campania" and SS "Lucania" in 1893, "Servia" was sent to the
central service. Later this ship was used for the transport of the troops to South Africa
before it was withdrawn and cut as scrap iron in 1902.
From 1901 to 1905 in the workshop of the First Serbian Steamship Company smaller
vessels on its own power were built. Firstborn of the Serbian river Navy was the ship
"Jadar" which was launched in the Sava River in August 1915. It served honorably
during the October offensive, and then the crew, which consisted of volunteers and
miner M. Savić, was forced to destroy it, in order not to fall into enemy hands.
In 2014, on the territory of the Republic of Serbia shipyards Kladovo and Mačvanska
Mitrovica owned by Dutch companies are regularly working, as well as shipyard Novi
Bečej, which is in private domestic ownership. These three shipyards are working for
foreign customers. The shipyards in Brnjici, Apatin and Bezdan are also active, but they
are mainly used for repair works and operating under very difficult conditions. The
planned development of recreational navigation in the Republic of Serbia could create
conditions for the so-called activation of boatbuilding.
The risk of accidental endangerment of water, people and the environment in general
today is more present than before. Having in mind and never forgetting bright naval
tradition of our country in this paper author analyzes the issue of protection from
pollution in the light of new legislative changes in the field of internal navigation in the
Republic of Serbia together with practical problems.

1. RIVER DANUBE IN SERBIA - PRACTICAL PROBLEMS

The Republic of Serbia is one of twelve countries of Danube Basin. In our capital,
Belgrade already in October 2007 the sixth Ministry Conference “Europe for
environment“, the biggest political, economic and diplomatic meeting in Serbia was
held and defined directions for carrying out the policy in ecology in Europe and in the
world for the next 5 years.

The Danube is the second biggest river in Europe, with various flora and fauna (58
native fish species live in the river). This river is a very important regional waterway
and a connection between the Black Sea region and the Atlantic Ocean.
The life that constantly lasts for millennia in Đerdap, on the banks of Danube that
determines lives of the people with its course. One of the oldest towns in the Danube
region, Kladovo, is linked to the military and civilian camp of the Romans. Đerdap

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(Iron Gate) is the largest and longest gorge in Europe. Consists of four smaller gorges
and three valleys that alternate with a length of nearly 100 kilometers. Danube gorge is
located at the border between Serbia and Romania and it represents one of the most
beautiful points on the Danube River. National Park is located on the border with
Romania and includes part of the area of the Đerdap (Iron Gate Gorge) in the midstream
of Danube. It has been under state protection since 1974. and occupies an area of 63,
768 hectares.
Two prestigious recognitions Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia has
received in 2009 “PRO DANUBIO” for the overall contribution to the cooperation in
Europe, the development of good relations with neighbors and development of tourism
by increasing the number of tourists to European cruisers and in 2014 “Danube Flower”
for significant contribution to the connectivity in Region.

The objectives of the EU Strategy for the Danube region are to increase cargo transport
on the rivers for 20% by 2020 compared with 2010, the removal of obstacles to
navigation, taking into account the specific characteristics of each sector of the Danube
and its navigable tributaries, as well as the establishment of an efficient management of
inland waterways infrastructure. According to the Strategy of water transport
development of the Republic of Serbia from 2015 to 2025 (“Official Gazette RS“ no.
3/15) an increase in the volume of traffic on the inland waterways of the Republic of
Serbia realized by domestic and foreign ships (internal transportation, import and
export) could be in 2020 for 10.7% and in 2025 for 34.7% higher in relation to the
volume of traffic in 2012.

The significance of the environmental sector is also rising. The ecology classroom
Baracka is located at the special reserved area of the Upper Danube Region, twenty
kilometers far from Sombor near the place Bezdan. This ecology classroom is founded
in 1998 to raise ecological and cultural level. The educational programme in this nature
area includes the protection of environment and other activities such as school of
fishing, rowing etc.
But we cannot forget that in December 2011, the low water level of the Danube forced
to anchor about 80 vessels near Apatin and Bezdan and the passage to Bulgaria was
impossible. Due to the inability of transport it was spoken on grounded ships and
economy too (the price of wheat and corn has dropped). Long time ago richer countries
have built enough locks by which ships can safely push through critical sections.
Near the hydro power plant Djerdap 2 there is the "graveyard" of shipwrecks from the
Second World War, what is visible during low water levels at the town Prahovo. The
first attempt to clean the riverbed of Danube in Serbia (removing of 22 German ships
that disrupt navigation near Prahovo) because of financial reasons did not develop
well. The second attempt was in 2011 when the European Union (EU) funded project
and till the end of the project in 2013, 25 grenades from the Second World War were
pulled out. EU budget for the period from 2014-2020. includes investments in a project
of cleaning the river Danube too.
Today we find out that till the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017 sections Apatin-
Beška and Smederevo-Kladovo will be completely restored.
Volatile changes of environment and the increasing technological development lead to
increasing water pollution, what became one of the most important problems of modern
society. Comparative study completed already in year 2007. showed increased pollution
of the Danube in comparison to year 2001, the water quality was deteriorated, especially

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in the middle and lower course. At the same time ecologists in Serbia fought against
construction of shipyard (Bomex 4M) near the nature reserve “Carska bara“, due to the
impact on the bird habitat in this area. In 2011 the public has raised voice against the
pollution of the river Morava, in order not to become a sewer of Serbia. Sources of
water pollution are numerous, from municipal and industrial wastewater through
chemical runoff from treated lands and urban areas.
Every state must take care about water pollution with different dimensions endangering
life in order to secure its vital values of the rivers, but also the right to a healthy life and
protection of environment. (see: article 74. of the Constitution of the Republic of
Serbia).
The data show that the average age of the cargo vessels in the Republic of Serbia is
greater than 35 years. The biggest problem of Serbian fleet is the lack of new modern
vessels of inland navigation and a constant increase in the age of the existing vessels.
Records from July 2014 show that in Serbia there were 292 registered vessels in all
types of purposes, of which 190 freight vessels. For comparison, data from 2006 show
that the number oscillated between 900 and 1000 vessels and that it covers all vessels
that were not deleted from the Register of Ships, while the number of registered vessels
was half the size, means 450-500.
The advantages of water transport for certain types of cargo compared to other modes of
transport in terms of environmental protection are not sufficiently recognized in the
Republic of Serbia. Preventing air and water pollution caused by transportation is the
focus of the entire Danube region. The negative effect on the environment particularly
in terms of air pollution is much lower if for the transport of certain goods boats are
used instead of road vehicles. The Strategy of water transport development of the
Republic of Serbia from 2015 to 2025 (“Official Gazette RS“no.3/15) has the function
of promoting water transport as the most cost effective and environmentally friendly
mode of transport.

2. LEGISLATIVE MEASURES FOR PROTECTION FROM POLLUTION

On the 6th of April 1890 (centenary of the First Serbian Royal Privileged Shipping
Company was marked still in 1991) the Law on the Serbian shipping company was
adopted with the intention "to ease the traffic on the Danube and Sava rivers, near the
Serbian coasts and thus give Serbian trade on these rivers more enthusiasm". By
adoption of this law, on the proposal of Minister of economy Kosta Taušanović, already
in 1891 the First Serbian Royal Privileged Shipping Company was founded with initial
capital of 3 million dinars and guaranteed subscription of stocks of the 100 dinars in
silver. It was a wise and far-reaching move of Serbia of that time, because at that time
another shipping of neighboring Austria began to dominate the Danube, penetrating in
the border waters of Serbia, thus jeopardizing the economic and other
independence. After two years of preparation appeared strong domestic Serbian river
fleet. In May 1893 the first regular passenger tariffs for Dubravicu was opened by
steamer "Deligrad", which on this occasion state ceded to Serbian shipping company. In
October of the same year a regular voyage began to be performed by newly built ship
"Mačva", which was equipped for mixed service: passenger, mailing, as well as towing.
In 1895 the Company purchased steamers "Beograd" and "Steg", and three years later
also steamers "Emperor Nicholas II", "Morava" and "Takovo" (this ship is the only one
that avoided sinking during World War I and in 1915 with 6 freighters sailed for

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Russia). Before the beginning of the Balkan wars Company operated successfully, but
in First World War our ships were seized by the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
After the outbreak of the First World War central forces were interested in the
relationship with the Mediterranean i.e. with Turkey. Danube represented the most
appropriate route, and the only obstacle made Serbia, which had control of significant
part of the river. But in July 1914, Serbia did not have neither a river flotilla nor coastal
fortifications with proper artillery to block traffic on the Danube. In Belgrade then
functioned only the workshop for ships of the Kingdom of Serbia.
At the end of the First World War, in October 1919. the Naval Union of Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes was established. In the name of war damage the four passenger ships
("Karadjordje", "Princess Elena", "King Peter I" and "Ljubljana") and tugboats
("Serbia", "Jug Bogdan", "Milos Obilić") with 30 freighters of total capacity of 20,040
tons were ceded.
Between the two world’s wars, as a full member of the European Commission of the
Danube since 1921, Serbia has signed around 30 bilateral agreements on navigation and
trade with the Danubian countries.
After the Second World War, Yugoslavia has signed the Convention in 1948, which
established the Danube Commission that took care of the implementation of the
Convention. The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River was
established by the countries of the Danube basin through the Convention of 1994, which
entered into force in 1998, and which Serbia had ratified in 2003. During this period,
Serbia has passed a number of laws that have governed water management.

Danube River Protection Convention is the basic legal act of the Danube Strategy which
contains a number of priority areas and one of them is the protection of environment
and the sustainable use of natural resources in the Danube basin. Serbia participated in
defining the objectives of the Danube Strategy and participates in their realization.
Development of joint projects relating to the Danube Strategy of the EU in the 21st
century is necessary for identification and resolution of potential disputes on the
Danube, from the boundaries to environmental considerations.

In the Republic of Serbia in the last five years new laws were adopted introducing many
innovations, especially in separating regulation of maritime navigation from internal
navigation regulation. Before adoption of these laws we applied the Law on Maritime
and Inland Navigation adopted in 1998 that is today void except certain provisions that
still remained in force.

The Law on navigation and ports on inland waters (“Official Gazette RS“
no.73/2010, 121/2012), regulates the conditions and manner for safe navigation on
inland waters of the Republic of Serbia, waterways and boating, boats and their ability
to sail, the crew, search and rescue, ports and harbors, monitoring and other issues
related to navigation on inland waterways. This law brings modern tendencies and
harmonization with international regulatory trends of inland navigation. According to
the Law on navigation and ports on inland waters (article 188) in order to improve the
safety and efficiency of ship traffic and environmental protection established service for
ship traffic management (VTS), should enable accurate and clear information, as well as
to assist in reducing the risk of pollution and coordination when taking measures against
environmental pollution.

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In the port, or the pier any activity that endangers the safety of persons or vessels,
pollutes the environment, like any other activity that is contrary to the provisions on the
order in the port prescribed by this law or by the Agency (for ports management) is
prohibited. (article 241. of the Law)

Part V. of the Law on navigation and ports on inland waters (“Official Gazette RS“
no.73/2010, 121/2012) is dedicated to the prevention of pollution from vessels.

This Law does not expressly mention air pollution but only discharges of harmful
substances from vessels. Thus, for example article 63 of the Law predicts that it is
prohibited releasing, leakage or discharge from the vessel into inland waters of harmful
objects or substances, including oil, oil derivatives, which may cause pollution of inland
waters or create an obstacle or danger for navigation.
The discharge, spillage or releasing parts of cargo or the waste of cargo from vessels in
inland waters, as well as the burning of garbage, sludge, sediment and special waste on
board is forbidden. It is prohibited to discharge waste water from the vessel for the
transport of passengers with more than 50 cabins and passenger vessels designed to
carry more than 50 passengers.
Coating the vessel with oil or cleaning the outside part of the vessel with products
whose flowing out in the water is prohibited, as well as the use of anti-overgrowing
system for the vessel containing elements of mercury, arsenic, organic elements that are
used as biocides and hexachlorocyclohexane is forbidden. Procedure in the event of
pollution from vessels is prescribed by the Minister responsible for transport with the
consent of the Minister responsible for environmental affairs and the Minister
responsible for water management.
The commander of the vessel, the crew and other persons on board are required to pay
proper attention to taking measures for avoiding pollution of inland waters, depending
on the circumstances, reducing to a minimum the amount of waste generated on board.
(article 64 of the Law) and in the case of discharges, spills or ejections of harmful
articles or substances, or the threat of discharge, spillage or ejection of harmful articles
or substances, commander of the vessel shall immediately inform the competent port
administration, as well as vessels that are located near the spill and as accurately as
possible give information about the place, quantity and type of harmful objects or
substances that are released. (article 65. of the Law).
Port open for international traffic should be equipped in such a way that the oil, oil
derivatives and other hazardous substances that are poured on the wharf, do not spill
into the water. In the case of spillage of these hazardous substances the best available
techniques for limiting the propagation and removal of the spilled substances are
applied. In this sense, port must be equipped with floating barriers and other equipment
in order to limit and prevent the spread of oil, oil products and other dangerous
substances in the port basin. (article 67. of the Law).

In accordance with article 68. of the Law on navigation and ports on inland waters
commander of the vessel shall hand over harmful objects and substances to receiving
stations. Garbage from the vessel is collected and, when possible, after sorting materials
that can be recycled, handed over to receiving stations, i.e. facilities for the treatment of
non-hazardous waste, while harmful objects and substances that originate from the ship
are collected, stored and submitted to the waste treatment plant for treatment under the
conditions prescribed by the law governing waste management. The treatment of these

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harmful objects and substances does not include hazardous waste from foreign vessels,
unless a special law prescribes otherwise.

According to the article 135. of the Law member of the crew must carry out duties on
board in accordance with the rules of navigation, in a manner that ensures the safety of
navigation, which does not damage the ship or cargo on it and does not endanger the
safety of passengers on board or other members of the crew and the environment from
pollution by harmful objects or substances from the ship. He shall immediately inform
the commander or the oldest deck officer who replaces him on any extraordinary event
that could endanger the safety of the ship, passengers, other persons or cargo on board,
as well as pollute the environment with dangerous or harmful substances from the ship,
and in the case danger, shipwreck or other damage, the crew members are obliged to
strive for a rescue of the ship, passengers, other persons and cargo on board, as well as
for environmental protection, while the commander does not order to leave the ship.
(article 138 of the Law).

The commander has the right to restrict during sailing the freedom of movement on
board to any person aspiring to endanger the safety of the ship, crew, passengers and
other persons, things on board and environment by pollution with dangerous or harmful
substances. Freedom of movement may be restricted only if it is necessary for the safety
of passengers and other persons and goods on the ship or for the protection of the ship
or the protection of the environment and for foreigner cannot last longer than the arrival
of the ship at the first port, or port in which the ship sails, and for the citizen of the
Republic of Serbia not longer than the arrival of the ship at the first local port or pier.
(article 151. of the Law).
In addition to normative regulations instruments of regional cooperation must be
improved. Special attention should be paid to the role of Serbia, as an integrating factor
in the development potentials of the Danube, due mainly to its geopolitical position.

3. CONCLUSION

Transport on inland waterways has significant advantages compared to other modes of

transport, such as lower gas emissions that pollute the air.
Republic of Serbia has a considerable potential of waterways and the long-term strategy
of the state is to divert the flow of goods from road to river transport as much as
possible. The Danube Strategy and the Danube as a pan-European Corridor 7 have an
important role as a multilateral mechanism of strategic importance for Serbia's
European integration.
During research for creating of the Strategy of water transport development of the
Republic of Serbia from 2015 to 2025 (“Official Gazette RS“no.3/15) it was concluded
that the achievement of the main goal, i.e. the increased volume of traffic on the
waterways of the Republic of Serbia realized by domestic and foreign ships by 2025 for
34.7% compared to the year 2012, is realistic.
The modernization of the fleet is a prerequisite for the survival of water transport. The
modernization of the existing fleet, i.e. reduction of energy consumption and therefore
increasing energy efficiency can increase the price competitiveness and quality of
services of shipping companies which would result in an increase in the share of water
transport in the total traffic of the country.

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Every day new horizons should be found. Changing face of tourism space in our
country is necessary and to improve quality of tourism services and develop new
products too. Plato recommended not to travel abroad before the age of 40, because a 40
year old man does not know how to find in a foreign land what unknown areas are
hiding, even what to learn from a foreigner, as long as he has not learned
anything. Reason is gained at the cost of the greatest efforts (Republic VI).

Good Laws are necessary, but civil society must find the strength and ability to protect
the environment on and around rivers, such as Danube, Sava and other rivers in the
Republic of Serbia.
Effective environmental management system requires harmonized principles, but also
demarcated responsibilities and effective modern administrative measures. It is
necessary to raise awareness of citizens too. Countries of the Danube Region are each
very different, but these differences can be mitigated in certain areas by working
together on solving a large number of joint challenges.

LITERATURE

[1] Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, (“Official Gazette RS“ no.98/2006).

[2] Get Active in Unspoiled Serbia, Serbia, National Tourism Organization of
Serbia, Publikum, third edited edition, Belgrade.
[3] Law on navigation and ports on inland waters (“Official Gazette RS“
no.73/2010, 121/2012)
[4] Lower Danube, Changing face of tourism space, with funding from Austrian
Development Cooperation, Belgrade.
[5] Petrović D, Tomić-Petrović N (2011) Physico - geographycal factors of
Danube region in Serbia as predispositions of traffic and tourism development,
Belgrade.
[6] Rosić, S. (2014). Plovidba unutrašnjim plovnim putevima, Beograd:
Odbrana.
[7] Strategy of water transport development of the Republic of Serbia from 2015
to 2025 (“Official Gazette RS“ no.3/15)
[8] Tomić N. (2009). Navigation on Danube and its pollution - Serbia’s and
international problem, International Conference Maritime transport 2009,
Barcelona, “Book of Proceedings – Maritime Transport IV“, p. 307-315.
[9] Tomić-Petrović N. (2014). Seamen training – history, reality and
perspectives in Serbia, 6th International Conference on Maritime Transport VI,
2014, Barselona, p. 311-317.
[10] Tomić-Petrović N. (2012). Strategic Importance and Environmental
Protection of the River Danube, 5th International Conference on Maritime
Transport: Technological Innovations and Research, “Maritime transport V:
Technological, Innovation and Research 2012“, editors: Francesc Xavier
Martinez de Osés, Marcel la Castells i Sanabra, p. 522-529.

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MARINE LITTER POLLUTION FROM NAUTICAL TOURISM IN THE

ADRIATIC SEA

Ass.prof.dr.sc. Merica Slišković, Ass.prof.dr.sc. Gorana Jelić-Mrčelić, Master of science Helena

Ukić
University of Split, Faculty of Maritime Studies
merica.sliskovic@pfst.hr (corresponding author), gjelic@pfst.hr, helena.ukic@pfst.hr

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of marine litter from the nautical tourism
on the marine environment. Marine litter is a global problem and it has multiple
impacts on environment, human health and human activities. In Europe, one of the main
economic drivers could be nautical tourism, especially in the Adriatic Sea. Nautical
tourism and other marine based activities produce large quantity of waste by cruisers,
yachts and small boats. In the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea solid waste loads from
cruisers are relatively high (9 900 984 000 kg in year of 2013) and it represents
potential threat to the marine environment. In order to prevent marine litter pollution, it
is extremely important to set up the strategy, but also to educate local population in
order to raise awareness of the marine environment protection. With good economy
approach and policy there is quite good chance for achieving the EU objective of Good
Environmental Status by 2020 (Marine Directive, 2008).
Keywords: marine litter, nautical tourism, marine environment, pollution, the Adriatic
Sea

1. INTRODUCTION

Marine litter is a global problem and it has multiple impacts on the environment, human
health and human activities. It directly damages wildlife. Smothering of the seabed and
disturbance of benthic communities by mechanical scouring can indirectly damage
wildlife. In the case of tourism, a critically important industry for coastal regions,
marine litter may cause deterioration in the quality of the location, experience of the
visitor and may change the preference of location.

2. MARINE LITTER

Marine litter or debris is defined as any persistent, manufactured or processed solid

material discarded, disposed of or abandoned in the marine and coastal environment.
Marine litter consists of items that have been made or used by people and deliberately
discarded into the sea or rivers or on beaches; brought indirectly to the sea with rivers,
sewage, storm water or winds; accidentally lost, including material lost at sea in bad
weather (fishing gear, cargo); or deliberately left by people on beaches and shores.
(UNEP, 2005).

The majority of marine litter consists of synthetic materials such as plastic, metal, glass
and rubber. Internationally 84.1% of the total marine litter found within the coastal area
(in 76 countries) could be separated into ten key items including smoking materials,

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food and beverage containers and other various types of packaging, which by material
mainly consist of plastic (Ocean Conservancy, 2008).

Materials that comprise marine litter are:

• Plastics,
• Glass,
• Rubber,
• Metal,
• Timber,
• Paper & cardboard,
• Textiles. (Potts and Hastings, 2011)

Plastics comprise 50–80% of marine litter. They can be stranded on beaches, can float
on the ocean surface or can settle on the seabed (Barnes et al., 2009). Other synthetic
materials similar to the plastic are: glass such (light globes, fluorescent globes and
bottles), rubber (tyres, balloons and gloves), metal (drink cans, aerosol cans,) foil
wrappers and disposable barbeques. Processed timber (pallets, crates, particle board,
paper, cardboard such as cartons, cups and bags) contributes to marine litter in much
smaller quantities. In marine litter textiles include clothing, shoes and furnishings.

There are two types of the marine litter sources: land based activities and marine based
activities and marine litter enters the seawater both accidentally or intentionally. At the
global scale the greatest proportion of the marine litter (up to 80% in some cases) origin
from land based activities (Potts and Hastings, 2011.).
The sources of the land-based marine debris are landfill sources, municipal waste
dumps, illegal dump sites (rivers, lakes and ponds), discharge of untreated municipal
sewage and the coastal tourism waste. High winds, large waves, stormes and floods
often wash large amounts of materials from the coastal areas that can end in the marine
environment. (NOAA, 2008.)

Marine litter origins from the marine based activities as marine shipping (merchant and
passenger ships), nautical tourism (cruisers liners, recreational and pleasure crafts),
fishing, offshore activities (platforms, drilling rigs) and research activities. Dispersion
of the marine litter from marine based activities strongly depends on currents, tidal
cycles and winds.

3. SELECTION OF STRATEGIES FOR POLLUTION PREVENTION

Regarding to the Blue Growth Strategy (2012) focus areas (area 5.3.) Maritime, coastal
and cruise tourism), the strategy should put emphasis on healthy environment. Healthy
environment is fundamental point in blue tourism and it favors growth potential of new

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forms of tourism. High quality waters and pristine coastal and marine habitats increase
attractiveness of coastal areas which in turn increases the growth potential of activities
such as nautical tourism, sports and blue tourism.

Within the framework of the Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea
against Pollution (Barcelona Convention, 1976), Mediterranean countries adopted the
Protocol for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution from land-based
sources (Mediterranean Protocol, 1996.).

The evaluation of the marine litter cycle is fundamental prior to any decision on the
prevention strategy. Marine litter circulates through the various pathways and
eventually accumulates in the litter sinks. Figure 1 shows the sources, the pathways and
the sinks of marine litter. The sources include: wind-blown litter (curved arrows),
waterborne litter (grey arrows), vertical movement of litter through the water column
including suspension and seabed sinks (stippled arrows), and ingestion by marine
organisms (black arrows). The sinks include shallow coastal areas (1), continental shelf
(2) and open waters (3). The litter in continental shelf (2) and open waters (3) includes
litter suspended in the water column. (Ryan et al., 2009.)

Figure 1. Marine litter: the sources, the pathways and the sinks

Source: Potts and Hastings, 2011. Marine Litter Issues, Impacts and Actions, Marine Scotland,
2011. p.14.

It is crucial to identify and quantify response variables in order to evaluate the

effectiveness of any intervention. Marine litter fluxes dynamically between the land and
the ocean (Cheshire et al., 2009). Flux rate can be measured directly (amounts of
transported material) or indirectly (time changes in litter amounts in each pool). This
can aid long-term management strategies selection, and it can provide better control of
input sources leading to reduced influx rate and accumulation in the system. (Potts and
Hastings, 2011.).

4. NAUTICAL TOURISM LITTER

During the last 30 years, the three core industries of nautical tourism (the marina,
charter and cruise industries) continuously grow. In the time of crisis, nautical tourism
provides great development opportunity at the local and regional levels (Luković,
2012).

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Nautical tourism and other marine based activities produce large quantity of marine
litter by cruisers, yachts and small boats. Litter from recreational and leisure activities
usually involves inappropriate litter disposal either accidental or deliberate. It
constitutes large proportion of the beach litter (MCS, 2009). Beach users and
recreational tourists are key source of litter - 37% in 2010 (MCS, 2011), despite
Environmental Protection Act (1990) and other legal acts that prohibit litter dropping of
in public place including beaches (Hall, 2000.).

Recreational boat owners and operators also discharge waste into the riverine, estuarine,
coastal and marine environment, including food containers, plastic bottles and
recreational fishing gear (Sheavly, 2005; Mouat et al., 2010).
The data on the impacts caused by the marine litter recreational sailing and emerging
renewables industry lacks and further studies are essential.
Marine debris can devalue the visual amenity of the coastal and marine landscape,
influencing the tourism sector and recreational activities. It is essential to keep the
inspirational quality of the marine environment for future generations, and thus preserve
the resources for local economy as well as life quality of coastal communities (Cheshire
et al., 2009; Naturvårdsverket, 2009.)

5. MARINE LITTER FROM CRUISERS IN THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA

According to the projections, nautical tourism could be one of the main economic
development drivers, especially in the Adriatic Sea area. The greatest Croatian nautical
advantages are the general and social factors as: sea purity, landscape beauty,
environmentally preserved coastline and safety feeling.

Croatia is the maritime country with long history and tradition of shipping industry and
tourism. The natural basis for nautical tourism development in the Croatian Adriatic
area is: 6 176 km long indented coastline, 1 244 islands, islets and cliffs, among 50
islands are inhabited.

The Republic of Croatia is primarily focused on medium size ships in international

cruise tourism. There are twenty cruising ports in the Adriatic Sea. The most important
cruise ports in Croatian part of Adriatic are Dubrovnik and Split.

In the year 2015, according to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (Central Bureau of
Statistics, 2015), 760 foreign cruise vessels touched Croatian ports, and total of 1 047
887 passengers arrived. They stayed for 1 529 days, and average stay is two days in
Croatia. The majority of cruise vessels entry into the internal sea waters of the Republic
of Croatia in the County of Dubrovnik-Neretva (64.1%) and the County of Split-
Dalmatia (22.8%). The remaining 13.1% of foreign vessels on a cruise recorded their
first entry into the internal sea waters of the Republic of Croatia in other coastal
counties in Croatia: Zadar (6.3%), Istria (2.5%), Šibenik-Knin (2.2%), Primorje-Gorski
kotar (2.0%) and Lika-Senj (0.1%). In 2015, the number of cruises increased by 9.7%
and the number of passengers entering the Republic of Croatia increased by 2.6%,
compared to the data for 2014. The total number of passengers sojourns in Croatia was
1.3% higher in 2015 compared to 2014.

The materials leaving the cruisers in form of liquids, solids, vapors and particles are:
waste, air pollution, waste waters, hazardous waste and eco-toxic metal emissions from

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antifouling coating. Marine debris refers to solid waste and this paper put emphasis on
the solid waste. The solid waste is garbage, refuse, sludge, rubbish, trash, and other
discarded materials resulting from industrial, commercial, and other operations. The
solid waste can be non-hazardous or hazardous waste. Non-hazardous waste may be
trash and waste associated with product packaging, cans, bottles, food waste,
newspapers, product and machinery parts, disposable products, and recyclable products.
The second type of solid waste is hazardous waste, which concentration or physical or
chemical characteristics, may pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human
health or the environment. Content of the cruiser solid waste is similar to the communal
waste.

Solid waste disposal prohibitions are very strictly settled in „Special Areas“ for the
purposes of Annex V of the MARPOL 73/78 Convention - The International
Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. (MARPOL 73/78).

The revised MARPOL Annex V with an entry into force date of 1 January 2013,
prohibits the discharge of all types of garbage into the sea unless explicitly permitted
under the Annex. V.

According to Cruise Ship Discharge Assessment Report from United States

Environmental Protection Agency USEP for 2008, cruise ships waste vary from 2.6 to
3.5 kg/person/day and is managed in accordance to MARPOL (US EPA, 2008) in the
international waters, ships dispose organic portion of solid waste after grinding and
throwing over board. Shipping in general produces approximately one million tonnes of
organic waste per year, 24% of which originates from cruisers. (Carić, 2010a)

In Table 1. daily pollution quantities form cruiser of 3.000 guest capacity is shown.

Table 1. Daily pollution form cruiser of 3.000 guest capacity

Daily pollution per a Daily pollution per a

Pollution type
cruiser cruiser guest

Solid Waste 10,5 - 12 tonnes 4 kg

Air pollution CO2 1.203 kg/km 0,40 kg/km
Black waters 60.000-120.000 lit. 40 litres
Gray waters 1.020.000 litres 340 litres
Bilge water 30.000 litres 10 litres
Hazardous waste 390-480 kg 0,16 kg
Eco toxic Cu emission 1,3 kg/day 0,45 g

Source: Carić H., Direct Pollution Cost Assessment Of Cruising Tourism In The Croatia
Adriatic, Financial Theory and Practice, vol. 34, br. 2, 2010., p. 171.

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Table 2. Number of cruisers guest and average days spent in Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea in
period between 2005 and 2015.
Year Number of cruisers guest Average days spent
2005 511.417,00 1,50
2006 597.708,00 1,00
2007 694.104,00 1,60
2008 936.424,00 2,00
2009 989.272,00 2,00
2010. 1.093.923,00 2,00
2011 1.141.454,00 2,00
2012 1.154.814,00 2,00
2013 1.237.623,00 2,00
2014 1.021.537,00 2,00
2015 1.047.887,00 2,00
Source: Made by authors using data of Central Bureau of Statistics-Foreign vessels on cruise in
the Republic of Croatia (years: 2005., 2006., 2007., 2008., 2009., 2010., 2011., 2012.,
2013.,2014.,2015.)

In Figure 2. solid waste loads from cruisers are shown for Croatian part of the Sea Adriatic in
period between 2005 and 2015. Solid waste loads was calculated according to Carić
(2010b) as number of cruise guests multiplied by average days spent in the Adriatic Sea
and daily pollution of the solid waste per a cruiser guest (kg/day).

Figure 2. Solid waste loads from cruisers for Croatian part of the Sea
Adriatic in period between 2005 and 2015.
12.000.000,000

10.000.000,000

8.000.000,000

6.000.000,000

4.000.000,000

2.000.000,000

0,000
2005. 2006. 2007. 2008. 2009. 2010. 2011. 2012. 2013. 2014. 2015.

Solid waste loads

Source: Central Bureau of Statistics-Foreign vessels on cruise in the Republic of Croatia (years:
2005- 2015)

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The maximum increase in solid waste quantities is observed in period from 2007 to
2008. In the year 2013, the highest solid waste quantities of 9 900 984 000 kg solid
waste loads are recorded what represents relatively high load for the Adriatic as
enclosed Mediterranean bay.

In order to keep the purity of the Adriatic Sea and beauty of landscape, sustainable
development plan is obligatory for the marine litter pollution prevention in Croatia.
Marine litter pollution cannot be completely prevented, but it should be minimized. It is
also very important to establish good control system in the nautical tourism, as well as
to raise public awareness.

6. CONCLUSION

In the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea solid waste loads from cruisers are relatively
high (9 900 984 000 kg in year of 2013) and it represents potential threat to the marine
environment. In order to prevent marine litter pollution, it is extremely important to set
up a strategy, but also to educate local population in order to raise awareness of the
marine environment protection. With a good economy approach and policy there is
quite good chance for achieving the EU objective of Good Environmental Status by
2020 (Marine Directive, 2008).

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Results 2011, Making sense of beach litter, Marine Conservation Society (MCS)
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against Pollution from land-based sources, available on:
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MEPC (2012). The Marine Environment Protection Committee, Guidelines for the
implementation of Marpol Annex V, Resolution MEPC.219(63). Available on:
http://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Environment/PollutionPrevention/Garbage/Document
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20Implementation%20of%20MARPOL%20Annex%20V.pdf (Accessed on:
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Mouat J. et al. (2010.): Economic Impacts of marine litter, KIMO International, pp. 105.
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df. (Accessed on: 5.1.2016)
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Baltic Sea and Skaggerak. Report 5872. Available on:
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Report on Marine Debris Sources, Impacts, Strategies & Recommendations. Silver Spring, MD:
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http://marinedebris.info/sites/default/files/literature/Interagency%20Report%20on%20Marine%
20Debris%20Sources%2C%20Impacts%2C%20Strategies%20%26%20Recommendations.pdf.
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Available on: http://act.oceanconservancy.org/site/DocServer/ICC_AR07.pdf?docID=3741
(Accessed: 26. 12. 2015)

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Potts T., Hastings E. (2011): Marine Litter Issues, Impacts and Actions, Marine Scotland,
2011. Available on: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0040/00402421.pdf. (Accessed on:
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Presentation at Sixth Meeting of the UN Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans
and the Law of the Sea. Available on:
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5.1.2016)
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UNEP (2005): United Nations Environment Program, 2005. Marine Litter, an analytical
overview. United Nations Environment Program, Kenya. Available on: http://
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R-07-005

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OIL SPILL RESPONSE COST-EFFECTIVENESS ANALYTICAL TOOL

(OSRCEAT): APPLICATION IN THE CANARY ISLANDS.

Dr. José Manuel Calvilla Quintero (II), jmcalvi@ull.edu.es,

Professor Dr. José Ramón Bergueiro López (II),
Professor Dr. Juan I. Gómez Gómez (I),
Professor Dr. Federico Padrón Martín (I),
Professor J. Agustín González Almeida (I), jagonal@ull,edu.es
Pedro Quintero Quintero, (III)
(I) Departamento de Ingeniería Agraria, Náutica, Civil y Marítima. UD
Ingeniería Marítima. Grupo I+D CONSEMAR. Universidad de La Laguna.
(II) Miembro Grupo I+D CONSEMAR. Universidad de La Laguna,
(III) Colaborador Grupo I+D CONSEMAR. Ingeniero de Telecomunicación.
Universidad de Las Palmas de G.C. ULPGC.

Abstract
The main objective of this work is the adaptation and implementation of the analysis
tool OSRCEAT (Oil Spill Response Cost-Effectiveness Analytical Tool) in the coastal
environment of the Canary Islands (Spain). The purpose of the Oil Spill Response Cost-
Effectiveness Analytical Tool its to compare the costs that would be applied for different
types of responses for different potential scenarios. First, we must input on main spill
parameters location factors, and response options for Canary Islands, OSRCEAT
calculates the cost of response operations, as well as enviromental cost (natural
resources) and socio economics impacts for each oil spill type. It is also important to
determine the economic costs of the intervention itself on oil spill. Then we can simulate
previously and compare the damage caused by the oil spill if there is no response, in
contrast to the results obtained if the response mechanisms contemplated for
contingency plans are properly implemented.

Keywords:
Oil Spill, costs, Marine Pollution,

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INTRODUCTION
With the tool SIROCO (Sistemas Insulares de Respuesta y Operaciones ante
Contaminantes Oceánicos – Insular Systems for Response and Operations for Ocean
Pollution) we have proceeded with the adaptation and implementation of the analysis
tool OSRCEAT (Oil Spill Response Cost-Effectiveness Analytical Tool) in the coastal
environment of the Canary Islands
OSRCEAT is based on available data from main oil spill, field studies, tank and
laboratory tests, observations of oil spill responders and researchers, as well as
modeling of hypothetical oil spills [ETKIN-WELCH, 2005)].
The purpose of the cost-effectiveness analysis tool (OSRCEAT) into oil spills is to
perform a comparison of the costs involved the application of different types of
responses to be made, for multiple different scenarios; for an oil spill or another
derivatives, simulated (or real) [ETKIN, 2005].

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The development of the Insular Systems for Response and Operations for Ocean
Pollution (SIROCO-Sistemas Insulares de Respuesta y Operaciones ante Contaminantes
Oceánicos) allows us to reproduce, analyze and explain the behavior and evolution of
pollutants in the marine environment. This integrated system can be used operationally
in emergency planning and response into contaminant spills at sea and drills. It will
allow us to make decisions in emergencies and for the training of all staff involved in
the cleaning and restoration of the contaminated coastal environment (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Diagram of SIROCO- Sistemas Insulares de Respuesta y Operaciones ante

Contaminantes Oceánicos. Source: Author.

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Through SIROCO we have made the adaptation and implementation of the analysis tool
OSRCEAT (Oil Spill Response Cost - Effectiveness Analytical Tool) analysis, in the
coastal environment of the Canary Islands. The tool is developed as a series of
mathematical algorithms implemented through a set of matrices that have been modified
to adapt to the Canary Islands the OSCREAT (Table 1).
Table 1. Cost matrix considering a medium Oil spill environmental sensitivity as indexes.

Spilled Product or Fuel: Medium Crude.

Cleaning Costs : €/m2
Contamination Type
Cover of With a
Surface "pooled" HC layer of HC HC
Coastal Type
>1 cm Between HC Spots Film
0,1 y 1 cm <0,1 cm.
ESI 1. Exposed Rocky Shores 600 250 125 75 50
ESI 2. Exposed Rocky Platforms 600 250 125 75 50
ESI 3. Fine-grained Sand Beaches 600 250 125 75 50
ESI 4. Coarse-grained Sand Beaches 600 250 125 75 50
ESI 5. Mixed Sand and Gravel
750 250 125 75 50
Beaches
ESI 6A. Gravel Beaches 750 250 125 75 50
ESI 6B. Riprap Structures 750 250 125 75 50
ESI 7. Exposed Tidal Flats 1100 400 190 90 115
ESI 8A. Sheltered Rocky Shores 600 250 125 75 50
ESI 8B. Sheltered Man-made
500 250 125 75 50
Structures
ESI 9. Sheltered Tidal Flats 1000 375 175 125 100
ESI 10. Salt to Brackish Marshes,
Freshwater Marshes, Swamps, 1000 375 175 125 100
Mangroves

The user can enter the main parameters of the spill, location and response options, then
OSRCEAT calculates the cost of response operations, the environmental costs (natural
resources) and socio-economic impacts of the oil spill and the impact of the intervention
itself. This allows us to make a comparative analysis of the damage caused by the spill
if there were no response, in contrast to the results obtained if the response mechanisms
are applied according to the Canary Islands contingency plan for ocean pollution, in
order to minimize the impact.
If the cleaning and restoration of a coastline polluted by hydrocarbons was necessary,
the analysis tool OSRCEAT, it will assess the socio- economic costs and impact on
natural resources, depending on the type of response and the affected area (Figure 2).
Despite all efforts in the event of an oil spill are focused on containment and recovery of
oil at sea, at least a substantial part of the spill reaches the coast.
Cleaning costs associated with an oil spill, are always high and if we consider what
happens when it reaches shore, they are divided into two groups: first cleaning and
restoration costs and secondly costs due to damage. The main objective of any action to
combat marine pollution is to prevent and reduce the impact. Under this assumption, we
can calculate the costs associated with cleanup and restoration of coastal environment
polluted by oil spill. Cleaning costs are influenced by many factors, such as the location
of the spill, the type of oil spilled and how the natural degradation of hydrocarbons
contributes to total removal.

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Figure 2. Application Operating Diagram: Oil Spill Response Cost-Effectiveness Analytical

Tool (OSRCEAT). Source: D. SCHMIDT ETKIN. OSRCEAT. Environmental Research
Consulting. 2005.

I.T.O.P.F (International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Ltd.) assumes that it is

virtually impossible to give a fixed value for the cost per tonne, because every oil spill
is different and it depends on the conditions and characteristics of the spill. Studies
published in JRP Report [JRP, 2013], indicates that the average costs associated with
cleanup and restoration of the coast are displayed on Table 2:

Table 2. Caused oil spill costs. Source: Connections. Report of the Joint Review Panel for the
Enbridge Northern Gateway Project. Volume 1. Canadian Environmental Assesment Agency. 2013.

Costs per m3 ($) Costs per barrel ($)

Cleaning 94.500 15.000
Damage 141.750 22.500
Total 236.250 37.500

Applying the study to oil spills of different sizes, we can see the associated costs for
each spill in Table 3.

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Table 3. Cost oil spills at sea. Source: Concerned Professional Engineers (CPE).

Costs for diferent oceanic oil spills (Costs m3-236.250($))

Amount spilled (m3) Amount spilled (bbl) Costs (cleaning – damage) ($)
5.000 31.500 1.181.250.000
10.000 63.000 2.362.500.000
20.000 126.000 4.725.000.000
50.000 315.000 11.812.500.000
100.000 630.000 23.625.000.000
300.000 1.890.000 70.875.000.000

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of Repsol oil exploration in Canary

Islands considered a hypothetical accidental event of loss of control (blowout) with an
average rate of 1,000 bbl/day during the period of 30 days. OSRCEAT model adapted
to the Canary Islands, estimates the costs of a similar oil spill in a coastal area of great
environmental sensitivity it is like Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. After entering the
parameters for landfilling, characteristics of the coast, as well as natural and
socioeconomic resources, we find that the estimated cost is 1,150 million euros (Figure
3 - Figure 5).

Figure 3. Screen 1. OSRCEAT adapted to Canarias. Source: Author.

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Figure 4. Screen 2 and Screen 3. OSRCEAT adapted to Canarias.

Source: Author.

Figure 5. Screen 4. OSRCEAT adapted to Canarias. Source: Author.

CONCLUSIONS
In any action to combat pollution we must prevent and reduce damage and the impact of
the spill. In addition, the costs associated are usually always very high and difficult to
quantify. However they are mainly associated with two types: cleaning and restoration
of the coast and damage the environment. The tool OSRCEAT-SIROCO OSRCEAT
allows to compare the cost of oil slick for oil spill responders and planners.
In cleaning costs are taken into account many factors, including the location of the spill,
type of oil or pollutant, media used, etc. In addition, we must also consider the natural

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degradation of hydrocarbons whose intensity is difficult to predict in advance. To

estimate the total costs of cleaning, we must know the cost of equipment, materials,
labor, and complementary services.
The first thing to consider when quantifying the costs of the equipment is to know if the
country where the spill occurred has specialized equipment and personnel to combat
marine pollution, or if you have limited resources. To overcome the deficiencies of
material is necessary to establish regional agreements between countries, especially
with those closest to combine resources and reduce costs. We must also take into
account the response time and operability.
In the recent case of spill from the Deepwater Horizon, BP has had to invest 14,000
million of dollars in the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in spill response operations and it
was necessary almost 20,000 million dollars to pay for economic demands and actions
to restore natural resources.

REFERENCES
BERGUEIRO, J. R. (2001). La Gestión de los Derrames de Hidrocarburos en el Mar.
Área de Ingeniería Química. Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de las Islas Baleares.
Palma de Mallorca.
ETKIN. (2005). DAGMAR SCHMIDT ETKIN. Oil Spill Response Cost-Effectiveness
Analytical Tool (OSRCEAT). Environmental Research Consulting. University of New
Hampshire/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Cooperative Institute for
Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET).
J.M. Calvilla-Quintero, J.A. González-Almeida, J.I. Gómez Gómez, J.R. Bergueiro
López (2008) SISTEMAS INSULARES DE RESPUESTA Y OPERACIONES ANTE
CONTAMINANTES OCEÁNICOS (SIROCO). Congreso: 9 CONAMA (CONGRESO
NACIONAL DEL MEDIO AMBIENTE-CUMBRE DEL DESARROLLO
SOSTENIBLE).
ETKIN-WELCH (2005). Dagmar Schmidt Etkin and Jeff Welch. Development of the
Oil Spill Response Cost-Effectiveness Analytical Tool. Artic & Marine Oilspill Program
Technical SeminarEnvironmental Research Consulting Cortlandt Manor, New York,
USA.

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OPTIMAL WATER SUPPLY RELATED TO WATER PRODUCTION

CAPABILITIES ON BOARD

Srećko Krile1, Marina Krile–Cvitanović2, Leszek Chybowski3

1, 2
University of Dubrovnik (Sveučilište u Dubrovniku), Maritime Department
Ćira Carića 4, 20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia
Tel: 385 20 445-739, Fax: 385 20 435-590,
e-mail: srecko.krile@unidu.hr, marina.krile5@gmail.com
3
Maritime University of Szczecin (Akademia Morska w Szczecinie),
Faculty of Marine Engineering
ul. Wały Chrobrego 1-2, 70-500 Szczecin, Poland
tel. +48 91 480 94 12, fax. +48 91 480 95 75
e-mail: l.chybowski@am.szczecin.pl

Abstract: This research is based on savings coming from combination of water

production and better planning of water bunkering in ports. Such operational research
(OR) approach is based on better utilization of ship tank capacity in relation to water
production. The efficient heuristic algorithm for optimal decisions for N different water
sources (e.g. production by evaporation, production by reverse osmosis process and
bunkering in ports + bottled water) for the ship with limited water tanks capacity is
being developed. Mathematical model is developed on the basis of capacity expansion
problem, same as the Minimum Cost Multi-Commodity Flow Problem (MCMCF).

Keywords: Water supply on board, Capacity management for cruisers, Minimum Cost
Multi-Commodity Flow Problem, Optimal shipment on multi-stop voyage route

INTRODUCTION

The cruise industry is the fastest growing segment in the leisure travel market. Since
1980, the industry has experienced a growth of average annual passenger rate of
approximately 7.2% per annum. According to the Cruise Lines International
Association statistic, total number of cruise ships was 310 and 22.1 million passengers
traveled in year 2014.
As the cruise industry is expanding rapidly, cruise lines needs to stay competitive at the
market. The key of success is the top quality of the provided services at the lowest costs
possible. Cruise line companies are investing a lot of effort in order to operate cruise
ships more efficiently. With optimization methods such as route management and fuel
optimization method the expenses can be decreased and the saving can be made. One of
the crucial things of the cruise ship operation is drinking water supply. The average use
of the drinking water on cruise ships is more than 260 000 gallons per day. A sufficient
amount of water on board is needed to provide a quality service to the passengers.
Water is essential for ship’s kitchen activities and for all passengers’ activities such as
maintaining hygiene, bathing, drinking, so operation management has to track usage of
water carefully 24 hours a day.
Cruise chips cannot carry all this water from the embarkation port or rely on local ports
so the innovative methods for ocean-water desalination process, such as revers osmosis
and evaporation, are used. Innovative methods are very expensive to use because lot of
energy is needed for that process. On the other hand, the price of the water varies from
port to port so it is not profitable to fill the full tank in every port. The major change in

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water supply on board is firmly in relation to water production but also with better
planning of water supply (bunkering) in ports on the voyage, tending to increase
operating efficiency, better productivity and profitability. According to our research we
can say that optimization of water supply can have a great impact on efficient and
profitable operation of cruise ship. In this article we want to ensure better voyage
planning with minimization of expenses on the route with multiple loading/unloading
ports with intention to ensure enough drinking and sanitary water during voyage.
This problem can be seen as transportation problem represented by a flow diagram of
non-oriented acyclic network, see fig.1. The problem can be solved with different
techniques but here we applied network optimization technique; see [1] and [2]. The
non-linear transportation problem (NTP) with multiple expansion points (sources) and
multiple reduction points (sinks) is very hard (NP-hard) problem so it is still the subject
of many scientific papers; see [3] and [4]. Figure 1. gives a network flow representation
of Minimum Cost Multi-Commodity Flow Problem (MCMCF) for N different water
sources on the route with M port. In this paper we applied such network optimization
approach; see [5] and [6]. The mathematical model is formulated in section 1. The
algorithm development and implementation are explained in section 2. Testing results
and explanation of basic heuristic approach can be seen in section 3.

1. THE MATHEMATICAL MODEL

Different kinds of water sources are differentiated with i for i = 1, 2, 3. The objective is
to find a loading and production strategy that minimizes the total cost incurred over the
whole voyage route consisting of M+1 ports. Today, big cruisers are capable to produce
thousand tons of fresh water per day, but it requires extra energy and higher expenses.
Cruise ships do not desalinate water near ports or close to land, because coastal waters
are the most contaminated.

Figure 1. Mathematical model for water supply. The model is known as

Multicomodity Flow Problem. Diagram represents the capacity states for the water
sources in each port. Links betwen common source and water capacity states
represent the water bunkering or water production.

Supply from common source

O
Ri,j(1,M)

z1 z2 zM

Bunkering 1,1 2,1 ... M,1

Osmosis 2,1 2,2 ... M,2

x1,1 x2,1
Evaporation 3,1 3,2 ... x3,1
x3,2
M,3
x1,2
x2,2 x2,3 x3,3
x1,3
Ship water I=0 I= 0 Ship water
capacity In port
Off
shore
In port
Off
shore ... In port
Off
shore
capacity after
before load journey
r1,1 r1,2 r2,1 r2,2 rM,1 rM,2

Port Port ... Port Port

1 2 M M+1

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The transportation problem can be represented by a flow diagram of non-oriented

acyclic network. Node “O” is the common source in mathematical model that ensures
water loading in ports and water production on board with possible limitations. Some
ports can have restriction on loading capacity, but most of them are hub ports with
capacity exceeding the ship’s earning capacity (water thank of ship). On figure 1. the i-
th row of nodes represents the increasing values of water capacity for f i-th type of
water source in port m and during voyage between ports m and m+1.
The horizontal links between capacity nodes are representing the amounts of water on
board on the path. Such transportation problem can be seen as the capacity expansion
problem (CEP). For each water load/production we need common ship’s tank space so
it looks like expansion (load) or reduction (consumption) of spare water in given
bounds.
In the mathematical model of CEP the following notation is used:
i, j and k = indices for type of water resources. The N facilities are not ranked, just
present different types of water sources from 1, 2, 3 .
m = indices the port of water loading or consumption. The number of ports on the
voyage including departure port is M +1 (m = 1, .. , M+1) .
u, v = indices for ports in sub-problem, 1 ≤ u, ... , v ≤ M+1.
ti,m = indices the maximal time of water loading/production where t1,m is time of stay in
port m, while t2,m represents shipping off shore.
Effective time of production by reverse osmosis and evaporation process between
ports m and m+1 could be significantly smaller because it is acceptable only in clean
open sea water.
xi,m = quantity of i-th load of water amounts/hour being loaded in ports or produced
on board. For convenience, the xi,m is assumed to be integer. Total loading/production
amount in port m :
Xm= x1.m ⋅ t1,m + ( x 2,m + x3,m ) ⋅ t 2,m (1.1)
L = limitations of water tank.
ri,m = water consumption in port m (i=1) or during voyage between port m and port
m+1 (i=2). For convenience, the ri,m is assumed to be integer. Total consumption
amount (reduction) including staying in port m and during voyage to the neighbor port
m+1 .

Rm = r1,m ⋅ t1,m + r2,m ⋅ t 2,m (1.2)

All water demands must be satisfied during voyage reaching the last port on the route.
M M

∑ X m = ∑ Rm
m =1 m =1
(1.3)

Im = the relative amount of water in any moment on the voyage. Horizontal links
(Im) on fig. 1. are representing the water amount between two neighbor ports. Before the
first port of loading, I1= 0 . After last port IM+1 = 0. Capacity values cannot be negative.
step Ii = the lowest step of possible capacity change (load and reduction) for water
source i. In numerical examples it can be set e.g. step Ii = 5% of total ship’s capacity.
The total cost over time includes:
a) fm - loading cost in port m in relation to amount.

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a1,m ⋅t1,m
f m = A1,m + B1,m ⋅ x1,m ⋅ t1,m (1.4)
b) fm – water production cost by reverse osmosis process between port m and port m+1
in relation to amount.
a2 ,m ⋅t 2. m
hm = A2,m + B2,m ⋅ x2,m ⋅ t 2,m (1.5)
c) gm – water production cost by evaporation process between port m and port m+1 in
relation to the amount.
a3 ,m ⋅t 2. m
g m = A3,m + B3,m ⋅ x3,m ⋅ t 2,m (1.6)

where ai,m represents the factor of concavity for appropriate water source i and for
appropriate conditions on the route (m=1, …, u, v, …, M+1). In some cases the constant
value Ai,m (fix cost) could be avoided.
d) pm – penalty cost taking in account Im, the water surplus during voyage. It should be
assumed that all function costs are concave and non-decreasing (most of them reflecting
economies of scale) and they differ from one port to another; see [6]. The objective
function is necessarily non-linear cost. With variation of cost parameters the
optimization process could be easily managed, looking for benefits of the most
appropriate loading/production solutions; see [7].

The optimization process should find out the most attractive water loading/production
sequence. It can be formulated as minimization of the objective cost function:

(1.7)
min ∑ { f m ( x1,m , t1,m ) + hm ( x 2,m , t 2,m ) + g m ( x3,m , t 2,m ) − p m ( I m )}
M

m =1

where: I m +1 = I m + Dm ( xi , m , ri , m , ti , m ) (1.8)
Dm = X m ( x1,m , t1,m ) − Rm ( x2,m , x3,m , t 2,m ) (1.9)
I1 = I M +1 = 0 (1.10)
for m = 1, 2, .. , M ; i = 1, 2, 3

2. ALGORITHM DEVELOPMENT
Instead of a nonlinear convex optimization, that may be very complicated and time-
consuming, the network optimization methodology is efficiently applied. The main
reason of such approach is the possibility of definition of many discrete capacity values
for limited number of water resources in any moment of the voyage; see [11]. The
multi-constrained problem (MCP) can be formulated as Minimum Cost Multi-
Commodity Flow Problem (MCMCF). Such problem (NP-complete) can be easily
represented by multi-commodity the single (common) source multiple destination
network; see [8], [9] and [10].
Definition of the single-constrained problem for CEP is to find a path P from starting to
end port such that:
M +1 N
w( P ) = min ∑∑ wm ( I m , xi ,m , ri ,m , ti ,m ) (2.1)
m =1 i =1

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where: Im ≤ L (2.2)
for i = 1, …, N ; m = 1,…, M+1

A path obeying the above conditions is feasible. Note that there may be multiple
feasible paths between starting and ending port (node).
Generalizing the concept of the capacity states after loading/production in any moment
between ports m and m +1 we define as a capacity point - αm.
αm = (Im,, xi,m , ri,m, ti,m) (2.3)
α1 = αM+1 = 0 (2.4)
Let Cm be the number of capacity point values at port m (load/production value for each
water source after departure from the port m and before arrival in port m+1; see fig. 2.
Only one capacity point is for starting port (before bunkering) and one for end port on
the route: C1 = CM+1 = 1; see. Formulation (2.4) implies that relative value for water
amount is zero before loading on the starting point, same as after consumption on the
ending point. For absolute value we can limited it on some minimal amount, e.g. 20% of
water tank.

The total number of capacity points is:

M +1
C p = ∑ Cm (2.5)
m=1

The network optimization can be divided in two steps; see [11]. At first step the
minimal transportation weights du,v between all pairs of capacity points (neighbor ports
on the route) are calculated. It is obvious that in CEP we have to find many cost values
du,v(αu, αv+1) that emanate two capacity points of neighbor ports: from each node (u, αu)
to node (v+1, αv+1) for v ≥ u. Calculation of such value is the capacity expansion sub-
problem (CES). The objective function for CES can be formulated as follows:
 v N 
d u ,v = min  ∑ ∑ f m + hm + g m − p m   (2.6)
m =u  i =1 
The most of the computational effort is spent on computing of many sub-problem
values. That number depends on the total number of capacity points, see (2.5). The total
number of all possible du,v(αu, αv+1) values representing CES between two capacity
points is:
M
N d = ∑ C m ⋅ C m+1 (2.7)
m =1

At second step we are looking for the shortest path in the network with former
calculated weights (CES values), see fig. 2. As the number of all possible du,v(αu, αv+1)
values depends on the total number of capacity points it is very important to reduce that
number (Cp) and that can be done through imposing of appropriate capacity bounds or
by introduction of adding constraints (e.g. max. loading/production time). Through
numerical test-examples we will see that many loading/reduction solutions cannot be a
part of the optimal expansion sequence. It is the way how this algorithm can be
significantly improved without significant degradation of final result. According to this

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the heuristic approach can obtain the near-optimal result with significant computational
savings.
For every CES many different solutions can be derived depending on Dm value; see
(1.9). Each of them represents the capacity state of each water source onboard
(loading/production) in appropriate port or on journey between neighbor ports.
Suppose that all links (sub-problems) in diagram 2. are calculated, the optimal solution
for CEP can be found by searching for the optimal sequence of capacity points and their
associated link state values; see fig 2. Then Dijkstra’s or Floyd’s algorithm or any
similar algorithm can be applied; see [13] and [14].
The complexity of the proposed algorithm is O(Cp2). As we mentioned before Cp is in a
strong correlation with number of ports M and number of water sources N but also with
minimal capacity increment step Ii that can be variable.

Figure 2. The CEP problem can be seen as the shortest path problem for an
acyclic network in which the nodes represent all possible values of capacity
points. The links connecting neighbor capacity are representing CES values.

3,1
d2,3(1,1) d3,4(1,1)
4,1
2,1 .
d1,2(1,1) . d (1,C )
2,3 3
. d3,4(1,C4) . d (1,1)
4,M+1

. . .
1,1 . . M+1,1
. .
.
d1,2(1,C2) . d (C ,1)
2,3 2
d3,4(C3,1) . d (C ,1)
4,M+1 4

.
2,C2 4,C4
d2,3(C2,C3) d3,4(C3,C4)
3,C3

3. TESTING RESULTS OF BASIC HEURISTIC

In route definition from example in fig. 3 we have starting port 1 and ending port 7, and
any of 5 middle ports can be used for water load. We are looking for distribution plan of
water loading/production amounts, showing water capacity state and consumption rates.
The water consumption demands are presented in the percentage of the total ship
capacity, see figure 5. (green column). Water consumption is generally smaller in ports
in relation to voyage periods, because the passengers are out. That input information is
gathered from statistics.

Water loadings are in relation to ship stay in each port and it is limited respectively to
ship tank amount; see table 1. Production is dependent of many factors and their

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correlations, but generally it is limited by duration (time), see table 2. Production

amounts by reverse osmosis is generally higher than by evaporation because it is much
cheaper. The problem is the low temperature of sea water. Sometimes the evaporation
process can be a good way of energy savings, utilizing the surplus of energy produced
in another process on board [15], [16].

Table 1. Capacity limitations in ports during voyage. That values are in relation to
loading/production conditions, mostly in dependence of time. For this example spare water
amount has to be min 20 %.

Water source Port 1 Port 2 Port 3 Port 4 Port 5 Port 6

% of tank % of tank % of tank % of tank % of tank % of tank
bunkering 80 80 80 80 60 70

osmosis 40 (1-2) 30 (2-3) 20 (3-4) 30 (4-5) 20 (5-6) 20 (6-7)

evaporation 20 (1-2) 15 (2-3) 10 (3-4) 15 (4-5) 10 (5-6) 10 (6-7)

Table 2. Time limitations staying in port and during voyage. That values are in relation to
loading/production conditions.

Port 1 Port 2 Port 3 Port 4 Port 5 Port 6

% of tank % of tank % of tank % of tank % of tank % of tank
In port 12 10 13 15 10 10

Off shore 20 (1-2) 15 (2-3) 10 (3-4) 15 (4-5) 10 (5-6) 10 (6-7)

For simplicity some costs elements are equal: A1,m= 0.0; B1,m = (2.5; 4.0; 2.0; 5.0;
3.0; 4.0); B2,m =1.7; B3,m =2.5; pm=0.0; and concavity for all costs ai,m= 0.85, for
m=1,…,6.
According to all loading/production costs we can calculate the optimal plan for water
supply distribution. From figure 3. it is obvious that loads/productions are: 1-2 (65+30
%); 2-3 (0 + 20 %); 3-4 (80 + 30 %); 4-5 (0 + 20 %); 5-6 (60 + 20 + 5 %), 6-7 (5 %).
For our test-example the best loading/production strategy (near optimal) is shown on
figures 3. and 4. For the basic option we used the same minimal capacity increment
step Ii,m = 5 % for all changes of water resources. We know that such capacity resolution
is not satisfactorily and, in general, we should be far away from optimal result. In this
case we have 3181 capacity states and 3181x3181 CES values. We can decrease value
step Ii,m but the complexity drastically rises. Water loading/production amounts can be
seen in diagram on fig. 5. In this figure we unified the load amounts in port and
production off shore, just to show importance of each water source.

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Figure 3. Water bunkering/production plan on the route as result of optimization.

Bunkering is possible only during stay in port, that depends of many factors as
loading sped (water throughput), duration of stay in the port and special port taxes.

Figure 4. Amounts of water loading and water production on the route.

From fig. 5. we can see that absolute amount of spare water (blue line) do not fall below
of 20% of total water capacity (tank space). It is mandatory in relation to decisions of
ship owner and security of passengers and crew.

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4. CONCLUSIONS
The proposed heuristic algorithm shows ability to solve very complex optimization
problem with many water loading/production locations (ashore/off shore) on the route.
The most important benefit is to be able to solve the nonlinear cost problems that we
normally have in practice. Also, the existing calculation power in shipping surrounding
is limited so algorithms with huge complexity are useless. This approach can be
extended with successive iterations and be able to decrease complexity to acceptable
level, looking for the best solution more precisely. In the same time it ensures to
planners and managers very fine tool, to modulate many input values, leading
optimization process in wanted direction. With such optimization tool the shipping
companies can ensure a significant savings on the multiport cruiser routes and be more
profitable by following the demands and easily adapt to its changes.

Figure 5. Plan of water loading/production on the route, showing water

capacity state and consumption rates. Water consumption is generaly smaller
in ports in relation to voyage period, because the passengers are out of board.

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REFERENCES
1. Ouorou, A., Mahey, P., Vial, J.Ph., A Survey of Algorithms for Convex Multi-commodity Flow
Problems, Markup Languages, Vol. 46 , No. 1, , pp. 126-147, (2000).
2. Xiea F., an Jiab R., Nonlinear Fixed Charge Transportation Problem by Minimum Cost Flow-based
Genetic Algorithm, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Vol. 63, No. 4, , pp. 763–778, (2012).
3. Castro J., Nabona N., An Implementation of Linear and Nonlinear Multi-commodity Network Flows,
European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 92, No.1, pp. 37-53, (1996).
4. Fleisher, L. Approximating Multi-commodity Flow Independent of the Number of Commodities, Siam
J. Discrete Math. Vol. 13, No. 4, 2000, pp. 505-520.
5. Fonoberova, M., Lozovanu, D. The maximum flow in dynamic networks, Computer Science Journal
of Moldova 3(36), 2004, .pp. 387–396,
6. Krile, S., Application of the Minimum Cost Flow Problem in Container Shipping, Proc. of 46th
ELMAR’ 04 (International Symposium of Electronics in Marine), 2004, pp. 466-471, Zadar, Croatia.
7. Krile, S., Optimal Voyage Planning in Container Shipping, Proc. of 25th International Conference of
Automation in Transportation, Zagreb–Copenhagen, 2005, pp. 32-35.
8. Krile, S., Logistic Support for Loading/Unloading in Shipping with Multiple Ports / Logistika za
ukrcaj i iskrcaj na plovidbi s više luka, Proc of. 31st International Conference of Automation in
Transportation (KOREMA), Pula – Milan, 2011, pp. 94–97.
9. Krile, S., Krile, M., Better Profitability of Multi-Stop Flight Routes, Proc. of. International
Conference of Automation in Transportation (KOREMA), Zagreb - Wien, pp. 97-100, (2012).
10. Krile, S, Krile, Prusa, P., Non-Linear Minimax Problem Of Multi-stop Flight Routes, Transport,
Villnus, Vol. 30, No 4, 2015, pp., 361-371, DOI 10.3846/16484142.2015.1091984
11. Krile, S., Efficient Heuristic for Non-linear Transportation Problem on the Route with Multiple Ports,
Polish Maritime Research, Gdansk, Poland, Vol. 20, No 4, 2013, pp. 80-86, DOI 10.2478/pomr-2013-
0044
12. Yan S, Chen H.C, Chen Y.H, & Lou T.C., Optimal scheduling models for ferry companies under
alliances, Journal of Marine Science and Technology, 2007, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 53-66.
13. Zangwill I. W. l, Minimum Concave Cost Flows in Certain Networks, Management Science, Vol. 14,
1968, pp.429-450.
14. Case Study: Shortest-Path Algorithms, http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~itf/dbpp/text/node35.html#algdij1
15. Chybowski L. , Laskowski R., Gawdzińska K. An Overview of Systems Supplying Water into the
Combustion Chamber of Diesel Engines to Decrease the Amount of Nitrogen Oxides in Exhaust Gas.
Journal of Marine Science and Technology, Vol. 20, No. 3, Springer Japan, 2015, pp. 393-405, DOI:
10.1007/s00773-015-0303-8
16. Chybowski L. , Żółkiewski S., Basic Reliability Structures of Complex Technical Systems. New
Contributions in Information Systems and Technologies. Advances in Intelligent Systems and
Computing, Volume 354, Springer International Publishing, 2015, pp. 333-342, DOI 10.1007/978-3-
319-16528-8_31

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METHANOL AS AN ALTERNATIVE FUEL FOR MARINE USE TO REDUCE

THE ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION
Authors: Prof. Dr. Germán de Melo, Prof. Dr. Ignacio Echevarrieta1.
demelo@fnb.upc.edu, Faculty of Nautical Studies of Polytechnic University of
Catalonia, (Plaza de Palacio, 18-08003 Barcelona (Spain) 2. iechevarrieta@cen.upc.edu.
With the support and collaboration of members of MariEMS project.

ABSTRACT

Although the fuel used in maritime transport accounts for approximately between 3-
3,5% of the total consumed per year in the world, it emits to the atmosphere
approximately 1016 million tonnes of 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2 or GHG, (Third IMO GHG Study 2014 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2).
Most shipping routes pass near the coasts of maritime shipping countries, and in some
cases as The Channel, The Strait of Gibraltar, The Strait of Malacca, etc., with a very
high density of maritime traffic and near the coast, this makes much of air pollution
from ships landing on the shores of the countries where they navigate, causing, among
other effects, acid rain and global warming.
The MARPOL Annex VI requires that from January 1st. 2015 the sulphur content in
fuels used by the main and auxiliary engines of ships operating in ECA areas must be
less than 0.1%.
Also from January 1st., 2012, the same annex has forced international shipping vessels to a
maximum sulphur content of these fuels of 3.5%, and from 2020 it will be lowered to 0.5%.
The emission of the NOx from the burning of fossils fuels in the main and auxiliary
engines is also regulated by the Annex VI in three levels: Tier I – Ships keel laid from
January 1st, 2000 to January 1st 2011 (Global for existing “pre-2000”engines), Tier II –
Ships keel laid on or after January 1st 2011 (Global for new engines installed after 1st
2000), and Tier III – Ships keel laid after January 1st, 2016 operating in the North
American Emission Control Area or the United States Caribbean Sea Emission Control
Area. (NOx Emission Control Areas for new engines), with a mean rate of 12,140 g/kWh.
The above measures have caused a tsunami in shipping for strict compliance with the
rules set in the Annex VI of MARPOL, for ships sailing in the ECA areas, it requires
ship owners to use fuel with sulphur content less than 0.1%, which makes it necessary to
use MGO fuel more expensive than HFO, or others types of fuels, liquid or gas, that
comply with the new regulations regarding to the emission of SOx and NOx.

The IMO in its “Third IMO GHG Study 2014 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2” made the inventory of the total
emissions of GHG and established all kind of measures to reduce the consumption of
fuel and the emissions of GHG from the ships.
In this paper we study the alternatives fuels, like LNG or Methanol, to the fuels like
HFO or MGO to comply with the IMO regulations and reduction of GHG, analysing its
advantages and disadvantages, which can be used in existing ships and new
construction, and therefore is desirable to have means to allow the use of new fuels, and
doing that maritime transport be more respect with the environment.
Keywords: Energy efficiency; Energy management; Energy policy; Shipping economic;
GHG; Fuels, LNG; Methanol.

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INTRODUCTION
According to the "Third study of the IMO on GHG 2014 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2" domestic shipping,
international and fishing vessels over 100 GT have a fuel consumption of hydrocarbons
derived from crude oil, between 300 and 350 million tons per year, which amounts to
between 3.0 and 3.5% of total global fuel consumption, taking into account each and
every consumer energy sectors.

The use of hydrocarbon fuels derived from crude oil, in addition to the benefits that
behave in all sectors, also have their drawbacks and that over time we've been burning
this fuel have been producing lots of greenhouse gases emissions, GHG, which are
producing adverse effects on the climate of the earth.

In addition to greenhouse gases, GHG, these fuels produce during combustion SOx and
NOx, which combined with water cause acid rain affecting humans and forests. Also
produce so-called particulate matter, PM, unburned particles which are of different sizes
and are breathed by humans causing diseases of various kinds.

The SOx produced by combustion of fuels from crude oil is due to the amount of sulfur
that the fuel contains as a residue, and if this residue is removed from the fuel or from
the flue gases, various kinds of processes eliminate the production of SOx.

The NOx produced during combustion of the fuel is due to the chemical reaction
between atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen used as oxidizer, and the catalyst of this
reaction is the temperature of combustion, that is, the higher the combustion
temperature is, the greater NOx production.

According to the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency), it is estimated that a

3,000 passengers cruise ship on a day sailing emitted into the atmosphere the equivalent
of 13 million vehicles in sulfur dioxide. In this context, other sources (Ref.10)
assimilated air pollution from a cruise ship in one hour of stay in port, to 350,000
vehicles or a power plant of medium size through diesel engines and auxiliary systems,
among others.

Main propulsion diesel engines power of merchant ships, are among the main sources of
greenhouse gas emissions by combustion in relation to tons of fuel consumed (Ref.16).
According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), emissions of polluting
greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced by the world fleet of merchant ships was
approximately 949 million tons of 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2 and 972 million tons of 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2, combining, 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2,
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶4 and 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁2 , assuming 2.1% of global emissions of greenhouse gases (IMO, 2014).
As regards emissions of NOx and SOx, quantities issued by the international fleet
totaled 20.3 million tons of NOx and 11.3 million tons of SOx in 2012.
It is worth mentioning that the emissions of NOx and SOx derived from shipping have a
very substantial proportion of total emissions weight and stresses, above all, the role in
the formation of tropospheric ozone and indirect aerosols heating at regional scale.
However, emissions from diesel engines derived from cruise ships are particularly
worrying when they are in port, and above all significant for coastal communities and
surrounding areas such as most European cities with a strong presence of cruise
tourism. Auxiliary diesel machinery, lighting appliances, pumps, refrigeration

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equipment and many other functions performed on board are a significant source of air
pollution. It is estimated that a large cruise ship in port could emit as many air pollutants
as 2,000 cars and trucks driving in a year. 1
Elaborating a little more the analysis of NOx emissions from ships, we can establish
that a ship with a generating capacity of 10 MW, in ten hours produces 1,214 t of NOx
and 10,000 vehicles circulating 1000 km each produce 1.0 t of NOx.
This highlights the need to assess the effects of these gases at all levels, in order to be
able to implement corrective measures to reduce the levels of air pollution caused by
ships and make that maritime transport remains a mode of transport sustainable.
Although the fuel used by the total world fleet is less than 3,5% of the total used fuel
worldwide, it does not mean that pollution from ships is not important, but it is of great
impact on the Earth's and Marine environment.

Therefore, among other reasons, the International Maritime Organization, IMO, has
been conducting studies and establishing mandatory rules in order to reduce air
pollution from ships.

IMO REGULATIONS

Figure 1 Present and future limits for sulfur content of marine fuel (Ref.1)

In Figure 1 the program of the IMO to reduce the sulfur content in fuels for marine use
is shown, and it consists of three stages, one which corresponds to the maximum sulfur
content for the world fleet, which currently is 3.5% and that will culminate in 2020 with
0.5%. The second stage is called SECAs in forcing the use of fuels with a maximum
sulfur content of 0.1%, and the third stage corresponding to the use of fuels with a

1
http://www.windrosenetwork.com/La-Industria-del-Crucero-Cuestiones-Medioambientales-Contaminantes

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maximum sulfur content of 0.1% for all ships they are operating in the ports of the
European Union.

Figure 2 IMO Diesel Engine NOx Emission Limits (Ref.1)

Figure 2 shows the three levels of production of NOx by the main and auxiliary engines
of merchant ships, depending on the number of engine revolutions and could set an
average value of 12.14 g / kWh.

METHANOL AS A MARINE FUEL

In order to be compliant with the requirements of IMO particularly in the ECAs, several
alternatives can be presented, using currently fuels like HFO, MGO/MDO and the new
fuels like LNG and Methanol. Then, fuels to be used in ECAs may be:

HFO with after treatment

MGO/MDO
LNG
Methanol

Using HFO as fuel is possible if HFO with low Sulphur content is available or if a
scrubber is installed. So, it is possible to use HFO 1% S or HFO 3,5% with a scrubber.
This is the easiest way for the retrofit because no modification is required in the engine
or the fuel system. The weight and volume added may be a problem of vessel stability
and the disposal of byproduct also may be a problem.

Changing to MGO or MDO may help with the problems related to Sulphur but those
related to NOx, mainly with new constructions, are unchanged. The price, now about
twice that of HFO is also a disadvantage.

LNG is a good alternative but the main problem is its availability because few harbors
have facilities with the infrastructure necessary for bunkering. The retrofit in ships is
also very expensive because the entire engine must be changed. The tanks and all the
fuel system also must be replaced by cryogenic or pressure systems.

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Methanol is a low carbon fuel that can be synthesized from a number of feedstocks and
it is an alternative fuel in the ships due its low Sulphur, NOx and particulate emissions.

Methanol offers a simplest infrastructure changes in port and in the ship that makes
cheaper the retrofit though the cost is significative. It needs no cryogenic or pressure
tanks. The main drawback is its high and uncertain price regarding to the others fuels.

By its composition poor in Carbon, LNG, LPG and methanol generate less 𝐶𝐶𝑂𝑂2
emissions during combustion than fuel oils.

The emission factor of the methanol is 69 g of CO2/MJ and compared with the emission
factors of HFO 77g of CO2/MJ and MGO 75 g of CO2/MJ is less than 10%.

Methanol is also interesting because bio-methanol can be made from a vast variety of
biomasses and mixed with methanol made from fossil fuels.

Currently, the cost of methanol is higher than the cost of heavy fuel oil (HFO) so it only
makes sense to use methanol in Sulphur emission control area (SECA) zones, or in
areas with strict emission control requirements.

At April, 24, 2016 the prices of fuels are:

HFO: 4,878 USD/GJ
MGO: 9.5 USD/GJ
LNG: 2,085 USD/GJ
Me OH: 12,677 USD/GJ

Methanol is toxic, corrosive and takes up twice as much space as MDO or HFO due to
its low heat value, about one half of these fuel oils.

Methanol has a flash point of 11°C, which is not Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)
compliant. Then, the use of a double wall design of all methanol components, tanks and
piping, and all leakages should be monitored and collected in the double barrier.

Figure 3

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Methanol is primarily produced from natural gas with a reforming at 900ºC with steam
and oxygen that delivers a synthetic gas that is a mixture of 𝐻𝐻2 , CO and 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2.After a
compression and cooling, a process of synthesis and distilation gives the methanol
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶3 𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂.

In order to use Methanol as fuel in Diesel engines three alternatives are possible (Ref.
7):

Diesel cycle with Methanol

The methanol at high pressure is injected close to TDC and ignited with pilot diesel. By
using the diesel principle, knocking problems that could appear using the methanol in a
Dual Fuel engine are avoided.

Diesel Engine Concept for a mixture of Methanol, DME and water.

HFO is replaced with a mixture of methanol, Di-Methyl Ether and water in a diesel
engine. Since this mixture is a gas at atmospheric pressure, fuel supply and return
system has to be pressurized.

Dual Fuel engine for Methanol

In these engines, the gas valve on a DF-engine, is replaced, by a methanol injector.

The compressed premixed methanol-air mixture is ignited with a small pilot fuel diesel
spray when the piston is close to TDC. The engines run on 95% Methanol and 5%
Diesel.

As methanol is injected in the TDC and is ignited by diesel, knocking is avoided and a
good combustion can be made, with low CO and formaldehyde emission levels due to
that Methanol burns with a temperature of up to 1,300ºC and consequently, all
methanol molecules will be burned. Formaldehyde is generated at a temperature of
approx. 400–600ºC, then there is no fuel slip and no formaldehyde is generated in the
exhaust gas system.

Due to the low viscosity of Methanol, oil has to be used in order to lubricate the injector
moving parts. Oil has also sealing and injection driving functions.

NOx emission levels can be reduced to a value between one quarter and a half of the
same engine burning HFO, being therefore acceptable for Tier II requirements.

CONCLUSIONS

Methanol is toxic, corrosive and takes up twice as much space as MDO or HFO due to
its low heat value, about one half of these fuel oils.

Methanol has a flash point of 11°C, which is not Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS)
compliant. Then, the use of a double wall design of all methanol components, tanks and
piping, and all leakages should be monitored and collected in the double barrier. There

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is no need to use cryogenic appliances and isolation like LNG. This makes easier the
retrofit and the bunkering facilities in harbors, Figure 4.

In order to make the retrofit for an existing ship, only some parts like injection system
and cylinder heads of the diesel engines should be changed whereas for LNG practically
the entire engine should be replaced, Figure 4.

Burning Methanol reduces NOx emissions to a range between one quarter and one half
than HFO, acceptable values for Tier II, CO and THC emissions are below 1 𝑔𝑔⁄𝑘𝑘𝑘𝑘ℎ
and PM is also very low. Formaldehyde emissions are acceptable (Ref. 7).

The high price may be reduced with other sources of fabrication of Methanol.

Figure 4

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Commitee. (http://www.lngbunkering.org/lng/business-case/incentives)

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ANALYSIS AND PROPOSALS ON THE OPERATIONS OF VESSELS TO

REDUCE ACCIDENTS IN FISHING CRAFT FROM SPAIN.

Alfredo Torné, A. Isalgué, F.X. Martínez de Osés.

Nautical Faculty of Barcelona, Polytechnic University of Catalonia (SPAIN).

Abstract

Artisanal fishing has been and remains one of the sectors with the highest accident rate
in our country. According to serious studies in artisanal fisheries in the area of Galicia
accidents are the small boats those that have the strongest claims. It is also observed
that accidents occurred during operations of gear retrieval. Faced with this problem is
to conduct a study that will further knowledge of the conditions in which the accident
occurred, then to carry out the necessary measures to reduce the number of fatalities in
this sector proposals.

Keywords:
Fishing, small fishing vessels, accidents, operability

1. INTRODUCTION.

Fishing was in the past and remains today one of the important productive sectors of
Spain, 1,011 thousand tons at December 31 2013. This important sector develops, and is
divided into 4 main modes, Siege, Drag, longlines, minor Arts and a fifth that
encompasses all other less important modes. From the point of view of consumption,
according to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, only products from aquaculture
represented 258 thousand tons in 2013. Overall, we see that Spain is a major consumer
of fish, both imported and domestic, but Spain also exports in large quantities, valued,
according to MAGRAMA, in 2946 million euros in 2013 [1].

Besides being an important industry in Spain, it is also characteristic for the large
number of accidents recorded. The accident rate in the fisheries sector worldwide has
been the subject of study and concern for different countries, including ours. Levels of
fishing accidents fired alarms because they are above many sectors of our society,
including construction (see Figure 1) [7, 8].

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Figure 1. Casualties per year as a function of time. Fishing gives a much higher figure than
other heavy duties as construction.

For years, organizations from several countries launched various measures aimed at
reducing the high accident rate that was collected in inshore fisheries. These measures,
even today in continuous development, address specific issues on the construction of
ships, control and prevention of the values of the ship's stability, training and awareness
of fishermen, among others [3, 4, 9, 10].

The different lines of action against accidents have resulted in the creation of programs
that control at all times the stability of the ship, rules to avoid types of undesirable
vessels from a constructive point of view, talks in brotherhoods to educate the fishermen
on the risks and training in the use and operation of equipment and safety on board
[9,11]. All these actions have significantly reduced accidents in fishing, however
accident figures remain still high, much higher than the construction sector [2].

The main objective of this work is to determine, by an elaborate study of maritime

accidents in the artisanal fisheries sector of the Galician coast, the relationship between
these and the operation of the vessel. It is intended to show that most accidents occurred
during operation of hoisting gear. Once the relationship between accident and operation
of the ship, there could be developed one or more measures acting on the operation of
the vessel with the intention of reducing the number of human losses. The methodology
of this research will be based on the analysis of the different studies published on
maritime accidents in the fishing sector. In this analysis we want to obtain information
about all aspects of operating the vessel.

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2. DATA AND BOUNDARIES OF THE PROBLEM.

2.1 TYPES OF VESSELS MORE FREQUENTLY IMPLIED IN ACCIDENTS.

Fishing is a very broad sector that includes different procedures developed in various
areas, with different kinds of ships and time slots variables. The information currently
available, is derived from the different parts of accident that processed the day of the
incident by the administration. It is observed in the study of 100 serious accidents
between 2008 and 2013 carried out by the Commission for Investigation of Accidents
and Maritime Incidents, that of these 100 events, 37 occurred in dedicated artisanal
fishing or small-scale gear vessels. On the other hand, the data shows that 44% of ships
that suffered accidents were aged over 15 years, 56% had a length of less than 15 meters
and with respect to the construction material, the percentages are almost equal between
steel, wood and GRP (Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer) [2].

2.2 MARITIME ZONE OF ACCIDENTS.

In the above mentioned study of the 100 major accidents in Spain, we note that 33% of
the accidents occurred in the area of Galicia, 25% of them occurred in the area of the
Mediterranean Sea and 14% in the Bay of Biscay. However, unlike what might be
expected, 45% of the ships that suffered the accident were dedicated to local fisheries,
29% to coastal fishing and 21% for other fishing activities. That is, the closer to the
coast was the fishing vessel, the higher the percentage of accidents [2].

2.3 TIME WHEN THE ACCIDENTS HAPPENED.

Of the 100 serious accidents studied, these are most frequently seen in the months of
July and November with percentages of 14% and 13% respectively. As regards the day
on which occurred the highest number of accidents, it was on a Thursday. As for the
time of the events recorded, we found that between 4 and 8 am there were 32% of
accidents and 21% in the afternoon in a time slot between 16:00 and 20: 00 hours (see
Figure 2). Both the day of the week that includes more accidents, and the hours at which
they occur, we think the routine and especially fatigue plays an important role in the
cause of accidents. Also we think that overconfidence in handling machinery can
influence [2].

Figure 2. Number of events according time interval at which they happened.

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2.4 CREW OF THE IMPLIED VESSELS.

With regard to provisions carried by the vessels involved in the study, it follows that the
larger the crew, the fewer the accidents, noting that 53% of the vessels had an allocation
of less than 5 crew members, 24% from 5 to 10, and 23% were carrying a crew of more
than 10. As in the previous point, we believe that as we increase the crew, the division
of labor makes the crew exercise their profession less affected by fatigue, more attentive
and less overconfident [2].

2.5 CAUSE OF THE ACCIDENTS.

Concerning the different origins of the events collected in the study of accidents, the
highest percentage corresponds to those activities related with navigational watch,
including the collisions, groundings and sinking, which collect 30% of the total. The
second most important cause of the accidents studied is related to deck operations, the
operational activity that led to the sinking of the ship or to capsizing, with 27% (see
Figure 3). Again, it may be that the crew fatigue, routine, overconfidence in handling
machinery, are one of the circumstances that may have influenced accidents
encompassed in this type [2].

Figure 3. Causes of accidents by number (in horizontal axis)

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Besides the origins exposed in the study, there are others that we believe may influence
an accident situation. First, we have a risk of weight accumulation on deck, causing a
rise in the center of gravity and therefore a loss of stability. During operations of the
recovery of fishing gear, these are deposited on the deck, stern towards the bow, until
everyone is on board. Depending on the length of the arts, the speed of turning machines
for networks and depth, these operations have a variable duration. Time is an important
parameter when weather conditions worsen considerably. Also it is related to exposure to
danger, as the networks on board in a high place, cause a loss of stability [6, 11].

In second place, we have the potential smearing that can occur during these operations.
The smearing is known as the situation in which the gear is hooked on the bottom,
either a rock, a wreck or other fixed to the bottom element. When there are given this
kind of situation, the main problem might seem breakage or loss of a part of the arts.
However, when during hauling operations it is found a situation of smearing, and there
are high waves, the boat is in danger of capsizing [12].

To understand the danger that the boat suffers in smearing when there are high waves,
imagine the surface line fixed in an instant on the wave step. The fishing gear is
attached to the bottom of the sea and cannot be released. The crew stretch and pull the
art, veered to try to loosen, therefore this is narrowing the distance between the toner
and the point where the art is hooked to the bottom. Finally, in this situation, we
increase the surf. Automatically the boat, due to the reasons for the buoyancy rises
along with the wave but being attached to the background art starts to heel to the toner
band. When the wave is increased and fishing gear is not hoisted, sometimes difficult,
the continuous ship heeling goes to a point where the accelerations suffered as a result
of sea state and operation of machines, represent considerable forces of inertia which
can contribute to destabilizing the boat [11, 12].

2.6 SEA CONDITIONS.

In the study of the 100 serious accidents in Spain between 2008 and 2013, a
comprehensive breakdown of the different causes, among which surprises with 38% of
the causes, weather conditions, are wind, sea, fog, waves and rain. This point we
consider is of great importance. We should note that most accidents occurred in vessels
less than 15 meters and relatively close to the coast. In this type of ships and adverse
weather conditions, ships suffer hard accelerations, in principle expected in the initial
design of the vessel, but, which together with the crew fatigue, routine and
overconfidence of the crew, may influence the stability and promote accidents.
However, this point needs a detailed investigation, as a rule the worst weather
conditions occur in the winter months and instead accidents occurred more frequently in
the months of July and November [11, 2].

2.7 CONSECUENCES OF THE ACCIDENTS.

The result of the 100 accidents studied, was that 80 people suffered personal injury,
with a result of 22 dead, 10 missing and 48 injured in varying degrees. Regarding the

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cause of death as many of them occurred in accidents related to the operation of the
ship, with 12 people dead and 4 missing. The second cause was the collapse that
collected between 2008 and 2013, 7 dead and 4 missing [2].

3. CONCLUSIONS

It is important that this research is addressing the issue of prevailing weather conditions
the day he accidents occurred, and which would provide information on the relationship
between these and accidents. In the study of severe accidents in Spain a mention of the
weather conditions is generic, but does not detail what conditions were, waves, wind,
swell. Moreover, it includes in them the fog and rain, conditions that do not affect the
stability of the ship or generate accelerations on the ship.

The observation of the data reveals correlation of diverse causes:

In first place, a higher percentage of accidents occur to small vessels, and reduced
crews. The support from one member of the crew to other diminishes the possibility of
accidents. The overconfidence existing in reduced crews has to be avoided.

In second place, the fact that the nearer to the coast, the higher the percentage of
accidents, points out also to the overconfidence effects.

In third place, the time intervals at which a large number of accidents happen, point to a
fatigue of the crew, and maybe also to operation with overconfidence.

In fourth place, operation and dynamic effects might increase strongly the risk of
accident, by destabilization of the ship. Weights placement and deck operation should
be conducted consciously. Hoisting is a dangerous action. Smearing and dynamic
effects by large waves (weather effects) can produce a loss of stability.

To avoid some of the accidents by the operation and by dynamic effects, it seems that
automatisms and automatic control of the machinery can help, sensing weather (waves),
accelerations, actual stability of the ship, loads, and forces the machines provide.

A considerable number of causes of accidents seems to have overconfidence as an

induction factor. Awareness and formation of fishermen should be the best way to
reduce these accidents.

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REFERENCES

[1] Estadistica. Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente. Datos

2012-2013-2014. Enero 2014.
http://www.magrama.gob.es/es/ministerio/servicios/analisis-y-
prospectiva/180_DATOS_2012-2013-2014_%28ene15%29_tcm7-224201.pdf

[2] Moreno Reyes, Francisco José, Gómez-Cano Alfaro, María. Causas de los
accidentes marítimos muy graves en la pesca 2008-2013. 2014.
http://www.magrama.gob.es/es/pesca/temas/titulaciones-
pesqueras/causasdelosaccidenteslaboralesenlapesca_tcm7-381977.pdf

[3] Rodriguez Arribe, José Antonio . El ISSGA y La prevención de riesgos laborales

en la Pesca en Galicia, Gestión de la Prevención. Evolución de la siniestralidad 2013.
http://www.insht.es/InshtWeb/Contenidos/Instituto/Noticias/Noticias_INSHT/2013/fich
eros/ISSGA_PRLPescaGaliciaBAJA.pdf
[4] García Puente, Noemí E, Carro Martínez, Pedro. Aspectos de seguridad en la
pesca de bajura. 2004.
http://www.insht.es/InshtWeb/Contenidos/Documentacion/TextosOnline/Rev_INSHT/2
004/30/seccionTecTextCompl1.pdf

[5] Tasende Souto, José Miguel . Seguridad en la pesca de bajura. MAPFRE

SEGURIDAD. N.72 - CUARTO TRIMESTRE 1998.
https://www.fundacionmapfre.org/documentacion/publico/i18n/catalogo_imagenes/grup
o.cmd?path=1020190

[6] Omack, J. Small commercial fishing vessel stability analysis. Where are we
now? Where are we going? Marine tecnology 40(4):296-302. October 2003.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233593452_Small_Commercial_Fishing_Ves
sel_Stability_Analysis_Where_Are_We_Now_Where_Are_We_Going

[7] Comisión de pesca, ponente: Séan Ó Neachtain. La pesca de bajura y los

problemas a los que se enfrentan los pescadores de bajura. 2004/2264(INI). 26 abril
2006. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-
//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A6-2006-0141+0+DOC+XML+V0//ES

[8] Moreno Reyes, Francisco José. Siniestralidad en el sector pesquero. INSHT-

CNMP. Seminario Buques de Pesca. Sevilla, 8 de mayo de 2012.
http://www.insht.es/InshtWeb/Contenidos/Documentacion/EL%20INSHT%20EN/Docu
mentacion%20seminarios/1_Seminario%20Pesca_Estadisticas%20de%20siniestralidad.
pdf

[9] Asociación Mar Seguro de Galicia. Los servicios de prevención mancomunados

en el sector de la pesca de bajura. Celeiro, 4 octubre 2012.
http://issga.xunta.es/export/sites/default/recursos/descargas/documentacion/material-
formativo/relatorios/2012_10_Prevencixn_buques_Mar_Seguro.pdf

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[10] Fundación para la Pesca y el Marisqueo. Análisis de la aplicación de la PRL en

el sector de la pesca en Galícia. Propuesta de intervención. Expediente núm: TR852A
2012/034-0. 2012. http://fundamar.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/10/ANALISIS_SITUACION_PESCA_PRL_GALICIA.pdf

[11] Míguez González, Marcos, Caamaño Sobrino, Pilar, Tedín Alvarez, Rafael, Díaz
Cásas, Vicente, Martínez López, Alba. Un sistema embarcado de evaluación de la
estabilidad y ayuda al patrón de buques de pesca.
http://www.gii.udc.es/img/gii/files/Un%20sistema%20embarcado%20de%20evaluaci%
C3%B3n.pdf

[12] Gefaell Chamochín, Guillermo. Algunas consideraciones sobre la estabilidad y

seguridad de los buques pesqueros menores de 24 metros de eslora. Articles published
in journals “Ingenieria Naval”, “Europa Azul” and “Sector Pesquero”. 2005.
http://www.gestenaval.com/?p=127

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EVALUATION OF STABILITY FOR A PASSENGER SHIP IN INLAND

WATER IN KOMAN LAKE IN ALBANIA
Kristofor Lapa*, Prof.As.
Blenard Xhaferaj, PhM
University "Ismail Qemali", Skele, Vlore, Albania, *e-mail: kristoforlapa@gmail.com

Abstract
Safe sailing requirements are of a special importance for passenger ships that are operating in
inland waters. It is required to have the most entire technical documentation related to safety in
Koman Lake situated in North of Albania, 30 km long eastward direction to the town of Fierza,
where such vessels are operating. In this paper on focus is the case study to analyse the
Stability of a boat that operates in Koman Lake and the Stability Characteristics fulfillment.
The procedure followed in this case study based on: a) measurements to define the ship offsets,
b) geometric modeling of ship hulls in CAD software, c) hydrostatic - stability calculations, and
d) the verification of stability criteria. Such procedure used in this case of study would be
considerade in other similar cases in internal water.

Keywords:

CAD software, geometric modeling, ship stability, passenger ship

1 INTRODUCTION
The number of passenger ships that connect Koman with Fierza town is increasing in
Koman lake. One of the representatives is “Berisha” ship for which is being demanded from
the Albanian Ship Register the necessary documentation regarding to navigation safety. The
reconstruction of ship was made in non–satisfactory engineering conditions and not based
on models or projects of any ship construction site [2].
To this vessel were conducted direct measurements of the ship, enough to its hull
remodeling.
The Schematic Charts and algorithms were developed earlier for modeling and building
3D-CAD of similar vessels hulls, in order to operate in inland waters. Such Schemes were
used in this case for hulls remodeling of “Berisha” ship for passengers and vehicles
transport. MAXSURF program was used to achieve optimal hulls surface of this ship [3].

2 REBULDING AND 3D-CAD MODELING OF THE SHIP HULLS

The lines drawing of the ship hull is presented by three images ½-width or body plan, profil
and plan [4].
3D-CAD model was made by using the process of Reverse Engineering, in order to take the
hull lines and surfaces, were used the coordinates of points measured physically and then by
the process of interpolation and optimization was achieved the optimized model of the ship
hulltaken in the study [5].
Rebuilding of the hull was done directly by the help of Maxsurf program, without the need
to prebuild it in Prefit Prefit Program. The hull surface was designed by building the
respective surfaces in each region and then merging of these surfaces to take final form of
the hull. In all cases, all the surfaces were checked in order to respect the geometric
boundary conditions. Building surfaces were grouped into three main groups: the bow
region, the stern region and the central region, where for each of these regions were
established respective surfaces [6].

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Figure 1 General flow chart of the process of rebuilding of the hull

Start Process of
CAD-3D Modeling
of the Hull

Measurements in the Ship of hull model

 Measurements in longitudinal profile of the hull
(extreme areas bow stern, deck line, base line)
 Measurements of semi-breadth of the ordinates

Building of individual surfaces for each region of

the hull

Union of individual surfaces

The previous generation of the model surface

Preliminary evaluation of the boundary conditions 3D-CAD

generated model with the measurement data and analysis of
surface smoothing

Regenerate the surface

Are there accordance

with boundary
YES conditions? NO
Is satisfactory the
smoothing level of the

Complete 3D-CAD
Display the final 3D modeling process
model and of the hull
corresponding drafting

Rebuilding of the 3D model of the ship hull based on real measurements the scheme must
be followed:
1. The necessary measurements in the line of keel, extreme parts of the hull and its
sections are taken.
2. Surfaces were built individually for each region of the hull (bow, stern, central
body).
3. It became the union of individual surfaces designed before taking preliminary
hull form.

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4. It undergone the checks of initially conditions of the hull previously designed

with geometric data of physical measurements made on the ship.
5. The smoothing of the surface of the CAD model is done until the required level
of compliance with hydrostatic characteristics is achieved.
6. The drawing of the CAD model of the modeled hull is carried out.

Figure 1 shows the general flow chart of steps to be followed for the rebuilding of 3D-CAD
models of the hull to be modeled [6,7].

2.1 REAL MEASUREMENTS TO BUILD THE DRAWING HULL LINES THAT

WILL BE MODELED
The significant impact on the final result of the process 3D-CAD modeling of a ship is the
realization of real measurements of the ship hull that will be modeled. This is our starting
point. The measurement process is carried out in physical bulkheads of the ship in order to
obtain accurate results of the measurement of the semi-widths of coordinates, which are
spaced from the wheel axle by 1.15 m; 11.15 m; 20.50 m, belonging to ordinates 1, 10, 18
and the theoretical ordinates -1, 3, 6, 9, 17, 20 with the help of measuring instruments
(meter, sextant, level).

Table 1 Measured bulkhead coordinates of “Berisha” ship

Bulkhead 1 Bulkhead 2 Bulkhead 3

x y z x y z x y z
12,30 1,50 0,00 21,65 1,52 0,00 2,30 1,50 0,00
12,30 1,75 0,10 21,65 1,65 0,10 2,30 1,70 0,10
12,30 2,13 0,30 21,65 2,20 0,30 2,30 2,17 0,30
12,30 2,46 0,50 21,65 2,35 0,50 2,30 2,52 0,50
12,30 2,78 0,70 21,65 2,50 0,70 2,30 2,87 0,70
12,30 3,07 0,90 21,65 2,65 0,90 2,30 3,10 0,90
12,30 3,12 1,10 21,65 2,72 1,10 2,30 3,14 1,10
12,30 3,20 1,30 21,65 2,75 1,30 2,30 3,18 1,30

We measure water lines in every ∆T = 10cm, from baseline (BL) to design water line
(DWL). In the out of water ship part, the distance between the lines is taken twice 2∆T =
20cm. Upon completion of measurements in relation to the ordinates, profile line, and
extreme parts for getting database (Data Base) in "Excel Sheet" the opportunity for setting
up a dimensionless half-breadths of the model that we need to build is created.

Table 2 Main dimensions of “Berisha” ship

Length Overall LOA = 24.60 m Passenger Number 42

Length between perpendiculars LBP = 23.00 m Main Engine: FIAT IVECO 360 HP

Breadth Overall BOA = 6.40 m Construction Material: Steel

Depth: D = 2.25 m Year of ReConstruction: 2014

Draft T = 0.55 m Place of Construction: Albania

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Figure 2 General arrangement of the BERISHA ship

After its visualization, identify possible errors in it during the insertation of the coordinates,
making appropriate modifications and file record that contains all the coordinates of the
points needed to generate the hull [3,8].

The design process of the hull surface can pass into three phases:
1. Modeling of initial hull curves

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2. Building of the hull surface

3. Smoothing of the hull surface

Figure 3 Model final form of the ship after the consecutive encore

3D Rendering View of BERISHA

3 STATIC AND DYNAMIC STABILITY EVALUATION AND GENERAL

VERIFICATION OF METEOROLOGICAL CRITERIA OF THE SHIP
TAKEN IN THE STUDY
3.1 HYDROSTATIC DATA
Hydrostatic data are calculated with the help of Maxsurf and Hydromax Software. Below
we will show the data of the vessel with full load, that correspond waterline DWL=0.55m.

Table 2 Hydrostatic DATA of “BERISHA” ship

Draft Amidsh. M DWL=0.55 Block Coeff. 0.71
Displacement tonne 56.00 Midship Area Coeff. 0.91
Draft at FP m 0.55 Waterpl. Area Coeff. 0.89
Draft at AP m 0.55 LCB from zero pt. (+ve fwd) m 11.79
Draft at LCF m 0.55 LCF from zero pt. (+ve fwd) m 12.04
WL Length m 22.00
WL Beam m 6.40 BMt m 4.8
Wetted Area m^2 135.00
Waterpl. Area m^2 124.50 Immersion (TPc) tonne/cm 1.28
Prismatic Coeff. 0.84 MTc tonne.m 1.87

The vertical center of gravity of the ship is calculated as: KG = VCG = 1.36m taking into
account that:
• Maximum number of passenger is 42 people on board. The weight of each
passenger is taken as 75 kg.
• The height of center of gravity for passenger is taken 0.3 m above the seat.

3.2 STABILITY DATA

Stability data are calculated with the help of Maxsurf and Hydromax Software. It is shown
below only the KN diagram depending on displacement ∆ for any heel of ϕ angle.

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Figure 4 KN diagram depending on ∆ for any heel angle ϕ

It is shown graphically static stability curve of the hull in the right position of the ship.

Figure 5 GZ diagram of the hull in the right position GZ vs Heeling Angle

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3.3 INTACT STABILITY CRITERIA FOR INLAND NAVIGATION ACCORDING

EU DIRECTIVE
According to EU directive 82/714/EEC the proof of adequate intact stability shall be
produced using the following intact stability criteria [1,9,10,11]:
1. The maximum righting lever arm GZmax shall occur at a list angle of ϕmax=15
degree and must not be less than 0.20 m. However, in case ϕf<ϕmax the righting
lever arm at the down flooding angle ϕf must not be less than 0.20 m.
For the ship under investigation we have a maximum GZ approximately 1.36 m
at an angle of around 24 degree. This criteria is fulfilled.

2. The downflooding angle ϕf must not be less than 15 degree.

The ship in investigation don’t have opening in hull up to the heeling angle of 15
degree. This criteria is fulfilled.

3. The area A under the curve of the righting lever arm shall, depending on the
position of ϕf and ϕmax, reach at least the values given in following table where:

o ϕ - List angle
o ϕf -List angle, at which openings in the hull, in the superstructure or
deck houses which cannot be closed so as to be weathertight, submerge
o ϕmax : List angle at which the maximum righting lever arm occurs
o A: Area beneath the curve of the righting lever arms.
o hmax :the maximum righting lever arm.

Table 3 The area A under the curve of the righting lever arm
Case A
1 ϕmax = 150 0.7 m⋅rad at angle ϕ=15 degree
ϕmax≤ 0.055 + 0.001 (30-ϕmax) m⋅rad at angle
2 150<ϕmax<300
ϕf ϕmax.
ϕmax
31 150<ϕf<300 0.0055 + 0.001 (30-ϕf) m⋅rad at angle ϕf
>ϕf
ϕmax>300 and
4 0.0055 at an angle ϕ = 300
ϕf>300

In this case we are in the condition number 3. So, in this case, the Area A beneath the
curve of the righting lever arms must reach at least the value:
𝐴𝐴 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 = 0.055 + 0.001 ∙ (30 − 24) = 0.061 𝑚𝑚 ∙ 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟
Area A beneath the curve of the righting lever arms for the heel angle between ϕ=0 and
ϕ=ϕmax after the calculation will result:
𝐴𝐴 𝜑𝜑=0−240 = 0.405 𝑚𝑚 ∙ 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟
This criteria is fulfilled.

1
This is the case of the ship under investigation

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4. In each of the following two cases, the list angle shall not be in excess of the
value of 12°:
o in application of the heeling moment due to persons and wind
o in application of the heeling moment due to persons and turning

This criterion is fulfilled (see the calculations below):

3.3.1 Moment due to crowding of persons

The heeling moment MP, in kN⋅m, due to one-sided accumulation of persons is to be

calculated according to the following formula:
𝑀𝑀𝑃𝑃 = 9.81 ∗ 𝑃𝑃 ∗ 𝑌𝑌 = 9.81 ∗ ∑ 𝑃𝑃𝑖𝑖 𝑌𝑌𝑖𝑖 = 9.81⋅1.575⋅2.2 = 33.99 (kN⋅m)
in which:
o P: Total weight of persons on board, in t, calculated by adding up the
maximum permitted number of passengers and the maximum number of
shipboard personnel and crew under normal operating conditions,
assuming an average weight per person of 0.075 t
o Y: Lateral distance, in m, of centre of gravity of total weight of persons P
from centre line
o Pi: Weight of persons accumulated on area Ai
o Yi: Lateral distance, in m, of geometrical centre of area Ai from
centreline.

Number of person in each side is 21 and the average distance of centre of gravity from
centre line in the accommodation zone is 2.2 m. So, P = 1.575 ton and Y = 2.2 m
3.3.2 Moment due to lateral wind pressure

The moment MW, in kN⋅m, due to lateral wind pressure is to be determined by the
following formula:
MW = pWD⋅AW⋅(lW + T/2) = 0.25⋅34⋅(1.42+0.55/2) = 14.40 (kN⋅m)
in which:
pWD : Specific wind pressure, in kN/m2, defined equal to 0.25.
AW : Lateral area above water, in m2. For the ship under investigation AW =34
m2
lW : Distance, in m, of the centre of gravity of area AW, from the draught mark.
For the ship under investigation lw = 1.42 m

• Lateral Area above the waterline for the hull is Awhull = 18.002 m2 and
VCA = 0.937 m
• Lateral Area above the waterline for the superstructure is Awsup = 16.8
m2 and VCA = 3 m
• Lateral Area above the waterline for the hull and superstructure is
Awhull+sup = 34.8 m2 and VCA = 1.97 m
• lwl = 1.97-0.55 = 1.42 m

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3.3.3 Turning circle moment

The moment Mdr, in kN.m, due to centrifugal force caused by the turning circle, is to be
determined by the following formula:

0.45 ∗ 𝐶𝐶𝐵𝐵 ∗ 𝑉𝑉 2 ∗ ∆ 0.45 ∗ 0.7 ∗ 3.6 2 ∗ 494

𝑀𝑀𝑑𝑑𝑑𝑑 = (𝐾𝐾𝐾𝐾 − 𝑇𝑇/2) = (1.36 − 0,55/2)
𝐿𝐿𝑊𝑊𝑊𝑊 22
= 91.66 ∗ 1.085 = 4.7025 𝑘𝑘𝑘𝑘 ∙ 𝑚𝑚

V – Maximum ship speed (m/s), in our case for ship under investigation maximum ship
speed is 7 knots = 3.6 m/sec
3.3.4 SUM OF MOMENT

• Heeling moment do to person and wind

MSUM(1) = MP + MW = 33.99 + 14.40 = 48.39 kN⋅m
• Heeling moment due to persons and turning
MSUM(2) = MP + Mdr = 33.99 + 4.70 = 38.69 kN⋅m
The maximum between two values is:
Max (MSUM(1), MSUM(2)) = 48.39 kN⋅m

From the diagram of stability moment the heeling angle is approximately 9 degree.

4 CONCLUSIONS
Berisha ship was equipped with all the required technical documentation assured, certified
and was able to navigate within the norms allowed in Koman Lake.
The control presented procedure for control of compliance with regulations for navigation
in inland water serves not only to Berisha ship, but also clearly defines a procedure to be
used in other similar cases, in order to fulfill the stability norms.
3D modeling and 3D-CAD building of the ship hulls also present a model to be
implementet in other cases.
We have shown once again the implementation reliability of computer package FORMSYS
for obtaining the optimal surfaces of the ship hulls.
The stability criteria for this ship are verified by Intact Stability Criteria for Inland
Navigation according EU directives.

REFERENCES

[1] DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 12 December

2006Council Directive 82/714/EEC laying down technical requirements for inland waterway vessels
and repealing, Article 15.03, pp 96
[2] Albanian Maritime Administration. (2009). Albanian Regulation for Ship Inspection.
Durres, AL: AMA.
[3] Bentley. (2009). Maxsurf. Australia: Formation Design Systems Pty Ltd.
[4] Lapa K. (2003). Gjeometria e Anijes. Tirane, AL: SHBLU.
[5] Girace C. (2006). Rilievo di carene navali mediante techniche di riverese engineering.
Napoli, Italy: Tesi di Dottorato

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[6] Xhaferaj, B., & et al. (2008). Perdorimi i sistemeve te programeve Maxsurf per vleresimin e
cilesive lundrimore te mjeteve te transportit detar shqiptar, (pp. 52-61). Vlore, Albania:
Besueshmeria e Mjeteve te Transportit Detar.
[7] Xhaferaj, B., & et al. (2013). A case study on the prediction of some hydrodynamics
characteristics of a small marine vehicle. (pp. 294-300). A Coruna, Spain: Proceedings of
the 6th international maritime science conference.
[8] Xhaferaj, B., & et al. (1994). Design of hull surface using modern modelling technique.
Aktet 2010. Aktet 2010, III(2), 260-266.
[9] Lapa K. (2004). Statika dhe Qendrueshmeria e Anijes. Tirane, AL: SHBLU.
[10] Lapa, K., & et al. (2005). The influence of Albanian sea winds on fishing-boat stability of
FV 2KP-400 type (pp. 1231-1237). Lisbon, Portugal: Proceedings of the 11th International
Congress of IMAM 2005.
[11] Lapa, K., & et al. (2015). A case study on the stability analysis of passenger ship in lake
Koman in Albania (pp. 200-210). Portoroz, Slovenia: Proceedings of the 17th International
Conference on Transport Science of ICTS 2015.

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POLISH NATIONAL MARITIME SAFETY SYSTEM – OBJECTIVES OF

THE ESTABLISHMENT, STRUCTURES AND TASKS

Professor Ryszard Wawruch (I)

Professor Andrzej Krolikowski (II)
(I) Gdynia Maritime University, Poland, wawruch@am.gdynia.pl
(II) Maritime Office in Gdynia / Gdynia Maritime University, dum@umgdy.gov.pl

Abstract
The European Commission expanded the scope of operation of the Vessel Traffic
Monitoring and Information System (VTMIS) and ships reporting formalities
established according to the requirements of the Directives 2002/59/EC and
2010/65/EU. Member States of the European Union were required to introduce the
legislation implementing the revised requirements of amended directives and
organizational means and technical systems necessary to attain them. In Poland
requirements of these EU directives are introduced by acts of the Polish parliament and
regulations of the Polish Minister of Transport, Construction and Maritime Economy.
As a mean of enabling organizational and technical implementation of legal
requirements is currently put into operation National Maritime Safety System (KSBM)
established in the scope of project co-financed by the European Union.
Paper presents requirements of the Polish legislation implementing the provisions of the
above mentioned directives and objectives of the establishment of KSBM and structure
and tasks of this system.
Keywords:
Polish National Maritime Safety System

INTRODUCTION
Coastal states need to guard against the threats to maritime safety, to the safety of
human life and to the marine and coastal environment created by incidents and
accidents at sea and by the presence of polluting waste or packages drifting at sea.
Knowledge of the current position of the vessel in distress, its type and number of
persons on board and the positions and parameters of other ships in the vicinity affects
the efficiency of search and rescue (SAR) operation. Information on dangerous or
polluting goods being carried on ships and on other relevant safety data, such as
information relating to navigational incidents, is essential to the proper preparation and
effectiveness of operations to tackle pollution or the risk of pollution at sea. Due to that,
there are several mandatory ship reporting systems, vessel traffic services and ships
routing systems established in the European waters in accordance with the relevant rules
adopted by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), mainly in areas considered
as congested or hazardous to navigation. They play an important role in the prevention
of accidents and pollution at sea. It ought to be ensured that ships comply with the
reporting requirements in force under reporting systems, use vessel traffic services and
that they follow the rules applicable to established ships routing systems. Efficient
service in the ports of ships undertaking international voyages requires sufficiently early
messages by these vessels with the information required by the port, customs, border

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and sanitary authorities. Ships leaving or bound for ports must notify this information to
the competent authorities of the port states. Due to their behaviour or condition, some
ships pose potential risks to the safety of shipping and the environment. Coastal and
port states should pay particular attention to the monitoring of such ships, take the
appropriate measures to prevent any worsening of the risk they pose and send any
relevant information they possess on these ships to the other states concerned.
In order to comply with these tasks, the coastal states shall introduce appropriate
legislation and build infrastructure needed for monitoring vessel traffic and
communication with ships by means of the nets of coastal AIS, radar and radio stations.
Each state shall established national and local centres responsible for monitoring and
communication and exchange of information with other states directly or through the
regional (e.g. Baltic) and European Union (EU) centre. The obligations in this regard of
the EU Member States and the central authorities of the European Community
determine:
- Directive 2002/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2002
establishing a Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system and
repealing Council Directive 93/75/EEC [6], amended by the Directives: 2009/17/EC
of 23 April 2009 amending Directive 2002/59/EC [7] and Directive 2009/18/EC of the
same data establishing the fundamental principles governing the investigation of
accidents in the maritime transport sector and amending Council Directive
1999/35/EC and Directive 2002/59/EC [8], Commission Directive 2011/15/EU of 23
February 2011 amending Directive 2002/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council establishing a Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system
[4] and Commission Directive 2014/100/EU of 28 October 2014 on the same subject
[5]; and
- Directive 2010/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October
2010 on reporting formalities for ships arriving in and/or departing from ports of the
Member States and repealing Directive 2002/6/EC [9].
Requirements of the above mentioned directives should be implemented in the legal
systems of EU Member States.

1. POLISH LEGAL ACTS INTRODUCING EU REQUIREMENTS

REGARDING VTMIS AND SHIP REPORTING
Requirements of mentioned EU directives are introduced in Poland by the Polish Act of
18 August 2011 on maritime safety [2] and of 24 July 2015 amending the act on
maritime safety and some other acts [3] and the regulations of the Polish Minister of
Transport, Construction and Maritime Economy issued on the base of these acts, e.g.:
- Regulation of 4 December 2012 on National Vessel Traffic Monitoring and
Information System [11];
- Regulation of 8 February 2012 on the operation of an electronic database of ships of
Polish flag [12];
- Regulation of 8 March 2012 on Maritime Telemedical Assistance Service [13]; and
- Regulation of 16 May 2012 on a plan to grant refuge to ships in need of assistance in
Polish maritime areas [14].
According to these legal acts the National Vessel Traffic Monitoring and Information
System, called the National SafeSeaNet System was established to ensure the
acquisition, storage and exchange of data and information about ships and events

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necessary to ensure the safety and security of the Polish maritime areas and the adjacent
coastal zone, especially [2, 3, 11]:
- posing a potential hazard to shipping or a threat to maritime safety and security, the
safety of people or the marine environment, the effects of which may extend to a
Polish maritime areas or maritime areas in other Member States of the European
Union; and
- necessary to effective organization and conducting of the SAR operation, vessel traffic
monitoring comprising the management and surveillance of ship movements and
affective work of the Polish ports and harbours.
The main elements of the National SafeSeaNet System are [11]:
- technical infrastructure;
- SafeSeaNet Coordinator; and
- SafeSeaNet users.
The technical infrastructure creates [11]:
1. Vessel monitoring subsystem consisting of:
- long and short range coastal radars;
- net of the AIS shore based stations;
- net of the shore radio stations enabling communication with vessels in the VHF
band; and
- national contact point of the Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT)
System,
2. Information exchange system consisting of:
- Polish Harbour Information and Control System (PHICS), with the exception of the
STCW component containing a database of seafarers’ documents, including
databases of: ships of Polish flag, ships entering Polish ports and dangerous
cargoes loaded and unloaded in Polish ports; and
- Electronic System for the Exchange of Maritime Safety Information (SWIBŻ),
called the National SafetySeaNet.
The coordinator acts as the National Competent Authority (NCA) mentioned in the
IFCD (Interface and Functionalities Control Document). He determines and maintains
the National SafeSeaNet Service, operating around the clock, 7 days a week. The main
tasks of the National SafeSeaNet Service PPS include, among others [2, 3, 11]:
- providing information required by the competent authorities from other European
Union Member States; and
- immediate notification of the National SafeSeaNet users on received information from
the European SafeSeaNet system on ships or events that constitute a potential danger
to navigation or a threat to maritime safety or security, the safety of people or the
marine environment, the effects of which may extend to the Polish sea areas.
Electronic data base for ships of Polish flag contains information [2, 3, 11]:
1. For each vessel regarding:
- its identification;
- recognized organization involved in its classification and certification;
- carried out flag state inspections: the body which carried out the inspection, date of
the inspection, its results and issued certificates;
- the body which carried out the inspection of the vessel in the framework of the Port
State Control, date of the inspection and its results, in particular concerning
deficiencies and ship’s detention; and

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- marine accidents and incidents involving the vessel in question.

2. Identifying vessels that changed their flag from Polish to the foreign in the past 12
months.
3. Other data deemed relevant by the maritime authorities.
Database is administrated by the Director of the Maritime Office in Gdynia. Accesses to
collected data have, through the National SafetyNet, eligible employees, inspectors and
officers of the Polish [11, 12]:
- maritime administration (ministry supports the minister responsible for maritime
economy and local maritime administration - maritime offices in Gdynia, Szczecin
and Słupsk);
- State Commission on Marine Accident Investigation;
- Search and Rescue Service;
- Coast Guard;
- Customs Service;
- recognized organizations authorized to carry out the tasks of the Polish maritime
administration;
- Maritime Chambers leading Polish register of maritime ships;
- sports association leading Polish register of maritime yachts;
- Hydrographic Office and Maritime Operations Centre of the Polish Navy;
- marine fisheries authorities;
- entities managing sea ports or harbours;
- sea and port pilot stations;
- State Sanitary Inspection;
- the regional governmental authorities; and
- other entities, which the administrator provides access to the database because of their
responsibilities related to the needs of the maritime administration.
Additionally, information collected in the database is available for the [11]:
- authorities of the Member State of the European Union if it is necessary to ensure the
safety and security of shipping and marine environmental protection of that country;
and
- European Commission to ensure maritime safety and security and protection of the
marine environment of the Member States of the European Union.
SAR Service participates in the exchange of information about the threat to human life
at sea, threat of pollution of the marine environment and information related to the
received security alert. Naval Hydrographic Office participates in the National
SafeSeaNet as the National Coordinator for navigational warnings in the exchange of
cartographic, hydrographic and nautical information [11].
Information is delivered to the database by ship-owners of Polish vessels, Flag State
Control and Port State Control inspectors, inspectors of recognized organizations,
Polish entities responsible for the investigation of marine accidents and incidents and
entities leading Polish registers of maritime ships and yachts. The information contained
in the database is updated continuously. Delivered information is introduced to the
database within 7 working days from the date of receipt. Entering information into the
database, its update, and delete from the database are recorded and kept in the memory
for at least two years [12].
VTS, in the area of its activity, performs the following tasks [11]:

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- conducts control and vessel traffic management by giving instructions,

recommendations and orders;
- supervises compliance by vessels with the rules in force in designated routes, traffic
separation schemas and ship reporting systems;
- conducts monitoring of ships considered potential dangerous (posing a potential
danger to navigation or posing a threat to maritime safety or security, the safety of
people or the marine environment);
- receives reports of vessels transferred in accordance with the requirements of current
international, national and local regulations;
- disseminates by radio in the VHF band navigational and hydro-meteorological
information and warnings in accordance with the IMO guidelines;
- broadcasts by radio in the VHF band warnings on potential dangerous ships and
events creating a hazard to navigation in the area of its activity;
- provides maritime assistance and traffic organization services in accordance with the
IMO guidelines;
- liaises and maintains communication with the captains and ship-owners of vessels
carried on dangerous goods and the owners of this kind of goods carried on ships, as
required by the Polish Act of 16 March 1995 on prevention of pollution from ships
[1];
- performs the tasks described in the Polish plan to grant refuge to ships in need of
assistance in the Polish maritime areas;
- acts as the regional contact point for security purposes;
- retrieves information about ships from European SafeSeaNet; and
- provides information through the National SafeSeaNet to its users.
According to the legal requirements ICT (Information and Communications
Technology) systems operating within the National SafeSeaNet shall [12]:
- have an availability of not less than specified in the ICFD drawn up by the European
Commission in cooperation with the EU Member States and defining detailed
requirements for the operation, technical standards and operational procedures of
national SafeSeaNet systems and the central part of SafeSeaNet system;
- provide the ability to archive and recover data for the period specified in the document
IFCD;
- allow the transmission of information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week;
- allow the transfer immediately after receiving the request, to the competent authorities
of the EU Member States, information on ship and dangerous or polluting goods
carried on board the ship;
- maintain constantly required level of IT security; and
- provide access to the information to authorized users only.
Exchange of information using the telephone, fax or e-mail shall be ensured in the event
of a failure or planned downtime if the ICT systems operating within the National
SafeSeaNet.
Information on ships sailing to the Polish ports is collected mainly from reports sent to
the harbour masters by ships’ masters, owners or their representatives. According to the
regulations, the operator, master or agent of the ship heading the Polish port is obliged
to provide the harbour master information concerning the identity of the ship, port of
destination, estimated time of arrival at the port, estimated time of departure from port
and the total number of persons on board [2, 3, 11]:
- at least 24 hours prior to arrival;

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- no later than when the ship leaves the previous port, if the journey takes less than 24
hours; or
- when the port of destination is not known or changes during the journey - immediately
after obtaining such information.
Additionally, the captain of a ship in the Polish maritime areas immediately inform the
nearest coastal radio station or Vessel Traffic Service about all incidents which [2, 3,
11]:
- affect the safety of the ship, such as collision, stranding, damage or malfunction of the
ship’s equipment, flooding or shifting of cargo, damage to the hull or structural
elements of the ship; and
- threaten maritime safety, such as equipment failure which may affect the ship’s
manoeuvrability or fitness for navigation, including affecting the propulsion system,
steering system, power generation, navigational equipment or means of
communication.
Transmitted information shall contain [2, 3]:
- ship’s identification, position, ports of departure and destination;
- address data entity in possession of information on dangerous or polluting goods, if
they are carried on the ship;
- number of persons onboard; and
- event details and other information necessary to conduct rescue operations, in
accordance with the requirements laid down by IMO on the reporting systems and
reports from ships incidents relating to dangerous goods, harmful substances and
pollutants.
VTS or coastal radio station, after receiving the notification about the threat to human
life or the threat of pollution of the marine environment, shall immediately notify the
Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre.
In the cases referred to in the Act of 16 March 1995 on prevention of pollution from
ships, director of maritime office with jurisdiction over the place where the ship is, in
order to ensure the safety of life at sea, safety of navigation and protection of the marine
environment, may [1, 2, 3]:
4. Order master of the ship in distress or of the ship in need of assistance to execute
commands, concerning in particular:
- restriction in the movement of the ship or following with specific course; the
command does not affect the master's responsibility for the safe navigation of the
ship;
- taking the necessary measures to stop or minimize the threat to the environment or
maritime safety caused by the ship;
- proceeding to designated place of refuge; and/or
- usage of the pilot and/or towing service.
2. Examine on board vessel the level of hazard posed by the ship to maritime safety and
safety of marine environment and provide the master of helping to improve the
situation, informing about taking action the VTS Service.
Maritime Telemedical Assistance Service (TMAS) was established in order to perform
tasks related to the granting of medical advice to the ships by radio. Service is
performed by the University Centre for Maritime and Tropical Medicine in Gdynia. It
performs its tasks without interruption 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with the help of
doctors on duty having [13]:

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- experience as a ship’s doctor or training in the basics of marine and tropical medicine;
- the ability of oral and written communication in Polish and English;
- knowledge about the principles of SAR service functioning and its fitting with
medicines and medical equipment; and
- knowledge of medical equipment and medicines carried on ships in accordance with
the recommendations of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the World
Health Organization (WHO) and the European Union and qualifications of ships’
captains and crew members in first aid and medical care for patients.
Advice provided by TMAS shall assist and facilitate decisions that take the captain of
the ship. It may include [13]:
- assisting the captain or crew member in the diagnosis, help in choosing medical
practices and medical support of person sick or injured on board a ship;
- provision of advice relating to a decision to carry out a medical evacuation;
- provision of advice to help the master or a crew member of the vessel to take a
decision on changing the port of destination in order to provide medical help to the
sick or injured person; and
- assisting the SAR Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in making decisions related
to planning and carrying out rescue operation of the sick or injured person depending
on his condition.

2. KSBM - OBJECTIVES OF ESTABLISHMENT, STRUCTURE AND TASKS

In order to enable the Polish maritime administration to fulfil the requirements imposed
on it by EU and national legal acts, is currently being put into operation the Polish
National Maritime Safety System (KSBM) established in the scope of project co-
financed by the European Union. The direct beneficiary and the applicant of the project
is the Maritime Office in Gdynia in collaboration with the Maritime Offices in Słupsk
and Szczecin and Polish Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) Service. Maritime Office
in Gdynia is doing its job based on the agreements of 29 January 2008 and 25 February
2010 signed by the Directors of three Polish Maritime Offices and Polish Maritime SAR
Service. The project was implemented in two stages: KSBM-I and KSBM-II. The
project KSBM-I (No OPI & E 7.2-6) was located on the main list of individual projects
of the Operational Programme “Infrastructure and Environment” for 2007-2013 and was
realized with the support of EU funds financed in the Priority VII “Environmentally-
friendly transport” under Measure 7.2 “Development of Maritime Transport”. The
amount of co-financing from EU funds was up to 85%. The works were and are based
on contracts for stage I (KSBN-I) signed 28.02.2011 and for stage II (KSBN-II) -
20.12.2012. The first stage involved the purchase and installation of radar, computer
and radio equipment and construction of radio communication network, the second –
mainly the project and building of wire communication network (so called Pomeranian
Telecommunication Bus) along the Polish coast and connecting all sources of data,
decision-making centres and National SafeSeeNet users. The system covers Polish
coastal waters and seaports from Szczecin and Świnoujście in the west to the border
with the Kaliningrad Region of Russia in the east.
Implementation of the project was and is done in the system "design and build". It
means that the investor required the contractor to develop and submit for approval of the
project in accordance with the description of the objects of the contract, complying with
applicable Polish and European standards and regulations, under the conditions

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specified in the agreement, the General Conditions of Contract (HVAC) based on

Contractual Conditions for Devices and Design and Construction for Electrical and
Mechanical Equipment and Engineering and Construction Works Designed by the
Contractor (FIDIC 1999, 4th edition, 2008) and the Special Conditions of Contract
(SCC) [10, 14].
The national system of maritime safety encompasses areas of responsibility of the
Directors of Maritime Offices in Gdynia, Słupsk and Szczecin shown in Figure 4, in
particular: approaches to ports, their roadstead, anchorages and coastal areas. Each of
the regional authorities of Polish maritime administration, for the management of its
territory, has local centre, which is subordinated to the national maritime safety centre
cooperating with domestic and foreign institutions, services and authorities, including
Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) and EU institutions.

2.1. MAIN OBJECTIVES AND TASKS OF THE PROJECT

The main goal of the project is to establish a monitoring and control system for unified
management of safety and security in the maritime areas of Poland by the Polish
maritime administration and the exchange of information concerning the safety and
security of shipping and environmental protection with collaborating national and
international institutions and services.
Implementation of the project is to enable inter alia [10, 15, 17]:
- adaptation of measures and actions of the maritime administration to the regulations
under law: national, regional (regulations issued by the European Union and Helsinki
Commission) and international (requirements, guidelines and recommendations
issued by IMO) regarding the safety and security of shipping, security of ports and
marine environmental protection; and
- establishing a system for monitoring and analysis of the situation, warning about the
dangers and providing information relating to maritime safety and security and
pollution threat in order to prevent maritime accidents and pollution of marine
environment and coast and to conduct efficient action in the event of their occurrence,
including: supporting search and rescue and pollution combating actions, supporting
the decision making process for granting place of refuge and respond to custom
threats, supporting safety and security management and assistance in the accident
investigation and detection of polluters through the use of identification, tracking and
data archiving systems.
Main tasks of the project are [10, 15]:
- increasing the level of safety and security and environmental protection in Polish
maritime areas;
- establishing a system for monitoring and managing maritime traffic in sensitive areas
(Marine Traffic Surveillance and Monitoring System) based on: modern radars, VTS,
AIS, LRIT, system of video cameras and VHF radio communication;
- modernization and integration of the data archiving and exchange systems;
- modernization of the Polish DGPS shore stations infrastructure;
- building a new system of operational communication for the Polish Maritime Search
and Rescue (SAR) Service; and
- construction of the Pomeranian Telecommunications Bus along the Polish coast.

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2.2. STAGE I OF THE PROJECT

Stage I of the project comprised [10, 15]:
- completion of the national network of AIS shore base stations and a national network
of marine DGPS;
- establishing a system for monitoring and managing maritime traffic along the Polish
coast and to and from Polish ports particularly in sensitive areas (Marine Traffic
Surveillance and Monitoring System - SMRM);
- building a modernized system of operational communications for the Polish Maritime
Search and Rescue (SAR) Service; and
- establishment of the Early Warning System (EWS) for marine areas of Poland.
Completion of the net of Polish AIS shore base stations covered [10, 15]:
- increasing the coverage of the vessel traffic monitoring by installation of five
additional AIS base stations, including one placed on the offshore drilling unit (oil rig)
"Baltic Beta" situated approximately 110 km to the north from the Polish coast; and
- ensuring homogeneity of the stations and monitoring capabilities of their system
through the exchange of base stations in the western part of the Polish coast.
Now their network marked as AIS-PL consists of 12 stations grouped into three subnets
managed respectively by Directors of the Maritime Offices in Gdynia, Słupsk and
Szczecin and connected into one national network with its centre in the Maritime Office
in Gdynia. AIS-PL is an element of the:
- regional Baltic AIS monitoring system introduced according to the requirements of
the Declaration on the Safety of Navigation and Emergency Capacity in the Baltic Sea
(HELCOM Copenhagen Declaration) adopted on 10 September 2001 in Copenhagen
by the HELCOM Extraordinary Ministerial Meeting; and
- EU AIS net creating part of the European Vessel Traffic Monitoring and Information
System (VTMIS) as required by the Directive 2002/59/EC [6].

Figure 1 presents areas monitored by the Polish network of the AIS shore base station (AIS-PL)
after its modernization.

National network of marine DGPS serves as the main Polish marine radio navigation
system. The network consists of two modernized in the scope of project shore stations
located in Rozewie and Dziwnów with ranges shown in Figure 2, the main control
station in Gdynia and remote monitoring stations of the radio signal placed in:
Jarosławic (on the central part of the Polish coast), Gdańsk and Gdynia (in the Gulf of
Gdańsk) and Świnoujście (in the western part of the coast near the boundary with
Germany). Signals from these stations are transmitted to the main control station in
Gdynia. The needs of hydrographic and land surveying (and in the future pilot

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operations and docking of ships) require the use of GPS Real Time Kinematic (RTK)
technique. In a further phase of development of the radio navigational infrastructure on
the approaches to the Polish harbours and inside ports is planned to install fixed and
mobile reference stations enabling the use of this technique.
An essential part of the KSBM creates Marine Traffic Surveillance and Monitoring
System, which enables an efficient realisation of tasks related to ensuring the safety and
security of maritime traffic and emergency response. The system consists of operating
already in the Polish waters vessel traffic service “VTS Zatoka Gdańska” and vessel
traffic management service “VTMS Szczecin – Świnoujście” along with their technical
equipment (already existing, modernized and new installed within the investment
KSBM-I) and new central and auxiliary KSBM centres located respectively in the
Maritime Office in Gdynia - national centre cooperating with the European VTMIS and
regional centres located in the Maritime Offices in Gdynia, Słupsk and Szczecin.

Figure 2. The actual range of the AIS-PL net after modernization Polish DGPS stations

In the scope of the project were installed [10, 15]:

- 28 shore based radars with tracking facilities, installed as VTS, VTMS, port and shore
remote controlled sensors;
- 26 video cameras located in ports and on the fairway Szczecin - Świnoujście;
- 5 radio direction finders (RDF) working in the VHF band;
- 12 VHF shore stations; and
- 14 hydro-meteorological stations.
The investor distinguished, according to the IALA recommendation V-128, three types
of coastal radars which were the subject of purchase:

- basic - applicable to VTS performing information service and, where applicable,

navigational assistance service;
- standard - applicable to all types of VTS as identified by IMO conducting information
service, navigational assistance service and traffic organisation service in areas with
medium traffic density and/or without major navigational hazards; and
- advanced - applicable to VTS working in areas with high traffic density and/or
specific major navigational hazards.

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Using a public tender procedure, were chosen, depending on the functions envisaged for
implementation (required range of work, accuracy of indications, etc.), following
numbers of particular types of pulse radars manufactured by the Danish company Terma
[10]:

- 3 basic radars - single frequency TERMA SCANTER 2001 radar fitted with 3.66 m
(12-feet) long scanner;
- 18 standard radars (14 completely new radar stations and 4 replaced radars currently
in operation) - single frequency TERMA SCANTER 2001i radar with scanner 5.49 m
(18-feet) long; and
- 6 advanced radars - Terma SCANTER 2001i FD radar with frequency diversity fitted
with scanner 5.49 m (18-feet) long (one radar) and 6.405 m (21-foot) long (other
radars).
Purchased radars work in the X band. They have available several functions such as:
programmable Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF), programmable Pulse Width (PW) and
random stagger to enable task-specified setup of the transceiver, Auto-adaptive
Sensitivity Control (ASC) to provide automatic two-dimensional Sensitivity Time
Control (STC) to eliminate need for operator’s settings of the radar during normal
operation and Digital Fast Time Constant (FTC), sweep-to-sweep correlation (white
noise suppression) and sweep-to-sweep integration to improve signal-to-noise ratio.
They are designed for remote operation and have Built-in Test Equipment (BITE
function) providing continuous information on the transceiver condition. Independently
from this function, each radar has small display unit mounted together with transceiver
for service work, additionally to the operational display unit designated for installation
in the traffic control centre. Remote Transceiver Control and Monitoring (RTCM)
software and so called Static Map Tool (SMT) provide remote radar control and
transmission of radar video images using the network [10].
The investor planned for installation in several places Frequency Modulated Continuous
Waves (FM CW) radars but he resigned with this investment mainly due to the high
cost of these devices. More detailed information about installed shore radars is
presented in [16].
In order to ensure effective voice communication for SAR purposes were installed 8
shore remote controlled VHF DSC stations connected to the Maritime Rescue
Coordination Centre in Gdynia and Maritime Rescue Coordination Sub-centre in
Świnoujście.
Areas covered by radar surveillance calculated using Computer Aided Radar
Performance Tool (CARPET) prepared by TNO (Toegepast Natuurkundig Onderzoek)
Physics and Electronics Laboratory in Netherlands and ranges of new VHF coastal
stations are presented in Figure 3.
The last task of the stage I of the project was establishment of the Early Warning
System (EWS) for marine areas of Poland. Following main technical and investment
works have been undertaken to carry out this task [10, 15]:
- development of the innovative applications of the Electronic System for the Exchange
of Maritime Safety Information (SWIBŻ) already implemented and operated by the
Maritime Office in Gdynia to ensure its functionality as a tool for continuous
monitoring of the situation and risk assessment and as the operating platform for

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cooperation between the institutions and services responsible for maritime safety and
security and environmental protection;
- ensuring an efficient system of communication (data transmission) along the Polish
coast allowing communication between coastal stations and KSBM centres,
- communication between traffic control departments of the maritime offices and
operational communication for Polish Maritime SAR Service;
- modernization of the telecommunication networks of maritime offices;
- delivery and assembly of network security systems;
- modernization of radio communication systems; and
- preparation of the infrastructure of crisis management centres in three maritime
offices and development of systems and applications supporting safety and security
management, including Polish Harbours Information and Control System (PHICS),
SWIBŻ and detailed data base of results of inspection conducted on ships under
Polish flag (so called e-inspection).

Figure 3. Areas covered by radar surveillance (dark circles) and ranges of VHF coastal stations
(light circles)

According to the already mentioned agreements of 29 January 2008 and 25 February

2010 signed by the directors of three Polish Maritime Offices and Polish Maritime SAR
Service were established: one national maritime safety centre located in Gdynia, two
such sub-centres in Szczecin and Słupsk and four VTS centres located in Gdynia,
Szczecin, Świnoujście and Ustka. Harbour masters offices in Polish ports and harbours
in Darłowo, Dziwnów, Elbląg, Gdańsk, Gdynia, Hel, Kołobrzeg, Łeba, Szczecin,
Śwonoujście, Ustka and Władysławowo were equipped with new port radar stations
described earlier (Figure 4).
National maritime safety centre and sub-centres are responsible for: risk assessment,
early warning, crisis management and exchange of information concerning safety and
security of shipping and environmental protection (ISPS, SafeSeaNet, CleanSeaNet,
etc.). They are equipped with the Electronic System for the Exchange of Maritime
Safety Information (SWIBŻ) realizing following functions [10]:

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1. Presentations of:
- data received from KSBM inner sensors: VTS, VTMS, port radars, AIS-PL, hydro-
meteorological sensors, RDF, database of vessels, e-inspection, etc.;
- data from outer AIS systems (HELCOM, EMSA);
- data from outer radars (Polish Coast Guard and Polish Navy); and
- weather forecasts and navigational and hydro-meteorological warnings.
-
2. SafeSeaNet notifications.
3. Modelling the drift of oil pollution.
4. Risk assessment.
5. Supporting crisis management and exchange of information.

Figure 4. Areas of responsibilities of particular Directors of three Polish Maritime Offices,

Polish Maritime Search and Rescue Service, VTMS Szczecin – Świnoujście and VTS “Zatoka
Gdańska” and harbour masters offices equipped with new installed radars.

According to the Polish national regulations main SWIBŻ users are:

- the minister responsible for maritime economy and maritime offices;
- Polish Maritime Search and Rescue Service;
- Maritime Department of the Polish Border Guard (Polish Coast Guard);
- Maritime Operations Centre of the Polish Navy;
- Governmental Crisis Management Centre and its regional branches;
- customs and police;
- Hydrographic Office of the Polish Navy;
- Maritime Branch of the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management;
- port authorities; and
- sanitary and veterinary services.
The system is also available for the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA in
Lisbon) and NATO Management Centre in Northwood (UK).

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2.3. STAGE II OF THE PROJECT

The main tasks of the second stage of the project were [10, 15]:
- providing reliable and secured transmission medium for Maritime Offices in Gdynia,
Szczecin and Słupsk, Polish Maritime Border Guard, Polish Navy and Polish
Maritime Search and Rescue Service;
- adoption of the standards for maritime supervision and monitoring to the objectives
set out, among others, in the Communication from European Commission on an
integrated maritime policy for the European Union (the "Blue Book") adopted by the
European Council on 14 December 2007 and the Communication from the
Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, the European Economic -
Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions “Towards the integration of
maritime surveillance: A common information sharing environment for the EU
maritime domain” of 15 October 2009; and
- ecological safety of maritime operations and, if necessary, support action involving
the liquidation of consequences of natural disasters and accidents and disasters at sea.
The specific objectives of the second stage concern to support the implementation of the
KSBM functions by providing links with adequate bandwidth for the National Maritime
Safety System (KSBM), in particular Automated Radar Surveillance System (ZSRN) in
the Polish maritime areas. They include [10]:
- increasing the EU's external border security at sea;
- increasing the capacity of the environmental protection;
- more efficient monitoring of maritime traffic;
- ensuring adequate transmission medium for the supervision of the exploitation of the
Polish maritime areas and compliance by vessels regulations in force in those areas;
- more effectively protection of the economic interests of Poland in Polish maritime
areas; and
- combating of poaching at sea.
As part of KSBM II were realized following tasks [10]:
- construction of telecommunications infrastructure for maritime safety and monitoring
systems and exchange of information, so called Pomeranian Telecommunications Bus
(Fig. 5.);
- completion of the GMDSS modernization;
- designation and construction of places of refuge together with their necessary
infrastructure for ships in distress and threatening an ecological disaster;
- modernization of the shore and floating aids to navigation on routes and approaches
to the Polish ports;
- modernization of the floating stock of the maritime offices; and
- modernization of the VTS “Zatoka Gdańska”.
Second stage of the KSBM project is divided into a few parts. Stage II A provided
design and construction of the Pomeranian Telecommunications Bus in the form of fibre
optic cable between Gdynia and Świnoujście to provide the ability to transmit voice and
data to remote locations. The investment included [10]:

- construction of the cable pipeline 3xRHDPE 40 mm and the system micro duct
1xDB7 in relation Świnoujście – Hel;
- construction of main fibre optic cable with a capacity of 144 fibres G.657, and taps
into additional locations in the form of fibre optic cable with a capacity of 24 fibres;

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- construction of the offshore cable section in relation Hel-Gdynia with a capacity of 24

fibres G.657;
- delivery and installation of DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing)
system for the relation Hel-Gdynia-Gdańsk;
- supply and construction of IP/MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) network with
speeds of 10 Gbps between nodes and endpoints;
- delivery and installation of optical fibre fault detection system with fixed
reflectometers and optical switches;
- construction of 19 containers for nodes and installation of network terminations in 22
endpoints; and
- delivery and installation of NMS (Novus Management System) network management
system.
Shown in Figure 5 Pomeranian Telecommunications Bus has over 600 km of new fibre-
optic cable and 21 km of new submarine cable. System management centre is located in
the Maritime Safety Centre of the Maritime Office in Gdynia.

Figure 5. Pomeranian Telecommunications Bus course.

3. CONCLUSIONS
Described in this paper Polish National Maritime Safety System (KSBM), after
completion of its implementation and passing with positive results SAT (Side
Acceptance Tests) procedures meets all requirements for the Vessel Traffic Monitoring
and Information System (VTMIS) presented in the Directive 2002/59/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2002 establishing a Community
vessel traffic monitoring and information system and repealing Council Directive
93/75/EEC, as amended and is able to meet the requirements for receiving reports of
ships and transported them passengers and cargo as defined in the Directive 2010/65/EU
of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October 2010 on reporting
formalities for ships arriving in and/or departing from ports of the Member States and
repealing Directive 2002/6/EC. Its implementation provides the technical measures
necessary Polish maritime administration to ensure safety and security of shipping and
protection of the environment and economic interests of Poland in Polish maritime areas
by effective monitoring and control of maritime traffic and economic activities in these

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areas. It provides information necessary to make decision regarding granting place of

refuge and enables increasing efficiency of the search and rescue operation, protection
of the environment and action involving the liquidation of consequences of natural
disasters and accidents and disasters with ships at sea. Data obtained from the system
are useful to other services and institution related to maritime safety and security, border
protection, maritime economy and port activities.
Currently, work is underway to establish national and regional single windows in
accordance with the European Union requirements that will meet future tasks assigned
to the single point of contact in the projects: e-maritime implemented by the EU and e-
navigation developed by the IMO. Established in Maritime Office in Gdynia national
single window has passed successfully the test in the field of automatic data exchange
with EMSA.

REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Act of 16 March 1995 on prevention of pollution from ships, as amended, Polish
Journal of Low, Dz.U.2015.434, 25.02.2015.
2. Act of 18 August 2011 on maritime safety, Polish Journal of Low,
Dz.U.2011.228.1368, 25.10.2011.
3. Act of 24 July 2015 amending the act on maritime safety and some other Acts,
Polish Journal of Low, Dz.U.2015.1320, 07.09.2015.
4. Commission Directive 2011/15/EU of 23 February 2011 amending Directive
2002/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a
Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system, Official Journal of the
European Union, L 49, 24.02.2011.
5. Commission Directive 2014/100/EU of 28 October 2014 amending Directive
2002/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a
Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system, Official Journal of the
European Union, L 308, 19.10.2014.
6. Directive 2002/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June
2002 establishing a Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system
and repealing Council Directive 93/75/EEC, Official Journal of the European Union,
L 208, 05.08.2002.
7. Directive 2009/17/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April
2009 amending Directive 2002/59/EC establishing a Community vessel traffic
monitoring and information system, Official Journal of the European Union, L 131,
28.05.2009.
8. Directive 2009/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April
2009 establishing the fundamental principles governing the investigation of
accidents in the maritime transport sector and amending Council Directive
1999/35/EC and Directive 2002/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council, Official Journal of the European Union, L 131/114, 28.05.2009.
9. Directive 2010/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October
2010 on reporting formalities for ships arriving in and/or departing from ports of the
Member States and repealing Directive 2002/6/EC, Official Journal of the European
Union, L 283/1, 29.10.2010.
10. Królikowski A., Wawruch R.: Implementation of the Polish National Maritime
Safety System (KSBM) - stage I and II. Proceedings of the 16th International

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Scientific and Technical Conference on Marine Traffic Engineering (MTE) and

International Symposium Information on Ships. Ed. L.Gucma, Maritime University
of Szczecin, 2015, pp. 406-415.
11. Regulation of the Polish Minister of Transport, Construction and Maritime
Economy of 4 December 2012 on National Vessel Traffic Monitoring and
Information System, Polish Journal of Low, Dz.U.2012.1412, 14.12.2012.
12. Regulation of the Polish Minister of Transport, Construction and Maritime
Economy of 8 February 2012 on the operation of an electronic database of ships of
Polish flag, Polish Journal of Low, Dz.U.2012.168, 14.02.2012.
13. Regulation of the Polish Minister of Transport, Construction and Maritime
Economy of 8 March 2012 on Maritime Telemedical Assistance Service, Polish
Journal of Low, Dz.U.2012.320, 26.03.2012.
14. Regulation of the Polish Minister of Transport, Construction and Maritime
Economy of 16 May 2012 on a plan to grant refuge to ships in need of assistance in
Polish maritime areas, Polish Journal of Low, Dz.U.2012.575, 23.05.2012.
15. Technical contractual documentation shared by the Maritime Office in Gdynia,
Gdynia 2015.
16. Wawruch R.: New radar system along the Polish coast and inside the Polish ports.
Scientific Journals of the Maritime University of Szczecin, No 44 (116)/2015, pp.
196-203.
17. www. umgdy.gov.pl

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THE AUTOMATIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM (AIS): A DATA

SOURCE FOR STUDYING MARITIME TRAFFIC.

Arnaud Serry
University of Le Havre – UMR 6266 IDEES
E-mail address: arnaud.serry@univ-lehavre.fr
Abstract - The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is an automatic tracking system
used on as a tool to increase navigation safety and efficiency as well as vessel traffic
management. It enhances maritime safety and security. AIS’ contributions are
undeniable in spite of some deficiencies and technical restrictions.
This article presents the impacts and uses of AIS technology that can provide useful
information to study maritime traffic, especially for the scientific community and port
authorities. This desktop study is carried out in the framework of the implementation of
a platform to reconstruct shipping routes using AIS data.
Keywords - Automatic Identification System, AIS, maritime traffic, Research Platform,
World maritime trade, Strategy of shipping companies.

INTRODUCTION
Maritime transportation, the means used for 90% of international exchanges, is
protected by several safety devices such as the development of maritime surveillance
systems (Vandecasteele, Napoli, 2011).
Nowadays, vessels take on board more and more aid to navigation systems. The aims of
these systems is to simplify the positioning of vessels with regard to their environment
(Devogele, 2009). Amongst these technologies, one must cite the ARPA 1 radars that
facilitate the relative positioning with other vessels in order to aid navigators in their
choice of manoeuvre, and information and mapping systems. AIS (Automatic
Identification System) receivers have of late been making an appearance in gateways.
They manage the sending and receiving of GPS positions, speed, course, type, time and
place of arrival of ships, towards and from the surrounding vessels. These shipboard or
on-shore systems are all the more important the heavier the maritime traffic is, and
which increases in the key transit points like straits and canals or in the congested areas
of ports (e.g. North Sea). AIS is a system of data exchange between ships that was made
mandatory by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in 2004. AIS presents
advantages for maritime transportation actors: improvements in safety, improvements in
the management of fleets and navigation. Its distribution also presents numerous
advantages in seaway management. However, the generalisation of AIS poses problems
of confidentiality for ship-owners, indeed for safety. In effect, the data transmitted by
AIS are available to all, including the scientific community.
The work presented is a synthesis of a reflection conducted during the development of a
research platform for the analysis of maritime traffic and the assessment of the vagaries
of maritime transportation, the CIRMAR project 2. This tool makes it possible to

1
ARPA: Automatic Radar Plotting Aid.
2
More information on the CIRMAR project here : http://www.projet-devport.fr/PDF/44.pdf

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envisage multiple operational applications that concern navigational safety as well as

maritime economy, analysis of the strategies used by maritime actors or the
environmental impact of maritime traffic.
The article is based essentially on a documentary analysis of existing studies but also on
in-depth bibliographical research which is both technical and within the field of human
sciences even if there is a scarcity of Francophone literature dedicated to this new
technology. The first part of the article puts forward a definition of AIS including its
characteristics and objectives. The second part intends to highlight the contribution
made by this system and its use. The third part focuses on the use of the data produced
by AIS. Emphasis is given to the CIRMAR project which aims to construct and exploit
a platform of data integration and application development based on the reconstruction
of shipping routes using AIS signals transmitted by vessels of over 300 gross tonnage.
By means initially of an empirical approach, the focus of this article, therefore, is to
identify the relevance of AIS for the maritime and scientific communities.

1. DEFINITION OF THE AUTOMATIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM (AIS)

1.1. A NAVIGATIONAL SECURITY TOOL MANDATED BY THE IMO

The IMO helps with safeguarding the life at sea, improving the safety and efficiency of
maritime navigation as well as protecting the marine environment. It attaches great
importance to the development of systems that aim to facilitate and make maritime
navigation safe by means of numerous groups working on electronic tools. So as to
increase maritime safety, the IMO has adopted mandatory regulations concerning the
installation of automatic identification systems capable of providing information from
one vessel to another as well as to on-shore authorities. These regulations form part of
Chapter V of the SOLAS 3 convention.
These regulations have been adopted by most of the world’s merchant shipping fleet
and concern principally all passenger ships whatever their size and vessels of a gross
tonnage equal to or exceeding 300 tonnes (grt 4) making international voyages.
Based on the automatic exchange of communications by VHF radio 5 between vessels on
the one hand, between vessels and marine surveillance centres on the other and more
recently via satellites, it enables identification of transmitting vessels in real time. This
is included in the adoption of the ISPS code 6 by the IMO, an international code for the
safety of ships and port facilities which, besides establishing AIS, provides, inter alia,
the appointment of safety officers, setting up safety plans or traceability of goods in
transport units. There are, in fact, 2 classes of AIS:

− Class A transponders are mandatory on board merchant ships exceeding 300

tonnage and all passenger ships meeting SOLAS standards (merchant navy, ferries,
etc.). The Class A AIS system is used for the exchange of several types of signal that

3
Safety of Life at Sea [http://www.imo.org/About/Conventions/ListOfConventions/Pages/International-
Convention-for-the-Safety-of-Life-at-Sea-%28SOLAS%29,-1974.aspx].
4
grt: the gross registered tonnage is one of the units of measurement for a vessel’s transportation
capacity.
5
Very High Frequency/VHF is the part of the radio spectrum ranging from 30 MHz to 300 MHz.
6
International Ship and Port Facility Security is an international code.

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contain different information: information on the ships’ characteristics, their position,

speed and course, their draught, type of cargo and destination (Cf. Figure 1).
− Class B transponders concern small ships that are not required to comply with
SOLAS conventions (recreational vessels, fishing vessels of less than 15 metres, etc.),
so as to enable them to adapt voluntarily to the AIS system.

1.2. OPERATION AND TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AIS

The AIS system uses a transponder which transmits and receives in VHF. It also
includes a GPS receiver which records the position and details of movement.
Transmission and reception is carried out continuously and autonomously (Fournier,
2012). It transmits both static information of identification and type on the vessel and
dynamic information on position (Cf. Figure1), and information relating to the voyage
on the nature of the cargo and ports of departure and destination. Generally, ships
receive information in a radius of 15-20 nautical miles. Terrestrial stations located at
higher altitudes can extend this radius to 40-60 miles, according to obstacles and
weather conditions.

Figure 1- Nature of AIS data

Statistical Information Dynamic Information Information to the route

MMSI N° Ship’s position Nature of the cargo

IMO N° UTC Date & Time Cargo’s Hazardousness

Name Speed & Course Departure port

Type Navigation Status Destination port

Length and with Radius of gyration

Source: Le Guyader, Brosset, Gourmelon, 2011.

Launches of AIS satellites have been carried out since 2009 therefore considerably
reducing the number of white areas (Chen, 2013). So, the latest change to the AIS
technical standard includes a message specifically designed for AIS reception from
satellite (AIS SAT). Any vessel equipped with AIS today is easily trackable, and this at

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any moment wherever it may be. The generalisation of AIS does not entail removing the
use of pre-existing systems and they are complementary:

− In addition to shipboard systems, Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) actively monitor

maritime traffic;
− The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System coordinates all the radio-
communications means for rescue, nowadays paired for safety purposes with the Ship
Security Alert System.
The objective is to combine the pre-existing data coming from these sub-systems with
an integrated system commonly called Vessel Traffic Monitoring Information System.

1.3. OBJECTIVE OF CONTROL AND MARITIME SECURITY

Owing to the new dimensions of all kinds of traffic and flows increasingly irrigating the
whole planet, the management maritime traffic has become a major contemporary issue
(Faye, 2005). In fact, one of the challenges of the maritime community now is how to
conciliate the surge in marine shipping while at the same time guaranteeing the
protection of marine resources in a context of climatic change. In highly frequented
waters, active surveillance of maritime traffic has taken on an even greater meaning.
Maritime security and safety cover a wide and expanding area: from the management of
commercial traffic to the fight against piracy, including sea rescue, counter-terrorism
and the protection of port infrastructures. Recent measures aim to reinforce maritime
safety with reference to the protection of life at sea, the preservation of transported
goods, the protection of the vessel and prevention of collision. Often confused with
security, safety is defined as a state of protection against threats or dangers coming from
outside. In the maritime domain, safety can be defined as the prevention of unlawful
acts liable to have a negative impact on the proper functioning of the supply chain and
the safety of persons and goods (Fournier, 2012). Nevertheless, in practice, this
classification is not inexplicable. As a matter of fact, an event linked to one of these
notions can have repercussions on the whole of the maritime system.

2. CONTRIBUTIONS OF AIS AND USE OF DATA

The primordial contributions of AIS are in the field of maritime security and safety. The
AIS system makes it possible to locate the great majority of vessels throughout the
world. Therefore, several new services are available for the authorities or ship-owners,
such as global maritime surveillance or constant knowledge of their boats’ positions
(Prévost, 2012). Community websites have sprung up, allowing thousands of ships to be
followed throughout the world.

2.1. AN EFFICIENT TOOL

“AIS was initially intended to assist ships in avoiding collisions, and the port and
maritime authorities in monitoring traffic and ensuring better surveillance of the sea”
(Thery, 2012). This system enables vessels to be traced but also to anticipate their
movements. Availability of precise data on the position of ships in real time renders it
possible to manage traffic efficiently, to react more swiftly in the event of an accident or
incident, while having more precise information on hazardous cargoes or indeed to
improve surveillance of vessels in the interests of safety.

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The use of AIS as an aid to navigation is a precious source of information not only with
regard to ships but also with regard to all the navigational aid beacons (Świerczyński,
Czaplewski, 2013). AIS is placed notably as a relevant tool for the protection of the
marine environment. Pollution from ships can take two principal forms. It occurs
accidentally or through deliberate discharges, i.e. tank-cleaning operations and disposal
of waste oils (Serry, 2013). In the former situation, AIS systems have a potential ability
to reduce the frequency of polluting accidents linked to navigation by simply supplying
an update of information concerning ships. Similarly, they can shorten the response
time in the face of accidents by supplying information about the situation in near-real-
time. AIS is therefore an important asset for the protection of the marine environment.
(Schwehr, Mc Gillivary, 2007).
Illegal discharges are the second cause of pollution of the marine environment. The
impacts of these discharges are not as considerable as those of maritime disasters and
consequently have not been of great concern. However, this form of pollution could be
substantially reduced and AIS technology can make a contribution. For example, the
Helsinki commission has been using AIS data since 2005 (HELCOM AIS) to assess the
risks of hydrocarbon discharges associated with specific vessels (Cf. Figure 2). Today,
Automatic Identification System also be able used to estimate ships emissions. Jalkanen
et al purposed a modeling system for maritime traffic exhaust emissions of NOx, SOx,
and CO2 in the Baltic Sea area based on data obtained from AIS receivers (Maimun,
2013).
Figure 2 - AIS, matching tools between traffic and maritime discharges

This programme has the ability to integrate AIS in order to create a link between ships
and the discharges identified, for the purpose of criminal prosecution. For example,
Lloyds of London has already used AIS data from the AISLive 7 service in legal
proceedings involving accidents of ships.
AIS is expected to become an important element in the fight against marine pollution
caused by ocean traffic, all the more so as, together with satellite and aircraft detection
techniques, AIS coverage is growing both along the shoreline and out at sea, thus

7
http://www.aislive.com/

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making it possible to reduce the ability of ships to unlawfully discharge hydrocarbons at

sea.

2.2. OBSTACLES AND LIMITS

“If the advantages of the new technologies are undeniable, as long as these advances
form part of economic and social life, they run up against the risk of violations of
privacy and individual liberties” (Deboosere, Dessouroux, 2012).

2.2.1. Technical limits

Merchant ships of under 300 tonnage are exempt from the system which limits AIS’s
capacity with regard to maritime surveillance. The great drawback at present is linked to
the fact that the majority of small ships are not equipped and can therefore not be
detected nor detect other boats using this system. Nor does the system enable them to
detect fishing net buoys and any other unusual floating object (Dujardin, 2004).
AIS is considered to be the best system of detection currently used in all ports
worldwide, but it does not make it possible to detect every ship (Zouaoui-Elloumi,
2012). As a matter of fact, AIS reliability is far from perfect. The captain can cut off the
system. There is no provision for duplication of equipment. It can break down or be
defective, providing false indications. VHF links can deteriorate in certain conditions
and, according to the position and altitude of the transmitting antenna on the ship and
the 20 nautical miles of depth, equipment might not be covered. Information relative to
the voyage on the nature of the cargo and the ports of departure and destination is
entered manually on board. It could be erroneous, voluntarily or not. The majority of
errors detected is essentially a result of omission (Harati-Mokhtari, Wall, Brooks and
Wan, 2007).
Then, a much debated issue concerns the use of AIS for the purpose of radio
communications between ships to agree on manoeuvres in order to avoid a collision.
AIS will not change ARPA’s status of being the principal tool used to assist the
navigator in collision avoidance manoeuvres, not only because all ships will not be
equipped with AIS, but also because of the system’s limitations. AIS and ARPA are in
fact complementary and should be used in conjunction with one another, even if AIS
provides more complete information than shipboard radars. Besides, reception of AIS
signals via satellite is affected by interference from certain phenomena that do not exist
or whose effect is limited when the reception is on ground level, like a higher noise
level or collisions between AIS signals. The most effective way to avoid these “slot
collisions” is to reduce AIS congestion. This is not possible on the existing AIS
channels, given the ever-increasing number of AIS users, but could be accomplished if
other channels were used for this new message.
Lastly, the system is potentially vulnerable to more sophisticated attacks:

− The system is vulnerable to intentional or unintentional interference because the

technical characteristics are public (Dujardin, 2004), notably in high-traffic areas;
− Intentional broadcast of erroneous information (fictitious ships, duplication with
real ships);
− Transmission of computer viruses (AIS is managed by a mini computer).

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The situation of a maritime area can therefore not be controlled exhaustively with AIS.
As a matter of fact, AIS must be integrated in E-Navigation. Furthermore, one of the
principal concerns is “consistency between the principle of freedom of movement on the
seas with respect for a framework of increasingly regulated activity” (Terrassier, 2004).
In effect, the high seas are often defined as a marine area which, in principle, eludes any
sovereignty. Surveillance of maritime traffic in real-time seems to partially challenge
this age-old freedom of navigation.

2.2.2. The case of piracy

Maritime piracy is not a new phenomenon but, faced with an increase in it, especially in
the Gulf of Aden, we are entitled to question the apparent inability of the multinational
marine force to fight effectively against these pirates. In effect, these sea bandits do not
appear to encounter any difficulties in detecting their potential targets.
The existence of a vast network of information in the principal ports of the Middle East
and East Africa is a proven fact (Auzon, 2013). At the same time, the system is
increasingly frequently used by modern-day pirates (Salim Chebli, 2009), in order to
locate their potential targets. All these data are in fact available, of course, to all the
officially authorised listening services but to anybody else as well. In its current form,
the system does not allow the possibility to choose the direction and transponder to
which the AIS information is sent. This simplifies the pirates’ work and suggests that
they have command of these technologies. Besides, certain groups of pirates make a
considerable profit which allows them to invest money, most notably in better
technological systems and training. (Dumouchel, 2009). The mother ships are
consequently equipped with the latest technology in the field of detecting in space
which enables them to target and organise an attack with great accuracy by taking a
targeted ship by surprise and despatching speed boats which are sometimes
undetectable.
Another, simpler, solution exists, that of an autonomous terminal, marketed freely and
designed for amateur yachtsmen. For a few hundred euros, any potential pirate can see,
on his screen, any ships within a radius of twenty or so miles around his position. All
that is needed is for pirates to be in the right position to cover the usual itineraries of
maritime traffic and choose their prey according to the name of the ship, its cargo or its
destination.
Furthermore, the AIS system can also be used to broadcast false information that can be
fabricated with relative ease. The aim of these misleading messages (distress signal,
wrong locality of the ship, etc.) is essentially to attract attention and lead the ships
targeted into a trap.
Prevention remains a key element in the fight against maritime piracy (Salim Chebli,
2009). Yet, even when navigating without lights, ships remain detectable through their
VHF transmissions linked to AIS. In this case, the solution is to deactivate the AIS
system of vessels entering at-risk areas such as the Gulf of Aden which are often also
areas of heavy traffic in which recourse to AIS is primordial in order to reduce risks of
collision.

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2.2.3. Socio-economic activities and consequences

Owing to its rapid development, AIS is a fantastic tracking tool. Together with
information agencies, ship-owners were the first to take possession of it: it enables them
to track their fleet from land and ensure that the logistics are optimum. If the data are
free of charge as regards observation of AIS positions in real-time, this has no legal
force especially for accessing archived databases. Recordings of arrival and departure
are also provided by the Lloyd’s Register Fairplay for commercial purposes in the
framework of their Sea-web database 8 (Kaluza, Kölzsch, Gastner, Blasius, 2010). These
big groups provide AIS information on a global scale but access to it is fee-based and
relatively costly. For example, the Lloyd’s List possesses the world’s largest network of
AIS receivers.
Furthermore, open AIS information creates fears of commercial espionage. Maritime
companies and shippers in fact wish to remain as discreet as possible regarding
commercial data and information. Imparting information other than the automatic
transmission of certain data such as the ship’s destination or its ETA 9 makes them fear
the risk of commercial espionage.
Lastly, if tracking of a fishing fleet is initially ensured by the system of coverage via
satellite, the Vessel Monitoring System, which monitors the entirety of activity of
European shipping boats of over 12 metres, within the scope of the joint management of
resources, the AIS system can be used for this activity. Its usefulness has already been
recognised in areas where commercial traffic and fishing activities are considerable,
even if fishermen do not appreciate having their positions made public and are
sometimes reluctant to fit the equipment.

3. AIS AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

The data obtained from AIS systems, in fact, constitute a new wealth of information not
only for the maritime community and the wider public but for research scientists as
well. They comprise a potential source of information on maritime traffic, essentially
commercial traffic. Consequently, broadcasting it in real-time makes a real contribution
especially to the scientific community.

3.1. A RECENT SOURCE WITH AS YET RESTRICTED USE

The state of the art, essentially founded on Francophone literature, brings to the fore
works based principally on the subject of security (Fournier, 2012) or on the
frequentation of specific, mainly coastal spaces (Bay of Brest, marine coastal areas and
insular areas). Moreover, the analysis of works, reports, academic and research studies
confirm the relative scarcity of works in Human Sciences and highlights a fragmented
literature which approaches subjects like international maritime law, physics, signal
processing, geopolitics and many others (Fournier, 2012).
8
www.sea-web.com

9
ETA denotes Estimated Time of Arrival, a term often used by freight and express parcel delivery
companies. By convention, the ETA is given in the recipient’s local time.

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As for the far more extensive literature in English, it is a relatively different situation.
More research has been done on AIS on different spatial scales both global
(Shelmerdine, 2015), regional (Cairns, 2005) and local (Perkovic, Gucma, Przywarty,
Gucma, Petelin, Vidmar, 2012). As appears in studies done by Richard L. Shelmerdine
(Shelmerdine, 2015), the research focuses on surveillance of itineraries taken by
maritime transport and the intensity of shipping traffic (Eriksen, Høye, Narheim,
Meland, 2006), the prevention of maritime accidents and the detection of unusual
situations (Kao, Lee, Chang and Ko, 2007) and on the environmental impacts of
maritime traffic (Jalkanen, Johansson, Kukkone, 2013).
So, the Eastern Research Group (ERG) used a Geographic Information System (GIS) to
map and analyze both individual vessel movements and general traffic patterns on
inland waterways and within 9 miles of the Texas coastline. ERG then linked the vessel
tracking data to individual vessel characteristics from Lloyd’s Register of Ships,
American Bureau of Shipping, and Bureau Veritas to match vessels to fuel and engine
data, which were then applied to the latest emission factors to quantify criteria and
hazardous air pollutant emissions from these vessels. The use of AIS data provides the
opportunity for highly refined vessel movement and improved emissions estimation,
however, such a novel and detailed data set also provides singular challenges in data
management, analysis, and gap filling, which are examined in depth in this paper along
with potential methods for addressing limitations (Perez, 2009).
Some researchers also use AIS to study ships comportments due to meteorological
circumstances. For instance, the Baltic Sea is a seasonally ice-covered sea located in a
densely populated area in northern Europe. Severe sea ice conditions have the potential
to hinder the intense ship traffic considerably. Thus, sea ice fore- and nowcasts are
regularly provided by the national weather services. In their study, Löptien and Axell
provide an approach by comparing the ship speeds, obtained by the AIS, with the
respective forecasted ice conditions. They find that, despite an unavoidable random
component, this information is useful to constrain and rate fore and nowcasts. More
precisely, 62–67% of ship speed variations can be explained by the forecasted ice
properties when fitting a mixed-effect model (Löptien, Axell, 2014).
The website Marine Traffic 10 is a very good example of the dissemination of
information. It provides information, partially free of charge and in real-time, on the
movement of ships in an almost global area of coverage (Thery, 2012). It is part of an
academic project whose objective is to gather and disseminate these data with a view to
exploiting them in various domains. This is an open project and the organisers are
constantly looking for partners prepared to share data from their region so that they can
cover more maritime areas and ports worldwide. Marine Traffic has disclosed it has no
less than 5 million monthly users. Everyone can explore at leisure each of the areas for
which the information is available. This exploration is made all the more interesting
in areas where traffic is concentrated like in the English Channel (Cf. figure 3), the
most frequented maritime route in the world. The Marine Traffic website shows a
spectacular image of it. For example, Marine Traffic places 44 500 vessels of all
types on the globe and 650 ships in the central Channel simultaneously, at time t
(Cf. figure 3).

10
http://www.marinetraffic.com

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Figure 3 - Ships in the English Channel according to the Marine Traffic website (18 March
2016 / 14.45)

Source : http://www.marinetraffic.com

Beyond showing maritime itineraries, Marine Traffic also provides the means by which
to observe the movement of vessels in ports, provided that they are equipped with AIS
stations. The AIS system being an open one, it has given rise to sites other than Marine
Traffic like the British site ShipAIS. The sites broadcasting AIS information, therefore,
have a great advantage, that of making it possible to visualise maritime traffic in real-
time free of charge. In terms of research, the interest of these sites of visualisation of
AIS data is certainly more important than making archived databases available but it
makes it possible namely to compare the reality of marine traffic with the rhetoric
coming from shipping companies by checking, for example, the vessels operating on
regular lines. By linking this information with a shipping database, it is additionally
possible to determine the capacities offered by these same maritime lines.

3.2. CLEARLY STATED POTENTIAL

A greater use of AIS data is made possible thanks to the development of a network of
stations covering more and more coastal areas, providing new possibilities to the
mapping of transport activity. “Several studies carried out at the Institut de recherche
de l’école navale (IRENAV) are based on the exploitation of AIS data with the aim of
detecting unusual situations (risks of collision) and of qualifying the behaviour of
vessels in real time. Thanks to the availability of AIS data, it is possible to identify,
quantify and map navigation lanes of vessels” (Le Guyader, Brosset, Gourmelon,
2011). The method, founded on a spatial analysis within a geographical information
system (GIS) combined with a database server, makes it possible to reconstruct each
vessel’s trajectory in such a way as to identify the navigation lanes then to match the
daily traffic in its temporal and quantitative dimensions. It is therefore possible to
complete the maritime transport map which has been traditionally directed towards
analysing maritime networks and flows globally, towards recording the departure and
arrival ports or analysing the spatial influence of maritime transport. “In a global
approach to running maritime activities, this information can be analysed with other

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information describing the operation of nautical and fishing activities, in order to

characterise their interaction and bring to light potential conflicts. In the medium term,
applying maritime traffic tracking systems to the entirety of activities involving different
types of vessels, as intended in the framework of E-Navigation, will no doubt represent
a precious data source as an aid for navigation in real- time, fishing management and
contribute to the integrated management of the sea and coast” (Le Guyader, Brosset,
Gourmelon, 2011).

Furthermore, the Envisia device is an illustration of the relevance of AIS data. Created
by the CETMEF (Centre d'études techniques maritimes et fluviales) at the initiative of
the French State, it is a gathering and archiving system for a whole series of data,
including AIS data, supplied by computer servers and coastal facilities (Guichoux et al.,
2011). This system is already in use for identifying areas of high traffic density and
therefore improving assessment of the risks linked to marine traffic, identifying coastal
areas that can be developed or measuring the pressure of human activities on the marine
environment.

The use of AIS is based on a multi-scaled character; spatial scales (local/global) and
temporal (short term/long term) of the information produced by AIS signals linked to
other bases. This makes operating functions possible in a variety of areas. A potential
application of archived AIS data, therefore, consists in extracting statistics of the voyage
time for a population of ships (Mitchell et al, 2014).

The availability of a reliable and consistent data source has proved difficult in order to
make it possible to build a picture of flows of exchange in the short, medium and long
terms, at both regional and global scales. Maritime companies’ schedules are very
heterogeneous and subject to the above-mentioned vagaries, and movements recorded
by the port authorities’ harbour master’s offices are very difficult to gather without
considerable means. The availability of archived AIS data opens interesting
perspectives for the characterisation of maritime activities on spatial, temporal and
quantitative levels. There is great potential of AIS to contribute to scientific research:
analysis of the maritime itineraries taken by vessels, estimation of vessel discharges,
identification of port calls and duration, analysis of maritime companies’ strategies,
mapping vessel flows, analysis of interactions with the vessel’s environmental elements
such as climatic conditions, state of the sea or density of traffic.

The automatic character of transmitting vessel positioning signals and the generalisation
of this to all ships of over 300 tonnage provides an opportunity to track and analyse the
vessels’ itineraries. Once this source of information has been properly checked through
matching it with external data with regard to vessels and ports, it opens the way to
reasoning on a global scale as well as on the scale of port approaches, in real-time as
well as long term. With regard to scientific research, it represents, for example, the
possibility to test traffic models, be they predictive or dynamic, long or short term,
which could also be of interest to port authorities. As for the professional world of
shippers and logistics providers, it represents the possibility of better apprehending the
vagaries of maritime transport which, by comparison with terrestrial logistics, is often
seen as a “black box”. It is also the opportunity to equip themselves with tools for
evaluating the positioning of ports in a global network of port calls so as to direct their
local logistics arrangements according to the partner countries.

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CONCLUSION
AIS has quickly become an operational tool exploited by a large number of actors. In
effect, it provides precious information, not only to crews but also to terrestrial
regulatory authorities, not forgetting individuals and research scientists. On-board
security and safety for ships at sea are topical subjects owing to the growing number of
acts of piracy. Among the tracking tools that exist for maritime traffic, AIS supplies
information but does not reinforce ships’ safety. On the contrary, it sometimes even
appears that it is used by the very pirates themselves. In fact, the cause of the system’s
greatest defect comes from one of its main assets: the data are originally free of charge,
free to use and thus difficult to monitor.
Satellite Automatic Identification System (AIS) technology has fundamentally changed
the landscape for monitoring the maritime domain. Improving upon existing AIS
technology already deployed aboard all large vessels and many smaller vessels around
the globe, satellite AIS is truly revolutionary in providing a complete and global picture
of the world's maritime shipping environment (Kocak & Browning, 2015).
The possibilities for exploiting information from AIS signals gives this device a
character of global information. It is, in effect:

• Multi-scaled, temporal and spatial,

• Multi-purpose: an aid to navigation, tracking of global economic flows, analysis

of the behaviour of economic players, behaviour of sailors, interaction with the
environment, etc.

• Multi-use: management of maritime lines, of traffic, of port calls, construction of

indicators of reliability, performance, impacts on logistics chains, etc.

• Wealth of opportunity for theoretical developments in a large number of

disciplines since it is, together with its air traffic counterpart, the only source of
continuous tracking of moving objects on a planetary scale.
This enormous potential is being exploited within the CIRMAR project which aims to
set up a platform to integrate the data and for application development founded on the
use of AIS signals. This poses scientific challenges and results in the requirement of an
interdisciplinary approach. First of all, to construct the platform for the acquisition of
processing and availability of useable data according to the various ultimate aims and
uses. The scientific validating of AIS data involves the implementation of new tools in
close relation to computer processing specialists. At the same time, it is necessary to
apprehend as widely as possible the different types of exploitation that will be required
for this platform and consequently, collaboration is indispensable with all the different
disciplines and professions concerned: geography, economics, statistics, engineering
sciences, logistics providers, seagoing personnel, etc. It is preferable that this
collaboration be done at the earliest possible stage so as to determine specifications for
each development envisaged as this will help to improve the services provided by the
platform. Lastly, even if the results are immediately available, this is also a project built
on the medium to long term together with archiving the data.

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BILIOGRAPHY
AUZON OLIVIER (2013), La piraterie maritime est en baisse mais il ne faut pas
baisser la garde, Diploweb, mars2013, http://www.diploweb.com /La-piraterie-
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JENSLØKKEN (2006), Maritime traffic monitoring using a space-based AIS receiver,
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géodécisionnel dans la surveillance maritime, SAGEO International Conference on

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MANAGEMENT I
 PORTS AND TERMINAL MANAGEMENT I

TECHNICAL VIABILITY AND IMPLICATIONS OF SHIPREPAIR

ACTIVITY IN THE PORT OF SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE. NEW
PERSPECTIVES.

Federico Padrón Martín (I), Alexis Dionis Melián (I), Mª del Cristo Adrián de Ganzo
(I), Agustín González Almeida (I), Servando R. Luis León (I).

Amanda Peña Navarro (II)

(I) Universidad de La Laguna. Departamento de Ingeniería Agraria, Náutica, Civil y

Marítima. UD Ingeniería Marítima. Grupo I+D Consemar.
(II) Alumna de Doctorado.

fpadron@ull.edu.es, adionis@ull.edu.es, madriang@ull.edu.es, srluis@ull.edu.es,

jagonal@ull,edu.es amanda.penya@gmail.com.

Abstract

Due to the geographical situation, Canary Islands are a strategic point on the
international trading routes linking Europe, Africa and America. There are two
important ports: one in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and another in Tenerife, the
biggest cities in the archipelago. Both of them have adapted to the economic situation
for years offering necessary services according to the international and cabotage
shipping trading and their requirements.
In the last years, the increase of economic activity in the islands and interest of different
maritime operators to open shipping lines via Canarias have led to new business
opportunities. The rise of large cruise vessel calls, nearness of crude oil fields or even
potential crude oil exploration in Spanish waters require local ports to offer a better
and greater range of services. Thus, for example, a decade after the last small shipyard
was closed, nowadays Santa Cruz de Tenerife port tries to restart an own ship repair
activity taking advantage of the present situation and considering the benefits of
economic growth and employment.

Keywords:

Ship repair, Astilleros de Tenerife, syncrolift, floating dock, offshore unit, viability.

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1 INTRODUCTION

The port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has a long and interesting history. Since it was
founded 1494 the port has transformed significantly adapting to socioeconomic
circumstances at any time. In the old days, there were other more important ports in the
island, as Garachico and La Orotava-Puerto de la Cruz. However, due to the volcanic
eruption 1706, the port of Garachico was destroyed. This event caused a quick
promotion of Santa Cruz de Tenerife as commercial city. At the same time, the original
fishing cove was becoming commercial port.
In the XIX century, the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife developed significantly due to
two important factors: (1) Export of cochineal (raw material for colorants) and (2) The
privileged port location as the last supply point for vessels on the route to America with
emigrants. Both factors led to strong growth in port activity. It was necessary the
construction of new berthing lines to meet the increasing of steam vessels calls.
While the port became more dynamic, ship repair and build also developed in Santa
Cruz de Tenerife. Repair facilities were established in different beaches of the city
around the port. In order to improve the operation capacity, a new wharf -Muelle de
Ribera- was built in the port 1960. This event pushed different repairing companies to
move out of the city. So that, ship repair companies were gradually disappearing. Only
one company survived and it was located in the area of Bufadero. Along its existence,
this company was named as Astilleros de Tenerife or Nuvasa.
After about thirty years of activity, Astilleros de Tenerife was finally closed in 2004.
During some years, Port Authority looked for new business opportunities but it was
decided to build a container terminal in the same place. New terminal began operations
in 2015.
Figure 1 – Lecture: “Repair shipyard in Santa Cruz of Tenerife port”.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLlbPiPxKVk

However, as commented before, the new scenario presents additional business

opportunities for Santa Cruz de Tenerife port: cruise vessels and offshore units. Both
types of installations are built with high technical standards. So that, ship owners are
interested to receive port services according to such standards and ship repair is one of
these demanded services. Furthermore, it is obvious these new potential customers are

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approaching to the port requiring ship repair as a part of the port services. So that, the
port could incorporate this activity as part of its own business.
When the old shipyard Nuvasa – closed in 2004 - was active, it was internationally well
known as a special facility due to the syncrolift solution to lift the vessels out of water,
move by rails to park them on the working area. The syncrolift had seven wiring
winches each side to move the platform up and down with vessel on top. Access to the
platform was inside the port. Shipyard developed a complete range of yard activities:
hull cleaning, preparation and painting; steel repair; general machinery repair; riverside
carpentry; even afloat repair, etc. There was a real culture on ship repairing. More than
ten years later, all that knowledge disappeared in the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Figure 2 – Shipyard solution by Syncrolift platform.

Source: Personal compilation

Nuvasa kept an economic activity alive. In return, a lot of direct and indirect jobs were
created in the city. It was usual to see stranded ships from the highway to San Andrés.
Figure 3 – View of Nuvasa repair shipyard.

Source: Personal compilation

During its existence, Nuvasa decided to implement a major production capacity via a
floating dock. The company acquired this additional facility to offer technical flexibility
and repair services for bigger vessels. The decision resulted in a higher turnover and
more labour opportunities for the local population. The floating dock was berthed in
Muelle Sur – Southern wharf- for years and it was part of Santa Cruz de Tenerife port
image.

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Figure 4 – View of Nuvasa floating dock.

Source: Courtesy photo

After several decades of activity, in 2004 the shipyard was closed. Then, ship building
and repair tradition slowly disappeared. Port management decided to promote and
concentrate investment efforts on other marine activities such as container trading. The
port image changed from stranded ships to container cranes.
Figure 5 – Container terminal in Bufadero area.

Source: Personal compilation

Yard was closed and port passed by difficult years. Even more, as general opinion, the
local population showed clear discrepancies about the decision to close the yard and not
to support the company owner to continue.
In recent years, the growth of cruise ships callings has been obvious. Port Authority was
aware of this fact and thought that cruise tourism was a new business opportunity. So
that, port management decided to promote proper activities to attract more cruise
vessels in the port.
Figure 6 – Cruise ships in Santa Cruz de Tenerife port.

Source: Port of Tenerife

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 PORTS AND TERMINAL MANAGEMENT I

The construction of passenger terminals and new related projects coming, again
changed the image of Santa Cruz de Tenerife port. Of course, then, the ship repair
activity had almost disappeared. Only some small workshops survived and were able to
offer afloat ship repairing.
But, at the same time that attention to cruise business was maximum, various
shipowners were interested to move offshore units and auxiliary vessels to Tenerife to
be repaired. Nowadays, there are crude oil production areas near Canary Islands or not
so far. Thus, Santa de Tenerife is a good option to repair.
Figure 7 – Offshore units in Santa Cruz de Tenerife port.

Source: Personal compilation

Offshore industry is a new business opportunity for the port, with new potential clients
radically different from domestic cabotage or cruise vessels. In case of ship repair,
offshore industry technical requirements will be different and very strict. Again, the port
probably has to face and adapt to a new time.
Figure 8 – Offshore auxiliary vessel.

Source: Personal compilation

Just now when offshore owners are coming to the port, it is the opportunity to recover
the ship repair activity in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. All stakeholders should agree on a
common development strategy for the future: Port Authority, workshops and industrial
material suppliers, local business associations, new investors, logistics and hostel
operators and also education institutions. This should be an ambitious plan with long-
term goals and not only to meet current needs due to cruise vessels and offshore units.
Plan should include a complete shipyard infrastructure: repair afloat and in drydock.

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Thus, these actions could boost business opportunities, improve the viability of the port
and have Santa Cruz de Tenerife back among the referents of ship repair.
The proposal means a not easy way. However, as a result, the local economy
could be more dynamic, more employment opportunities, innovation and creation of
new companies around the port.

2 METHODOLOGY

Into this chapter, three important aspects are considered to develop the communication:
cruise vessel passengers visiting the port, number of handled TEUs and type of services
offered by the port nowadays. The analysis carried out covers the period of time 2007 –
2014. The mentioned period approximately coincides with a decade without shipyard in
the port (closed in 2004). Same time, 2014 is the year when the Port Authority clearly
decided investments in cruise vessels related activities and infrastructures.
Figure 9 – Cruise vessel calls. Passengers per year. S/C Tenerife port.

Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Passengers 522.093 537.371 582.835 740.022 828.332 885.623 749.249 848.159

Cruise vessels - Evolution of passengers per year

1000000
900000
800000
700000
Passengers

600000
500000
400000
300000
200000
100000
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Passengers 522093 537371 582835 740022 828322 885623 749249 848159

Source: Confederacion Canaria de Empresarios (local business association)

Period [2007 – 2014]. Personal compilation

As observed on the previous table, the number of passengers visiting the port grew
gradually since 2007 to 2009. The growth ratio was really important for the period 2009
- 2012. In last two years of the series (2013 – 2014), the number of passenger remained

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constant. However, if we analyze the period trend, it is clear it has been growing
steadily. So that, as a conclusion, this business presents an important growing potential.

Figure 10 – Evolution of handled TEUs at port per year.

Year 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
TEU 434.68 453.29 367.87 321.63 332.78 320.07 303.30 288.32 306.96
s 4 0 3 0 2 2 6 7 7

TEUs - Evolution per year

500000
450000
400000
Number of TEUs

350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Año 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
TEU 434.684 453.290 367.873 321.630 332.782 320.072 303.306 288.327 306.967

Source: Confederación Canaria de Empresarios. Personal compilation

Concerning the second analyzed aspect, statistics confirms the evolution showed in the
above Picture 10. For the interval 2006 -2007, a maximum is observed. However, for
the rest of the series, the yearly number of handled containers is constant, about 300.000
TEUs per year since 2009 until 2014. Then, it seems obvious that the container
business remains stable.
However, if total port trading in tons is analyzed for the same period, it results that
annual trend is lightly decreasing (see Picture 11) what is significant. That means that
the turnover of the port is actually declining.

Figure 11 – Port trading evolution during last years (Tons)

Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Total
trading 19.174.67 17.820.98 15.631.04 14.841.34 14.441.33 14.374.04 12.183.29 11.460.32
(Tons) 5 8 6 5 4 8 0 6

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Evolution of port trading at Santa Cruz de

Tenerife
25000000
20000000
Total trading

15000000
10000000
5000000
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Año 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Tráfico total 19.174.6 17.820.9 15.631.0 14.841.3 14.441.3 14.374.0 12.183.2 11.460.3

Source: Confederación Canaria de Empresarios. Period [2007-2014].

Personal compilation

The simple statistical analysis indicates the necessity to strengthen port activities in
order to improve business figures. Recovering of ship repairing activity is an interesting
alternative.
Concerning the third aspect to study, Picture 12 shows a bar graph table showing the
different types of offered services in the port and number of companies involved at the
end of the analyzed period (2007 – 2014).
Figure 12 – Marine services at Santa Cruz de Tenerife port.

Number of port services at S/C de

Tenerife
60 52
50 39
40
30 21
20 9 11 12 12
4 2 2 6
10 1
0

Source: Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Personal compilation

As expected, port services are diversified. Most important services are mainly intended
for port container activity, for example, port agents, custom agents, forwarders and
shipchandlers. By contrast, only twelve companies are dedicated to ship repairing.

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Updated 2016 info from Port Authority includes additional companies involved in ship
repairing and also a shipyard. The shipyard is a new project just starting and hopefully
will be active in the end of this year (2016). It seems the opportunity to energize and
make a more competitive port is underway.
Figure 13 – Services at Santa Cruz de Tenerife port

Dedicated area in % over all port extension

3% 2% Los Llanos container terminal

15% Muelle de Ribera RoRo cargo

terminal
8% El Bufadero container terminal

New container terminal in

44% Dique del Este
Dique del Este bulk termminal
28%
Dique del Este large surface
major terminal. Cement.

Source: Santa Cruz de Tenerife Port Authority. Personal compilation

Another factor to be considered in the analysis is next one: the ground area dedicated to
different port businesses. Picture 13 shows the existing business areas in percentage
over the total of port. Main items are: containers, ro-ro cargo, bulk cargo and
passengers. More than half of available ground is used for container terminals. It is
obvious that container terminals need large working areas due to berthing requirements,
container stowage and ro-ro parking areas, cranes, truck lanes, etc. However,
percentages of 15%, 28% and 44% are excessive and risky to maintain a reasonable
balance of activities.
Thus, it is convenient to diversify activities and not dedicate high percentages to
containers especially if, by external factors, the port is suitable to adopt new activities.
Cruise vessel calls, interest of offshore industry and a new investor shipyard could
create proper scenario to redirect the port business in a reasonable period of time.

3 RESULTS
The ship repair activity was always linked to the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
However, while the port was developed in the past, especially via a new wharf named
Muelle de Ribera and subsequent extension works, the city coast was totally modified.
This situation forced to place the ship repair activities out of the city, near the popular
neighborhood María Jiménez. Thus the city began to distance from the port. The gap

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was gradually widened until the shipyard Nuvasa was closed in 2004 and a container
terminal was built in place. The container business was reinforced but the ship repair
culture was strongly reduced.
Since 2004, small auxiliary companies of the old shipyard have survived through repairs
afloat or have redirected to the yacht market. Anyway, knowhow and tradition related to
ship repairing was lost.

4 CONCLUSIONS
As explained before, in recent years, next circumstances have converged in the port of
Santa Cruz de Tenerife:
- Stabilization and slight decreasing of operated containers
- Significant growth of cruise vessel calls and passengers
- Good port conditions to repair offshore units and auxiliary vessels
- Investor interest to relaunch the activity of ship repairs
These circumstances should be used by the port as an opportunity to redirect the port to
a more balanced business model and, in turn, provide economic growth and wealth in
the city, an activity designed to retain customers for the future.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] Puertos de Tenerife. Primer desembarcadero.
[2] La villa y puerto de Garachico. Revista de Historia. MDC. ULPGC
[3] El impacto de las coladas de 1706 en la ciudad de Garachico. Romero- Beltrán. ULL
[4] “Astilleros de reparación en el ámbito del puerto de S/C de Tenerife“.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLlbPiPxKVk
[5] “La reparación naval en el puerto de S/C de Tenerife. Varaderos – Astilleros”.
Padrón, Luis, Rodríguez. Revista Capitán. Nº 18.
[6] Tesis Doctoral. “La carpintería de ribera en la pesca artesanal de Canarias“.
F. Padrón. ULL. Directores Melián – García.
[7] Proyecto Fin de Carrera. “Syncrolft – Técnica optimizada de varada de buques”.
Cova. Directores Padrón – Luis.
[8] “Tenerife es el punto más emergente de cruceros de todo el atlántico”. Puertos de
Tenerife. Diario de Avisos.
[9] TFG. “Evolución de las empresas de reparación naval en el Puerto de S/C de
Tenerife”. Acosta. Directores Padrón – Dionis.

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 PORTS AND TERMINAL MANAGEMENT I

[10] “Primera plataforma llega a puerto”. El Día. 15/09/205.

[11] “El puerto de S/C de Tenerife. Recuperar los servicios de la reparación naval”.
Mayo/2015. Diario de avisos.
[12] “Diez empresas de reparación naval crean un frente común”.
26/Agosto/2015. El Día.
[13] “Comienzan las obras del gran centro de reparación naval en el puerto
capitalino”. 8/Octubre/2015. La Opinión.
[14] Confederación Canaria de Empresarios. Ejercicio [2006-2014]
[15] Autoridad Portuaria del Puerto de S/C de Tenerife.

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SCOURING PROCESSES IN HARBOUR BASINS DURING THE DOCKING

AND UNDOCKING MANOEUVRING: LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS

Anna Mujal-Colilles (I)

Xavier Gironella (I)

Agustín Sanchez-Arcilla (I)

(I) Marine Engineering Laboratory, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UPC-
Barcelona Tech

C/ Jordi Girona 1-3, 08028 Barcelona

934017017, anna.mujal@upc.edu

Abstract

Scouring processes due to manoeuvring actions can produce big consequences on the stability
of harbour structures such as docks and protecting dikes. As a consequence, the sedimentation
of the eroded sediment reduces the total depth of the harbour basin and navigation channel. At
the same time, contaminants settled at the bed of the harbour basins may be resuspended by the
effect of vessel’s propellers and produce an important environmental problem to harbour
authorities. Present formulas to compute the total scouring depth have revealed to overestimate
the maximum scouring depth or be non-realistic in other cases. Experiments performed at the
Marine Engineering Laboratory in LaBassA flume (12x4.6x2.5 m3) with a twin propeller
reduced model of 0.25 m diameter are presented herein. Main propeller and bow thruster
conditions are evaluated for three different rotating velocities using a sediment diameter of D50
= 250 µm at bollard pull conditions.

Keywords

Scouring processes, environmental protection, structural safety, physical modelling

1. INTRODUCTION

The last release of The World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure in 2015 was
a monographic about scour caused by ships and the berthing protections, [1]. However, both the
velocity downstream the propellers and the scouring processes due to vessels manoeuvres have
been studied so far.

Efflux velocity or downstream velocity, is the first parameter needed to analyze the seabed
erosion, since all the theoretical equations developed so far, use this variable as a dependant
variable. Ved velocity, has always been expressed as a function of efflux velocity and is used, in
turn, to obtain the maximum scouring depth caused by ships propulsion systems. Although
efflux velocity for twin propellers has only been described by [2], [3], [1] proposes to use the
expressions for a single propeller with a linear or quadratic superposition hypothesis. Therefore,
the axial momentum theory can be used, along with [4], [5] or [6] but always bearing in mind
the option decided in order to analyse the variability of the final results for expected erosion. [7]
analyses the results of the equations proposed by [1], with twin propellers experimental results

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with good results for the bed velocity predicted by the German method using a quadratic
superposition hypothesis.

Other authors outlying local scouring problems can also be used to estimate the maximum
erosion in harbours due to propellers. Most of the literature is based in experimental expressions
found in laboratories [8]–[12], and can produce non-realistic values when implemented in real
harbours [13].

The present paper is aiming to describe the experimental results of scouring processes in a
physical laboratory using twin propellers. In order to reproduce more realistic manoeuvres two
different configurations were used: scour produced by main propellers and scour produced by
bow-thrusters.

2. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Physical experiments were performed at a facility located in the Laboratory of Marine

Engineering (LIM) from Technical University of Catalonia (UPC-BarcelonaTech). LaBassA,
see Figure 1, is a rectangular concrete tank of 12.5x4.6x2.5 m3 with three lateral windows
visually access the experiments in time. A sediment layer with a height hs = 0.55 m was located
covering most of LaBassa. The grain size distribution of the sediment layer was D50 = 250 µm
and D90 = 375 µm. Two helix, with Dp = 0.25 m, were located at the end of LaBassA with a
clearance distance from the bottom of hp = 0.26 m (see Figure 2) and a separation distance
between dem of ap = 2Dp;

Figure 1. Experimental setup in LaBassA (LIM/UPC-

BarcelonaTech). The center of reference is located at the symmetry
axis in the bottom of LaBassA.

Experiments were performed to reproduce two configurations in order to obtain comparisons

with real situations:

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A. Scour produced due to main propellers, which coincides in literature with unconfined
scenarios.
B. Scour due to bow thrusters close to quay wall, also named confined situation.

Twin propellers were located at the lower part of a metallic structure that was hanging from a
railroad in each side of LaBassa. The configuration allowed us to move the propellers along the
flume and locate them close to the opposite wall in order to reproduce either the main propellers
or the bow thruster scouring processes

Figure 2. Sketch of the thruster system

A mechanized arm with three degrees of freedom was suspended from a footbridge placed at the
same railroads as the propellers metallic structure. Three photoelectric sensors, Efector200-
O1D100, were used to locate the position in the x-y-z coordinate system of the mechanized arm.
The z-component was placed inside a cylindrical Perspex tank in order to acquire data without
flowing out the water in LaBassa. Scouring holes were measured after scanning the sediment
bed with 13 longitudinal profiles and 11 transversal profiles, located as detailed in Table 1. The
centre of coordinates for each scenario is shown in Figure 3 and located at the propellers plane
for the main propeller scenario and the end of the tank for the bow thruster scenario.

Table 1. Position of the scanning profiles. Dp is the propeller diameter

Longitudinal Transversal

Main Propellers Bow thrusters

# name y ap # name x Dp # name x Dp

Y-5 -3.0 X0 0.5 X0 1.5

Y-4 -2.5 X1 1.5 X1 2.5
Y-3 -2.0 X2 2.7 X2 3.5
Y-2 -1.5 X3 3.7 X3 4.5
H1 -1.0 X4 4.7 X4 5.5
Y-1 -0.5 X5 5.7 X5 6.5
Y0 0.0 X6 6.6 X6 7.5
Y1 0.5 X7 7.7 X7 8.3
H2 1.0 X8 8.6 X8 9.3
Y2 1.5 X9 9.6 X9 10.3
Y3 2.0 X10 10.6 X10 12.3
Y4 2.5 X11 11.6 X11 14.2
Y5 3.0

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Figure 2 plots the thruster system with the main distances used during the setup of the
experiments. The rotating system to simulate the undocking manoeuvring was named forward
and was used for the main propellers and bow thrusters configuration. The docking
manoeuvring was reproduced after switching the speed direction of both propellers and was
only used with the bow thrusters configuration. Errors in the speed rotation were of the order of
10% with a low difference of 3% from one propeller to the other.

Three different rotating velocities were used for the two docking scenarios, n = 300, 350,
400 rpm, and only the maximum rotating speed was used for the docking and undocking
case.

2.1 MAIN PROPELLERS

Experiments performed to reproduce the scour caused by the action of twin non-ducted main
propellers were done locating the helices at one end of LaBassA in order to avoid the influence
of the other end of the tank, as seen in Figure 3. However, the convective cells created in the
tank influenced the jet originated by the helices. Thus, one can consider that the influence of the
helices opposite end is negligible, but side walls are clearly affecting the scouring results.

Figure 3. Sketch of the experimental configurations for the two

scenarios: A) Main twin-propellers; B) Non-ducted bow thrusters

The scouring action caused by main propellers was simulated by performing sequences of 5
hours run, except the first run of 10 minutes which tried to reproduce the scaled time of a
docking and undocking maneuvering, concurrently.

2.2 BOW THRUSTERS

The scour produced by non-ducted bow thrusters was reproduced by moving the metallic
structures holding the propellers to a distance of 7Dp, as shown in Figure 3.

For each experiment, sets of 5 minutes with the forward speed were used to evaluate the
evolution of the scouring action of the twin propellers, from 5 to 25 minutes. This sequence was
used in order to scale the duration of a docking manoeuvring action of a cruise vessel without
tugboat or pilot along an entire week.

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In order to reproduce a more realistic manoeuvre, we did a second type of experiments with
the bow thruster configuration. Thus, a series of 5 minutes alternating forward (undocking)
and backward (docking) speed rotation, starting from an undocking manoeuvre (forward
design).

The difference in the time analysis between the main propeller, 5 hours run, and the bow
thruster configuration, 5 minutes run, was aiming to, respectively, find the asymptotic state
(described by [14] around 48 hours) and reproduce the reality as much as possible.

3. RESULTS

3.1 MAIN PROPELLERS

Results found after analysing the experiments performed with the main propellers configuration
revealed that the stationary time was not reached before 20 hours run. However, experiments
were stopped after 20 hours because the sediment layer used was already eroded at some points
of the sediment layer.

Figure 4. Scour due to main propellers after 15 hours running at 350 rpm.

Figure 4 plots a 3D rendering reproduction of the scouring hole created by the propellers
rotating at 350 rpm with a maximum scouring depth of up to 1.8Dp and a maximum eroded
height of around Dp. In the case of twin propellers, the scouring pattern turns out to be almost
symmetric, since the rotating effect observed by [14] for one propeller experiments is
compensated with the second propeller. This effect is also confirmed in the other scenarios
studied herein.

The scouring evolution of the centerline is shown in Figure 5 for the scenario of 400rpm. As
detailed above, the concrete bottom of LaBassA is reached after 20 hours of experiment
requiring a thicker layer of sediments from the beginning of the experiments.

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Figure 5. Evolution of the centerline (Y0) of the scouring process for main
propellers with a speed revolution of 400 rpm

Figure 5 shows how the distance from the propellers plane and the maximum scouring point
increases simultaneously with the deposited height. Thus, the scouring hole increases in length
and width, settling the sediment to an external ring that surrounds the main eroded hole. It is
important to point out that the maximum deposited height is not located at the centerline of the
scouring hole, but in the lateral zones.

Figure 6. Transversal profiles in the X0 and X1 location, scanned for the 300 rpm scenario.

At the same time, [15]experiments revealed that the influence of twin propellers is very local
and disappears in time. Figure 6 illustrates the low effect of separate propellers in our
experiments. The effect of twin propellers configuration is not perceived in Figure 4, but a
closed zoom to the transversal profiles close to the propellers plane is shown in Figure 6. The
twin propeller’s influence is only detected in the X1 profile, Figure 6b, particularly at the
beginning of the experiment. However, after 15 hours of experiment the twin propeller effects
close to the propeller plane disappear completely.

The main problem for harbor authorities may not only be the maximum scouring depth caused
by the main propellers, but also the deposition and the further reduction in the basin depth, as
detailed by [13]. Figure 7a plots the evolution of the maximum scouring depth, εmax, where the

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asymptotic state is clearly not reached, as described previously. The behavior of the three
scenarios is consistent with qualitative previous experiments (e.g. [1], [14], [16]) and can be
fitted within a log-log profile. This work is left for further publications, where more scenarios
varying the clearance distance and the propeller pitch will be included.

On the other hand, the maximum deposition height, smax, plotted in Figure 7b shows a clear
semi-logarithmic tendency, being proportional to the time logarithm.

Figure 7. Evolution of the a) maximum scouring depth and b)

maximum deposition height

3.2 BOW THRUSTERS

When the propellers are placed close to one end, the model scenario is trying to reproduce bow
thruster conditions. In this case, as detailed in the previous section, helices are located 7Dp
meters from the opposite wall. Besides, experiments in these scenarios were performed using 5
minutes runs instead of 5 hours, trying to simulate the entire process of docking and undocking
manoeuvring.

Figure 8. Rendering of the scour action produced by twin bow thrusters moving forward after
15 minutes run at 400 rpm. White line is the location of the helix plane.

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Figure 8 shows a 3D render plot of the results, with a clear scouring hole formed close to the
wall (x= 0). The effects upstream of the propellers shall be neglected since they are clearly
influenced by the experimental setup, and the shape of the vessels hull is not included in this
research. Underneath the propellers hub, there is a small sedimentation area, mainly due to the
negative pressure flow field created at this part of the propellers. This phenomenon may also
occur in real vessels, however, the manoeuvring process balances the small sedimentation hill,
as reported by [16].

Figure 9. Contour plot evolution of bow-thrusters scenario, with a speed revolution of 400rpm.
Dashed line is the position of the helix plane.

Again, the asymptotic state is not reached after 25 minutes run, but this was not the mail goal of
the present experiments. In Figure 9, the upstream scouring hole is static throughout the
experiments, but the main scouring hole located at the wall keeps growing in time. The blank
zone in Figure 9 is due to the set-up of the scanning probe. In fact, the increasing rate of the
maximum scouring depth, Figure 10, follows an exponential trend.

Figure 10. Maximum scouring depth evolution for the bow-thrusters

scenario with a speed revolution of 400rpm.

If the former case, using only forward speed conditions is compared to a back and forth speed
conditions of the bow thrusters, there is a clear change, particularly upstream of the propellers.
In this case, the shape of the facility built to support the helices is a clear influence in the
formation of the upstream scouring hole. However, the present experiments shall be used as a
guide to understand the process of the scouring hole due to the docking and undocking process.

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In Figure 11, a 3D render scan of the scouring hole produced after 15 minutes running with a
series of 5 minutes forth and back shows how the magnitude of the hole created close to the
wall is of the same order of magnitude of the scouring hole formed upstream of the propellers.

Figure 11. 400rpm 15 min forward

The sequence of speed direction produced an interesting phenomenon which consisted on the
scouring process in the downstream hole, while the sediment was settled in the upstream cavity
and opposite. Figure 12 shows clearly this process, with the formation of a connecting channel
between them. This channel was formed after a forward (docking) run and was destroyed after a
backwards run (undocking)

Figure 12. Contour plot evolution of the back and forth scenario with a speed revolution of 400
rpm using the bow-thrusters configuration. Dashed line is the position of the helix plane.

4. DISCUSSION

A first comparison between the two propeller experimental configuration confirms what [17]
concluded with their experiments: the effect of the boundary substantially increases the potential
erosion caused by propellers. In the paper of [17] experiments were done using a single
propeller and the maximum scouring depth was around twice the depth caused by main
propellers. At the same time, the deposition of the eroded sediment settled close to the wall in
the neighborhood of the scouring hole. In the present research, only the 10 minutes set up can be

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compared between scenarios, being the maximum scouring depth found for bow-thrusters
configuration almost 4 times larger than the same variable for main propellers. Therefore, the
number of propellers is clearly a variable to take into account when computing the scouring
effects produced by vessels, along with the engine power, the pitch and the clearance distance.

When the two scenarios of the bow thruster configuration are compared, it is clear that the back
and forth scenario is less dangerous for quay structures since one maneuver scouring process
balances the opposite maneuver. However, it seems that in the asymptotic state both scenarios
will yield the same maximum scouring depth close to the wall, being the more realistic scenario
the worst case. Besides, the docking and undocking maneuvering produces two different
cavities with twice the eroded volume as the docking maneuvering with the subsequent
deposition problems along the harbor basin.

The experiments presented herein reveal what has already been described in real harbors: the
high scouring capacity of the bow thrusters and main propellers close to the wall, producing big
problems on the stability of quay structures. The consequent problem of the sedimentation is
also very important since the reduction of the depth in some areas of the harbor basins may
force the vessels to maneuver in order to avoid these zones and finally declare the harbor basin
inoperative for certain vessels with the consequent economic losses.

The main propellers results are more likely to occur in navigation channels than in harbor
basins. Therefore, results found during this investigations shall be considered as absolute values
for harbor authorities and protection designs. However, if this is the situation, the main problem
for harbor structures and operational system will not be the scouring process but the zone where
the eroded sediment is deposited. This is clearly influenced by the maneuvering actions of the
vessels in the navigation channel or basin. Besides, the deposition of contaminants at the bed of
the harbor has to be tracked by studying the effects of main propellers when the vessel transits
the contaminated zone.

The expressions detailed in [14], [17] and [1] were applied to the data of the experiments with
results far from the experimental data. It is left for further studies a detailed description of the
data and the problems in the formulations. Moreover, a new expression to estimate maximum
scouring and maximum sedimentation height is now under development and will be published.

5. CONCLUSIONS

Results obtained after modelling main propulsion system and bow-thrusters using a laboratory
experimental facility built with a twin propeller design are found to be different from the
previous data using a single propeller (i.e. [17], [11]).

First, main propeller experiments can be used as a guideline to obtain the erosion caused by
vessels when manoeuvring in navigation channels or areas with no rear influence of a wall. This
is important in order to estimate the amount of bedload accumulated close to the walls of the
navigation channel which will reduce the depth of the area and can also cause environmental
problems to harbour authorities.

Second, in terms of the bow thrusters influence on the stability of quay structures, it is clear that
the effect caused by the propellers is very important and can cause severe damages to the
structures, particularly at the beginning of the undocking manoeuvers and at the end of the
docking manoeuvers. Therefore, the prediction of the total erosion is important to design the

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protections or implement some manoeuvring operations in order to minimize such effect. The
maximum erosion caused during docking and undocking manoeuvers is more than twice the
erosion occasioned by the main propellers in an open channel. However, the influence of main
propellers during the docking and undocking manoeuvring must be taken into account as well.
In this regarding, the estimation of erosion caused by main propellers close to quay walls can be
computed with the formulations proposed by bow-thrusters close to the wall or confined areas,
as seen in literature.

Finally, the sedimentation caused by the eroded sediment is more important when the main
propellers in a navigation channel were analysed. However, the settling of the sediment scoured
by bow-thrusters may be more uniform and influenced by the manoeuvring actions in the
harbour basin. To prevent the accumulation of sediments in certain zones, a detailed study of the
manoeuvers needs to be done, and further small changes in the manoeuvres may prevent the
harbour basin to be inoperative in the same zones.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We greatly acknowledge the technical staff of the UPC CIEMLAB for their support throughout
the experiments. This work has been supported by MINECO (Ministerio de Economía y
Competitividad) and FEDER (Unión Europea- Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional "Una
Manera de hacer Europa") from Spanish Government through projects BIA2012-38676-C03-01
and TRA2015-70473-R.

REFERENCES

[1] PIANC, Guidelines for protecting berthing structures from scour caused by ships.
Report n° 180. 2015.

[2] M. Fuehrer, K. Römish, and G. Engelke, “Criteria for dimensioning the bottom and slope
protections and for applying the new methods of protecting navigation canals,” in
PIANC XXVth Congress, Section I, 1981.

[3] L. A. Schokking, P. C. Janssen, and H. J. Verhagen, “Bowthruster-induced damage,”

PIANC, vol. 114, 2003.

[4] G. Hamill, “Characteristics of the screw wash of a manoeuvring ship and the resulting
bed scour.,” Queen’s University of Belfast, 1987.

[5] D. P. J. Stewart, “Characteristics of a ship’s screw wash and the influence of quay wall
proximity.,” Queen’s University of Belfast, 1992.

[6] G. Hamill, J. A. Mcgarvey, and D. A. B. Hughes, “Determination of the efflux velocity

from a ship ’ s propeller,” no. June 2004, pp. 83–91, 2010.

[7] A. Mujal-Colilles, X. Gironella, and A. Sanchez-Arcilla, “Study of the bed velocity

induced by two propellers (under review),” J. Appl. Ocean Res., 2016.

[8] P. J. Mason and K. Arumugam, “Free Jet Scour Below Dams and Flip Buckets,” J.
Hydraul. Eng., vol. 111, no. 2, pp. 220–235, Feb. 1985.

[9] Y. Chiew and S. Lim, “Local scour by a deeply submerged horizontal circular jet,” J.

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Hydraul. Eng., vol. 122, no. September, pp. 529–532, 1996.

[10] S. Canepa and W. H. Hager, “Effect of Jet Air Content on Plunge Pool Scour,” J.
Hydraul. Eng., vol. 129, no. 5, pp. 358–365, May 2003.

[11] Y. Chiew, J. Hong, I. Susanto, and N. Cheng, “Local scour by offset and propeller jets,”
in ICSE6, 2012, no. 1991, pp. 949–956.

[12] J.-H. Hong, Y.-M. Chiew, I. Susanto, and N.-S. Cheng, “Evolution of scour induced by
propeller wash,” in ICSE6, 2012, p. 147.

[13] A. Mujal-Colilles, X. Gironella, and A. Sanchez-Arcilla, “Erosion caused by propeller

jets in a low energetic harbour basin. (under review),” J. Hydraul. Res., 2016.

[14] G. Hamill, “The scouring action of the propeller jet produced by a slowly manoeuvring
ship (*),” PIANC, vol. 62, 1988.

[15] W. Lam, D. J. Robinson, G. Hamill, S. Raghunathan, and C. Kee, “Simulations of a Ship

’ s Propeller Wash,” vol. m, p. 880653, 2006.

[16] P. Geisenhainer and Ka.Koll, “Scour development caused by propeller jet of moving
vessels,” in River Flow, 2014, pp. 1535–1543.

[17] G. Hamill, H. T. Johnston, and D. Stewart, “Propeller Wash Scour Near Quay Walls,” J.
Waterw. Port, Coast. Ocean Eng., vol. 125, no. August, pp. 170–175, 1999.

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MODELING AN OFFSHORE CONTAINER TERMINAL: THE VENICE

CASE STUDY

Alessandro Baldassarra (I)

Bruno Bevivino (I),
Cristiano Marinacci (I),
Stefano Ricci (I)
(I) Sapienza University of Rome – DICEA

Abstract

In order to reduce marine transportation times and related costs, as well as the
environmental impacts, an alternative multimodal route to the current Suez-Gibraltar-
North Sea corridor for the containers shipped from Far and Middle East was identified
as potentially very effective. A key operational problem to achieve this result is the
capacity and the effectiveness of the terminals within the concerned new logistic chain.
In this framework, the Venice Port Authority is developing a project aimed to improve
relevantly the potential of its container terminals to al-low loading/unloading of
containers to and from the Central Europe. The project includes a new offshore
terminal for mooring huge ships (up to 18.000 TEU) in the Adriatic Sea and a link
operated by barges with an onshore terminal in Venice to overcome the constraints for
the navigation of the containers ships in the Venetian lagoon. This innovative
operational scheme requires a deep functional analysis to ensure the full capacity
operation, assess the reachable performances and correspondingly dimensioning the
required equipment (cranes, barges, quays, etc.). For this purpose, the authors
developed a specific discrete-events simulation model. The paper includes the
presentation of the model and the results of its application to Venice case study, by
identifying the benefits achievable with this approach and the potential wider
application fields.
Keywords

Port, Container, Terminal, Simulation

1. INTRODUCTION

The increasing requirements of maritime transport customers towards a reduction of

transport cost and time, as well as the need to reduce the environmental impacts,
suggested the Venice Port Authority to create the infrastructural and operational
opportunities for an alternative container route from Suez to Central Europe via the
North Adriatic.
The starting condition is anyway poor, both in terms of seaside and landside
accessibility: big oceanic ships cannot enter Porto Marghera intermodal terminal and the
continental connections, particularly by rail, are scarce.
To solve these problems, the Venice Port Authority elaborated an innovative project,
including a high-tech offshore terminal capable to host ships with 20 m draft and 18,000
TEU capacity, with operational yearly capacity of 1 million TEU.

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The new offshore terminal operates in combination with the onshore Montesyndial
terminal, where the containers will arrive by special barges and all commercial and
intermodal landside handling will happen.
The success of the whole project is strictly depending upon the effectiveness of
containers transfer between the two terminals, with flexibility and minimum impact on
environmental equilibrium of the high-sensitive Venice lagoon.
The innovative solution is based on a shuttle service of Lighter Aboard Ships (LASH),
boarding the containers on special barges thanks to flooding of the hold, named “Mama
Vessel”.
The relevance of the transfer process convinced the Port Authority to develop a
simulation of the global offshore-onshore system, to identify the best dimension and
typology of the fleet compatible the minimum amount of human resources and other
operational costs.
After the identification of a large set of operational scenarios, differing each other
mainly according to the time intervals between the arrivals of the deep-water ships, their
capacity and the amount of Mama Vessels in operation.
Key performance indicators to analyse results include: 1) the average time to transfer
the containers from the offshore to the onshore terminal, 2) the average waiting time of
the Mama Vessels before boarding the barges, 3) the daily TEU traffic.

2. MODELING SOFTWARE AND TOOLS

The Modeling process is basing on the Planimate© software, which allows creating
highly interactive and animated tools to simulate the concerned logistic processes and
the interaction among the elements of the system.
Planimate offers a simple and intuitive interface with a working sheet, where are
sequentially located and linked by “paths” the “objects” simulating the actions
performed in the system by the “items”.
The “objects” are entities fixed and capable to host “items” passing through them during
the process simulation.
The “items” are dynamic classified entities (e.g. ships) moving within the simulation
sheet following the “paths” passing through “objects”, where actions happen according
to the typology of concerned “object”.
On this basis, the modelling process includes four steps to build a multiple graph
representing the static features of the system: 1) objects building, 2) flows design, 3)
interactions implementation, 4) graphical representation.
On the other side, the network execution represent the dynamic features of the system:
an event happens as soon as all the pre-conditions are active and the event itself
deactivates all the pre-conditions and activates all the post-conditions.
The set of the activated conditions represents permanently the state of the system.

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The “items” moving among “objects” represent the evolution of the system by means of
“paths” representing logical sequence of events.
The “objects” required for the system-modelling link each other to represent the
sequence of actions of the “items” created by the “paths”, which they execute.
An example of “path” is in figure 1.

Figure 1 – Example of “path”

The set of “paths” for a class of “items” is the flow, along which the articles can run
simultaneously during the simulation.
As soon as an “item” meets an “object” running through it, an interaction happens: it
may be simple, whenever the “object” is only keeping the “item” for a fixed time, or
conditional, whenever the “item” passing through the “object”, is subject to fixed
conditions.

3. MODELLING OF OFFSHORE TERMINAL

The first step is the modelling of the offshore terminal by subsystems (portals) linked
each other by “paths” differentiated according to the involved element (ship or
container), which simulate the operations of cranes for loading and unloading goods [2]
[3].
Figure 2 represent the offshore terminal, equipped with a 1,000 m long quay, capable to
host two large container ships (upper part of the figure) served simultaneously by five
portainers and eight groups of four RTG cranes each (lower part of the figure) capable
to load/unload two barges simultaneously.
Under the portainers, the stocking capacity is 10,000 TEU.

Figure 2 – Offshore terminal layout

This layout allows the containers arriving from the container ships to proceed through
the offshore terminal to the onshore terminal by barges and Mama Vessels.
The model reproduces the landing of container ships and the sequence of unloading and
loading processes.

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Figure 3 – Quay model for offshore ships landing

In figure 3, the ships “items” enter through the green paths on the upper left part and
exit from the violet path on the lower left part.
Before reaching the portals for unloading (“Scarico Main Vessel 1”) and loading (“Carico
Main Vessel 1”) of containers, the ships “items” pass through the objects simulating the
approach to quays (“Accosto banchina 1”) and the mooring (“Ormeggio 1).
After the end of the containers loading, the ships “items” leave the system passing
through the multi-server “Disormeggio 1” to simulate the unmooring operation.
The unloaded units proceed to the opposite side of the quay dedicated to the barges,
following the green path exiting from the portal “Scarico Main Vessel 1”, while the
loaded units coming from the stocking area under the cranes dedicated to loading and
unloading of barges exit from the portal “Carico Main Vessel 1” by the violet “path”.
The model does not take into account the transfer time of units through the offshore
terminal, under the hypothesis that the containers to board on the barges are
permanently available under the cranes and the related time is negligible in comparison
to the time to transfer them to the Montesyndial onshore terminal.
A switch enabling a “path” for entering the offshore terminal subsystem regulates the
occupation of the quays by the two oceanic ships.
Figure 4 represents the model satisfying the mooring requirements of the barges arriving
from onshore Montesyndial terminal.

Figure 4 – Model for barges approach to the off-shore terminal

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The model in figure 4 reproduces the operation of a group of RTG cranes working on
two barges simultaneously.
The model includes, also in this case, two portals for containers loading and unloading
operations: the barges follow the dark green “path” entering from the green arrow.
Before reaching the portals “Scarico 1” and “Carico 1” the “items” of the two barges passes
through the multi-servers “1_Navig.Canale IN” and “1_Accosto e Ormeggio”, where they
remain for times simulating respectively the navigation within the offshore terminal channel
and the landing from the Mama Vessel, the approach and the mooring of the barges.
After the end of the loading phase, the couple of barges exit from the portal “Carico 1”
and waits for the arrival of first available Mama Vessel.
It passes in front of the Montesyndial onshore terminal passing through “1: Disorm e
Allonta” and “1_Navig canale OUT” simulating their unmooring, moving away from
the quay and navigating along the exit channel [2] [[4]
After the unloading in the portal “Scarica 1”, the units follow the violet “path” to the
stocking area and to the container ships, while the units destined to the barges arrive
from the green “path” entering in “Carica 1” for the loading operation itself.
The models replicate the quay for the barges and the “switch” object manages their
occupation [8].

4. MODELLING OF ONSHORE TERMINAL

Figure 5 describes synthetically the onshore Montesyndial terminal.

It includes [9]:
• Two traditional quays (right side of the terminal) where container traffic of small
container feeder ships, allowed to enter the lagoon, operate today;
• A new area equipped with six groups of four RTG cranes dedicated to
loading/unloading of barges from/to the offshore terminal.
In this terminal, the units arrive/continue from/to the barges depending upon landside
operations, not considered in the model.

Figure 5 – Montesyndial onshore terminal layout

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Therefore, the hypothesis is that the containers arriving from the barges feed
continuously the RTG cranes [1].
The modelling criteria for this terminal is similar to those adopted for the onshore
terminal, with the sole difference that the “item” container are generated inside each
portal dedicated to the loading of ships and barges.
In addition, the two traditional quays are included in the model to take into account the
overlap of this traffic and barges movement on the seaside.
The route of the Mama Vessels between the offshore and the onshore terminal passes
through the Bocca di Malamocco reaching Porto San Leonardo and continuing along the
coastal channel to Montesyndial area, for 18 nautical miles (figure 6).
The model takes into account the constraints due to the impossible bidirectional
simultaneous navigation along the narrow coastal channel only [4] [5] [6].
The maximum allowed speed is variable from 7 knots in the channel, 10 knots in the
lagoon and 15 knots in the open sea out of the Bocca di Malamocco.
Once the models are finally in operation, the simulation is ready for the application to a
large set of scenarios differentiated in terms of operational features and contexts for the
offshore terminal.

Figure 6 – Route through the lagoon between onshore and offshore terminals

5. SCENARIOS SIMULATION AND INPUT DATA

Starting from the total volume of 1 million of TEU/year, the scenarios are 48, varying in
terms of operational fleet, frequency of arrivals of oceanic container ships, amount of
loaded and loaded TEUs.

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The introduction of the following operational hypothesis and input data, most of them
extracted by the analysed case studies, helps to take into account and manage this
variety:
1) Container ships and barges are at first unloaded and re-loaded later on.
2) RTG cranes are permanently operating on a couple of barges simultaneously;
3) The barges are always running in couples with a total capacity of 216 x 2 = 432
TEU;
4) The barges arrive and depart always full;
5) RTG and portainers have a productivity of 20 movements/hour, which, taking
into account the mix of traffic in terms of container dimensions, is set to 30
TEU/h. (2 minutes/TEU);
6) Transit time in the offshore terminal is negligible due to the continuous presence
of containers under the cranes;
7) The failures during the operation are not included in the model.
The considered fleet dimensions (number of Mama Vessels and barges) are in Table 1.
Table 1 – Combinations between number of Mama Vessels and
number of barges

Number of Mama Vessel Number of barges

1 4
2 4
2 6
2 8
3 6
3 8
3 10
4 10
The intervals of arrivals of the oceanic container are variable with the total amount of
ships approaching the offshore terminal, which is here set to values of 75, 100, 125,
150, 175 and 200 ships/year.
This difference reflects the ordinary variation of TEU/ship, which decreases from
13,200 and 5,000.
The correspondence between ships traffic and number of TEU per ship is in Table 2.
Table 2 – Input data of the model

Ships/year Intervals between arrivals Number of TEU / ship

75 4 days + 23 h 13,200
100 3 days + 15 h 10,000
125 2 days + 23 h 8,000
150 2 days + 11 h 6,600
175 2 days 5.800
200 1 day + 20 h 5,000
The combination of data in Tables 1 and 2 generated 48 scenarios.

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6. ANALYSIS OF OUTPUT DATA

The analysis is concentrated on the following functional features and related Key
Performance Indicators (KPI), a selection among those applied in many other studies
[10] [11] [12].
1) Average time for TEU handling: from the unloading from the ship to the arrival
to the onshore terminal;
2) Average time for container ship handling: from the unloading of the first
container to the loading of the last one;
3) Average time for two barges handling: from the loading of the first container to
the unloading of the last one;
4) Average time of daily handled TEU;
5) Average waiting time of the Mama Vessel: from the unloading of a couple of
barges to the loading of the following couple.
In figure 7, the diagram shows the time for handling one TEU: fleets including four barges
in combination with one or two Mama Vessels are not ensuring short transfer time.
This is mainly due to the lack of capacity of the operational fleet to handle the unit
disembarked from the oceanic ships o the offshore terminal, which will stay in the
stocking area of this terminal.

Figure 7 – Diagram representing the avaerge time for the hadling of one TEU

The solution is the increase of the number of barges, starting from the combination of
two Mama Vessels with six barges, which allows the reduction of the average time for
handling a TEU to 24 hours.
In figure 8, the diagram shows the times for handling one ship.

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Figure 8 – Average time to handle (unloading + re-loading) a container ship

Similarly, in this case, the fleet including four barges and one or two Mama Vessels is
not enough for handling effectively a container ship, mainly due to the specular
problem: the impossibility to feed continuously the offshore terminal with an amount of
container enough to load the container ship, as soon as the stocking area is empty.
All the combinations including a minimum of two Mama Vessels and six barges ensure
the continuity of loading operation, with an almost stable average time for handling the
container ship.
The results in figure 9 shows the effect of the handling of a couple of barges in the
offshore terminal.
The average time is increasing dramatically when dimension of the fleet is over three
Mama Vessels and six barges, mainly due to the increased waiting time of this increased
fleet between two arrivals of container ships, taking into account that the average time
for unloading and re-loading a couple of barges (432 TEU) is 7 hours and 12 minutes.

Figure 9 – Average time to handle (unloading + re-loading) a couple of barges

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The study of the daily operational capacity (figure 10) shows that a minimum
composition of two barges and six Mama Vessels is required to ensure the maximum
value of around 2800 TEU/day.

Figure 10 – Operational capacity [TEU/day]

Finally, the waiting time of a Mama Vessel before boarding the couple of barges is an
indicator of the flexibility of the fleet involved in the operation and the existence of
dead time between unloading and loading of the barges.
From the diagram in figure 11, the only configuration capable to ensure no waiting time
is that including one Mama Vessel and four barges, nevertheless, it is a solution
characterised by absence of flexibility.
With two Mama Vessels and four barges, the waiting time is set to zero for the barges
but increases relevantly for the Mama Vessel.
Over two Mama Vessel and six barges, the average time of the Mama Vessels increases
due to the lack of operation in the terminal between the arrivals of two container ships,
in addition to the progressive decrease of the interval between the arrivals of two
consecutive Mama Vessels in the offshore terminal.

Figure 11 – Average waiting time of the Mama Vessels

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It requires the increase of the waiting time due to the need to complete the loading and
unloading of the barges.

7. CONCLUSIONS

In order to determine the optimal dimension of the fleet, the study is concentrated on
three indicators only: average time for TEU handling, average waiting time of the
Mama Vessels and daily operational capacity.
They are parameters measuring the operational and functional effectiveness of the
system by varying the fleet components.
Figure 12 shows the calculated trends for the indicators above, to allow a comparison
among the various fleet solutions.
Particularly, the average time to handle a unit is a relevant indicator for the comparisons
among ports, mainly in terms of attractiveness of ship-owners.
Indeed, a too long time to handle a unit, prolong also the total transport time, which can
cost much more to the customers.

Figure 12 – trends of key decisional indicators

The average waiting time of the Mama Vessel highlights the rate of unproductivity of
the fleet measured by the entity of the dead times, which increases the incidence of the
capital costs and the personnel.

Finally, the daily capacity should be able to reach the target traffic of 1 million TEU / year.

All the elements to determine the ideal dimension of the operative fleet are in figure 12:

• Fleets with less than 2 Mama Vessels and 4 barges are not able to produce the
standard requirement of 2800 TEU/day ≈ 1 million TEU/year;

• Fleets with more than 2 Mama Vessels and 6 barges create a positive decrease of
the average time per TEU/h but, simultaneously, a negative increase of the
waiting time for the Mama Vessels, with the positive secondary effect to
increase punctuality.

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Therefore, the ideal situation is a compromise in the middle of the values above.
The input data today do not include time deviations due to accidental incidents, but the
model is able to work also with distributions of delays and perturbed traffic.
Moreover, the proposed model demonstrated to be valid and effective tools as soon as
the regime conditions are in plac[

Literature
[1] Terminal container d’altura di Venezia – Autorità Portuale di Venezia – Direzione
pianificazione strategica e sviluppo. Relazione illustrativa VOL. 1-2-3; Venezia 22
Marzo 2012.
[2] Arnold D. & Rall B. (1998). Analyse des Lkw-Ankunftsverhaltens in Terminals
des Kombinierten Verkehrs. Internationales Verkehrswesen, n. 6.
[3] Malavasi G., Quattrini A. & Ricci S. (2006). Effect of the distribution of the arrivals
and of the intermodal units sizes on the transit time through freight terminals. In
Computer System Design and Operation in the Railway and other Transit Systems.
Computer in Railways X. WIT Press, Southampton.
[4] Commissario Del Governo Delegato Al Traffico Acqueo nella laguna Di Venezia.
Morfologia e ausili alla navigazione nella laguna di Venezia.
[5] Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti – Magistrato delle Acque Di Venezia.
Terminal Plurimodale off-shore al largo della costa di Venezia – Progetto preliminare –
Studio di impatto ambientale, quadro di riferimento progettuale; Maggio 2012.
[6] Marinacci C., Quattrini A. & Ricci S. (2008). Integrated design process of maritime
terminals assisted by simulation models. Proceedings of the 11th International
Workshop on Harbor, Maritime & Multimodal Logistics Modeling & Simulation,
Campora San Giovanni.
[7] Commissario Del Governo Delegato Al Traffico Acqueo Nella Laguna Di Venezia
Limiti di velocità e criteri generali riguardanti la navigazione della laguna di Venezia.
[8] Chlomoudis K. Organisation, administration, management of port freight terminals.
University of Piraeus - Department of Maritime studies - Grecia.
[9] Ricci S. (2014). Systematic approach to functional requirements for future freight
terminals. Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris.
[10] Marinacci, C., Quattrini, A. and Ricci S. (2008) “Integrated design process of
maritime terminals assisted by simulation models”, HMS 2008, The international
worksHop on harbour, maritime & multimodal. Logistics modelling and simulation,
Briatico, 17 – 19 September 2008.
[11] A Container Terminal Simulation Model with Animation Capabilities, Journal of
Advanced Transportation, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 37-57, A. Ballis, C. Abacoumkin.
[12] The Modelling Support to Maritime Terminals Sea Operation: The Case Study of
Port of Messina, journal of maritime research journal, Vol. IX. No. 3 (2012), pp. 39 - 44

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

CROATIAN MARITIME PORTS CAPACITY, SERVICES AND

DEVELOPMENT PLANS

Prof. Natalija Kavran, Ph.D.

Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences
Vukelićeva 4, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia, natalija@fpz.hr
Nina Perko, M.Sc.
Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure
Prisavlje 14, Zagreb, Croatia, nina.perko@pomorstvo.hr
Dražen Žgaljić, B. Eng.
Intermodal Transport Cluster
Trpimirova 2, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia, zgaljic@shortsea.hr

Key words: Croatia, port sector, port services, port sector development.

Abstract
Strategically located at the crossroads of regional and international maritime routes,
Croatia’s coastline of 5,835 km (6,287 km including islands) includes 718 islands
(1,246 with coastal reefs) and is one of the most indented coastal regions in Europe.
Croatia has a long maritime tradition and the maritime sector has always played a key
role in the economic, trade and social development of the country. Maritime transport is
central for connecting Croatia’s islands and improving access and mobility to its
citizens. The country has a thriving coastal shipping and nautical tourism industry with
over 11 million passengers embarking and disembarking in Croatia’s ports. The
country covers a land area of approximately 56,594 km2 with a coastline of 1,400 km
long (6,287 km long when counting Croatia’s 1,246 islands). In this paper Croatian
maritime ports are analysed focused on previous investments and current capacities
and port services. Main objective of this research was to analyse present Croatian port
sector: infrastructure and suprastructure facilities and development plans, port services
and related organizational structure for undertake that services, port regionalization
possibilities et. al. and problems and obstacles derived from insufficiently developed
technical-technological and organizational aspects.

1. INTRODUCTION

The decreasing importance of the port in the transport chain along with a greater focus
on the terminal rather than the port have become key issues over the last decade and a
half. [10]
According to the official journal, there are 409 ports and small harbours open to the
public in Croatia, of which 95 ports with a minimum of one line service. Six major ports
(Rijeka, Zadar, Šibenik, Split, Ploče, and Dubrovnik), along with Pula which is
classified as a county port, are all located along the mainland coast and can receive large
ocean-going ships. All major ports are declared as national ports or ports of
international economic interest. This paper examines the capacity and operational
structure of Croatian ports, traffic and facilities, operations and services (marine
services, stevedoring and terminal operations, port concessionaires). Research results
are presented in figures, statistical data and development plans.

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Croatian ports are integrated into a comprehensive network of European transport

corridors, which we recognize as a development potential that allows the inclusion of
the trade flows to the intra- European and world markets as well as the transformation
of the port system in modern logistics and distribution of the economic centers.

Figure 1: Major seaports in Croatia. Source: Authors

2. ANALYSIS OF PORT CAPACITIES FOR PORT SERVICES

The port of Rijeka is the largest port in Croatia and benefits from the deepest natural
channel in the Adriatic. Much of the port’s traffic is transit cargo to/from its wider
hinterland in Central Europe, and is dominated in volume terms by liquid and dry bulk
cargo followed by container and general cargoes. Total port’s throughput has almost
doubled from 6.85 to 9.0 million tonnes in the period 2000- 2014, with container traffic
registering a dramatic increase of 1,600% in the same period (from 9,222 TEU in 2000
to 192,004 TEU in 2014). The impact of the economic crisis was evident and traffic has
decreased accordingly with both total and container throughputs in 2011 still below
their 2008 levels.
The port of Zadar is located at the central part of the Adriatic coast and is the second
Croatian port for passengers. The port currently operates in two locations: city port for
passengers and Gaženica port for cargo. Passenger traffic was 2.12 million passengers
and around 340,000 vehicles in 2014. Cargo traffic remains limited due to physical
constraints and proximity to Rijeka.
The port of Split, also called gateway to the islands, is the largest passenger port in
Croatia with over 4.5 million passengers and more than 650.000 vehicles in 2014,
which places the port as the third most important passenger port in the Mediterranean
(after Naples and Piraeus). The north port of Split specialises in cargo handling,
although in small amounts.
The port of Šibenik is located on 430 ha of the Krka River estuary. The port specializes
in bulk, timber, and mineral traffic notably phosphates transhipment. Cargo throughput

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was just below 500,000 tonnes in 2014. Šibenik also handles passenger traffic with an
average of 850,000 passengers per year.
The port of Ploče is located in the southern part of Adriatic coast and consists of two
locations: Ploče and Metković that occupies more than 230 hectares of land. Around
90% of the Ploče’s activity is transit traffic since the port is the main maritime gateway
to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, and it features as the endpoint of the
pan-European corridor Vc. Dry bulk and general cargo dominate Ploče’s traffic with the
2014 throughputs of 1.99 and 0.61 mill t, respectively, still below the 2008 levels.
The port of Dubrovnik, located at the far south of the Croatian coastline, has become in
recent years one of the most popular destinations for cruise voyages in Europe.
Dubrovnik’s infrastructure has been significantly damaged during the war period and
much of port development has been directed at the ferry and cruise terminals. The main
port of Gruž, which is managed by Dubrovnik port authority, currently handles over 1.2
million passengers and 19,000 vehicles annually, of which 800,000 are cruise ship
passengers. On the other hand, the old town anchorage in the city of Dubrovnik is
currently managed by Dubrovnik’s county port authority. The anchorage received 220
calls and handled around 200,000 passengers in 2012.
The analysis of port statistics shows different growth patterns between passenger and
cargo traffic. In 2011, port’s traffic amounted to 24.71 million passengers and 18.60
million cargo tonnes. Passenger traffic is dominated by national traffic (around 90%) on
the ferries and boats between the mainland and the islands, and the traffic is double
counted (the same passengers are counted twice when embarking and when
disembarking). Given the stable demand and captured market for public coastal
shipping, there has been no significant difference in the total passenger traffic for the
past 3 years, despite an increase in international cruise traffic. Cargo traffic, on the other
hand, is dominated by international traffic (around 83%) of liquid bulk, dry bulk, and
general cargo / container goods. From 2008, and owing to the impacts of the global
crisis and present recessionary trends, there has been a significant drop in cargo traffic,
despite a slight rebound in 2010.
Table 1: Existing facilities in major ports, excluding development
projects (Port authorities)

Capacity Area Depth Length Throughput

Port Terminal Berth
(year) (H) (m) (m) (2014)
Container/RoRo 170,000 TEU 14 2 11.2-13.5 328 192,004 TEU
General cargo 2 mil t 10 11 5-14 150-300 0.79 mil t
Grain 0.8 mil t 1 1 14 300 0.18 mil t
Rijeka

Bulk 4 mil t 5 1 18 400 1.61 mil t

Oil 24 mil t 2 2 30 400 4.88 mil t
Passenger 10,000 11 7.5 56-400 211,204 pax;
Pax/day vehicles
Handling shores N/P N/P 5 piers 4.8 - 12 775-905 Bulk:157,404 t;
GC:16,671 t
Zadar

Ferry N/P N/P 12 13-15 3000 2.4 mil Pax;

0.3 mil vehicle

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Oil N/P 1 10.3 - 12 60-190 44,242 t

Multi-purpose 1 mil t 16.5 5 8.5 655 547,238 t

Oil 800,000 tons 10.5 8 10.5 243 440,036 t

Split

Ferry N/A 25 7,8 63-175 3.68 mil pax;

0.6 mil vehicles
Grain 800,000 tons 6.06 1 8,5 210 263,870 t
Cement 1.500.000 tons 2,93 4 5 -9,5 655 472,140 t
Container 60,000 TEU 4 1 13.8 280 8,834 TEU
3
Oil 92,000 m 24 1 12 50m 235,000 t
(j tt ) 267,873 Pax;
Ploče

Ferry N/A 1 1 140

65,396 vehicles
Multipurpose 375 000 t / 45 11 14 1,685 2 mil t
209 759 m3
Cargo import 1.8 mil t 1 1 10 228 446,980 t
Cargo export 600,000 tons 4 10 250 5,375 t
Šibenik

General cargo 300,000 tons 4 1 10 200 18,325 t

3
Timber 120,000 m 6 2 7 310 -
488,206 Pax;
Dubrovnik

Ferry N/A 2.4 6 2 - 6.5 425

18,718 vehicles
Cruise N/A 6.7 5 8.5 – 11.5 1055 806,558 Pax

Source: Authors, based on sources: [1], [4] - [9]

3. ANALYSIS OF PORT OPERATIONS AND PORT SERVICES

3.1. MARINE SERVICES

Marine services in ports include activities such as pilotage, towage and salvation,
mooring and unmooring, bunkering and supply, vessel traffic monitoring and
information, Hydrographic survey services, reception facilities and waste disposal, etc.
In Croatia, marine services that are considered as of a public or safety interest such as
Hydrographic surveys, lighthouse operations, and maritime communications are
performed by independent state owned companies or governmental public bodies, e.g.
Plovput and HHI. Other activities that are viewed of a more commercial nature are
mostly operated by private companies under licensing arrangements:

- For towage, salvage and associated services, they are provided by private companies
under licensing arrangements with port authorities. Currently three companies provide
these services in Croatian ports: Jadranski pomorski servis and Emergen sea in the ports
of Rijeka and Zadar; Brodospas in the ports of Šibenik, Split, and Ploče; and Pomgrad
inženjering in the Port of Dubrovnik.
- For pilotage services, those are performed by pilotage companies under a license
from the Ministry of Sea, Transport and Infrastructure based on a public tender
launched every 5 years. Note that in Croatia all ships of >500 GT are subject to
compulsory pilotage, except passenger ships and ferries on their regular line and yachts

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of <1,000 GT. Upon the last public tender in 2012, the companies selected to provide
pilotage and related services in Croatia ports are: ‘Istra Pilot’ for the port of Pula,
‘Croatia Pilot’ for the ports of Rijeka and Senj; ‘Zadar Pilot’ for the port of Zadar;
‘Branko Pilot’ for the port of Šibenik; ‘Pomorski peljar’ for the port of Split; ‘Ploče
Pilot’ for the Port of Ploče and ‘Dubrovački peljar’ for the port of Dubrovnik

3.2. STEVEDORING AND TERMINALS OPERATORS

Those activities are carried out by private companies or independent public enterprises
under licensing or concession arrangements with the port authorities. Under the
Croatian law, port authorities are authorized to negotiate directly with the private sector
concession agreements with a life span of up to 30 years, otherwise concessions
extending beyond 30 years are negotiated directly by the Government of Croatia. Note
that many port authorities (both national and local) still hold stakes, with various
degrees, in port operating companies along with private investors and sometimes other
public entities including the Government of Croatia. It is therefore misleading to assume
that all port authorities in Croatia follow a landlord model. The list of concessionaires in
the main Croatian ports follows.

Rijeka
Port of Rijeka authority is entitled to grant 81 concessions in total for various
commercial activities.
Luka Rijeka d.d (Port of Rijeka j.s.c.) is one of the largest concessionaires for shipping
and reloading of dry cargo in the Rijeka port basin. Following privatization, Luka
Rijeka was constituted as a trade company, where the Government of Croatiacontrols
71.4% of shares through the state property agency. Jadrolinija and Plovput own
between them a minority stake of less than 1%.
Adriatic Gate j.s.c./ICTSI. Until 2011, Adriatic gate j.s.c. was a subsidiary company of
Luka Rijeka j.s.c. at the container and RoRo terminal, but the ownership structure has
changed on March 5, 2011 when a concession of 30 years was granted to the
International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI).
Jadranski Naftovod, Joint Stock Co. (JANAF Plc.), headquartered in Zagreb, is a joint
stock company with mixed ownership and a prevailing state capital. It is the main
concessioner of terminal Omišalj (liquid terminal), located in the north part of the
Island of Krk, in the Omišalj Bay. Along with crude oil transportation, other activities
of JANAF Plc. include reloading and storage of crude oil and oil products.
Sherif group is among the top 3 exporters of wood products in Croatia. With its head
office in Zagreb, Sherif group is one of the most prominent trading companies in the
region and has been among 1% of the most efficient companies in Croatia for years.
Since most of the company's products are shipped by sea, in 2010 they signed a
Contract with the Port of Rijeka Authority for a ten-year concession of the Port of
Raša.
Export drvo is a wood product exporter of primary, semi-finished and finished
products being active in business for more than half a century. The most important
country partners are Germany, Italy, Great Britain, France, Spain, Egypt and Nordic
countries.

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Zadar
Luka Zadar d.d is a joint stock company providing marine and port services in port
of Zadar. The company has a minority public shareholders base.

Šibenik
Luka Šibenik d.o.o. operates through a 12-year concession (due to expire in
December 2014) in the port of Šibenik. The company’s structure has changed in
2012 when Petrokemija d.d. bought from Transadria d.d. an additional 50% of the
shares and became the prevailing owner with a total 79.7% of shares.

Split
Trajektna Luka Split d.d was transformed in 1999 from the public company
“Održavanje i izgradnja luka” into a joint stock company with majority ownership
held by IMEX Bank. The company provides marine and passenger/vehicle services
in Basin A.
Luka Split d.d is a market-oriented company that performs dry cargo handling
activities in the Vranjic-Solin basin. Consult-invest d.o.o. holds majority shares with
a 35.66% stake.
Cemex Hrvatskad.d. is a leading regional (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Montenegro) producer of cement with more than two million tons of annual capacity
INA d.d Zagreb is a leader in oil business in Croatia and has facilities for
transhipment of crude oil and petroleum products and is supplier for Central
Dalmatia and islands.
AMEROPA ŽITNI TERMINAL d.o.o. Vranjic is a subsidiary of a Ameropa Group.
Its main business is transhipment of grain.

Ploče
Luka Ploče d.d was transformed from the “Port of Ploče” DP into a joint stock
company in 2003. The company holds concession for handling and services on the
“old port” until 2037, the concession for the operation and management of the
Container Terminal until 2055, the concession for the construction, operation and
management of the Dry Bulk cargo Terminal until 2055. The company’s structure
consists of 80.03% shares for private shareholders, 8.86% for the n Pension
Insurance Institute, and 11.11% for the ROC.
LPT d.o.o ,the daughter company of “Luka Ploče” d.d, has the concession for the
construction, operation and management of the Liquid cargo terminal and the
Terminal for waste oil and water treatment plant until 2055
Top Logistics d.o.o. has concession for the construction/operation of multipurpose
warehouse till 2032
BIOM d.o.o. has the concession for the construction and operation of the Biodiesel
Plant until 2043.

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Dubrovnik
Luka Dubrovnik d.d (j.s.c.) is the main concessionaire in Dubrovnik port providing
marine services work force and luggage manipulation. The company is owned by the
town of Dubrovnik (49%), QUAESTUS private company (25%), and minority
shareholders (26%).

4. PORT PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES

A large development plan of over €500 million is currently underway in the major ports.
The programme is financed by a combination of state budget funds (~€40 million) and
several sovereign guaranteed loans from international financial institutions: IBRD/
World Bank (€220 million), KfW (€120 million), EIB (€100 million), and EBRD (€38
million). In the following, we describe the main development plans in the six national
ports in Croatia.
Current and planned developments are part of the Rijeka Gateway project and include
(i) the extension of the container and RoRo terminal (phase 2) with a new quay of 330
metres, a terminal area of 3 hectares, and a capacity increase of 250,000 TEU; (ii) a new
container terminal (due in 2017) with an area of 22 hectares, a draft of 20 metre, and a
total capacity of 600,000 TEU; and (iii) the urban redevelopment of the port facilities
located in the Rijeka city centre (modern maritime passenger terminal, various real
estate, commercial and public facilities). Certainly, future expansion of the container
facilities of the Port of Rijeka will have to be found outside the Rijeka Basin, while the
most promising location is due to be island Krk.
Planned developments include (i) the construction of a new Container Terminal on an
area of 10 hectares and quay walls of 800 meters in the cargo port, and (ii) the
relocation of the ferry port from the historical city harbour to the Gaženica area. The
new port will provide an extended berthing capacity for larger international ferries and
modern cruise ships and international standard on-shore facilities for passengers and
vehicles.
Planned developments focus on the construction of new berths for ferry, RoRo and
cruise vessels including the extension of the passenger wharves on the outer side of the
main breakwater in the City port of Split.
Planned developments are based on the investments in port infrastructure which will be
realised through the Transport and Trade Integration Project in order to develop
additional port capacities. Container terminal (phase I) with the annual capacity of
60,000 is operational from 2010, the new Dry Bulk cargo Terminal (phase I) with
annual capacity of 4.6 million tons and sea depth of 20 metres will be operational from
2015. The start of the construction of the new gate complex is expected in 2013
enabling direct link to Croatian highway A1 and to the future highway Vc through
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Port information System PCS which will
electronically connect all port stakeholders will be operational in the mid of 2013.
Besides, there are also investments to be made by the concessionaires in the oil,
biodiesel, container, and break bulk and bulk terminals and warehouses to modernise
operations and achieve minimum throughput requirements.

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Planned developments include the construction of a new RoRo terminal, the completion
of the new passenger terminal (currently under construction), and the modernisation of
equipment and storage facilities at the bulk, general cargo, and timber terminals.
Planned developments include the modernisation and reconstruction of the passenger
terminal under a PPP concession scheme and the expansion of ferry and cargo traffic
facilities with a planned quay length of 426 metres putting the total new and existing
area to 2.2 hectares.
Despite having a large degree of administrative autonomy, port authorities in Croatia
are still financially dependent in that most of their investment projects being funded by
the State either directly or through sovereign guarantees. At the same time, in a country
size of Croatia and where there is a high concentration of port traffic, we are wondering
whether it is judicious to allow port authorities to develop their own expansion plans
without coordination at the national level; or else, if such coordination already exists,
the decision making process appears to be somehow flawed. In this respect, the
following observations and recommendations are made by the authors:
1. Some port developments such as the new container terminal in the port of Zadar
appears not only inconsistent with container developments elsewhere (notably in
Rijeka) but also creates local and regional over-capacity and drains from public
resources at a time of economic austerity. Upon a quick assessment of the master
plans of the ports of the main Croatian ports, there seems to be little or no
coordination between them in particular during the preparation and analysis of traffic
forecasts and the development plans that follow.
2. A national port development plan is therefore needed in order to identify priority
development areas and projects of national interest that can receive Government’s
backing as opposed to projects of regional or local interest and for which funding
should not rely on the State budget or State guarantees. To do so, a market and
feasibility study feeding into a national port development plan should be carried out.
The study should identify, inter-alia, (i) the opportunities and investment
requirements for Rijeka to develop as a container and energy gateway port for
Central and East European countries, (ii) the opportunities and threats for Ploče to
develop as the main gateway to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro if and
when those countries decide to develop their own port facilities, (iii) the potential
and traffic and modal spit between the ports of Zadar, Split and Dubrovnik in the
light of capacity constraints and the dynamics of passenger and cruise shipping
markets in the region. The study should also link port development to intermodal
systems.

5. CONCLUSION

While analysing port sector infrastructure, port services and development plans the main
following problems and challenges that port sector in Croatia is faced withare
recognized:
• Ports’ facilities are ongoing a development programme but inefficiency is still poor.
• Ports generally need more competition.
• Pricing issues are prevalent in the case of cargo handling charges by terminal
concessionaires, e.g. ICTSI in Rijeka
• Need to develop port superstructure, upgrade and automate terminal equipment

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• Insufficient security equipment in ports

• Insufficient waste reception facilities in ports
• Port prices are not always consistent with the level of service provided
• Different working times at some public institutions (e.g. customs and health
authorities) in Croatian ports
• Pilotage services are not consistent across ports
• Income of port authorities is not sufficient to undertake both maintenance and
investment
• Lack of coordination between port authorities, including in terms of information
exchange
• Lack of organisation and regulation of berths arranged for yachts and small nautical
vessels in ports
• Weak rail services fail to offer an alternative to intermodal road transport, with weak
infrastructure and a sector dominated by a public operator
• Capacity and accessibility constraints for developing intermodal services
• Railway design is not compatible with the need or maritime/port intermodal logistics
• There is a major drawback in the absence of linking rail with maritime (and river)
transport.

The main strategies for port sector are to strengthen the growth potential and
competitiveness of Croatian ports in the region and to develop and support intermodal
transport and integrated logistics services.
The main actions suggested for port sector in Croatia are: support ongoing national port
infrastructure projects, elaborate a national port strategy and development plan,
implement investment programme in nautical ports, develop intermodal transport
services and provide adequate rail infrastructure and to link port planning and
development with intermodal and rail plans and TEN-T corridor development.

REFERENCES

[1] Croatian bureau of statistic, http://www.dzs.hr/default.htm;

[2] Khalid Bichou, Natalija Jolić, Croatian Maritime Strategy, Safege, Ministry of
Maritime Affairs, Transort and Infrastructure, Croatia, 2013.
[3] Monions J, Wilmsmeir G. Giving a Direction to a Port Regionalisation,
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practise. 2012; 46 (10): 1551-1561.
[4] Port of Rijeka Authority,
http://www.portauthority.hr/portfolio/o_luckoj_upravi_rijeka
[5] Port of Zadar Authority, http://www.port-authority-zadar.hr/i_hr.html,
[6] Port of Šibenik Authority, http://www.portauthority-sibenik.hr
[7] Port of Split Authority, http://portsplit.com
[8] Port of Ploče Authority, http://www.ppa.hr
[9] Port of Dubrovnik Authority, http://www.portdubrovnik.hr
[10] Notteboom T. E, Winklemans W. Structural changes in loistics: how will port
authorities face the challenge?, Maritime Policy and Management, 2001; 28: 71-89.
[11] Notteboom T. E, Compelementarity and subtitutabiity among adjacent container
ports, Environmental and Planning A, 2009; 41: 743-762.
[12] Olivier D, Slack B, Rethinking the port, Environmental and Planning A, 2006; 38:
1409-1427.

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INFLUENCE OF PORTS ON CATALONIA’S DEVELOPMENT

Dr. Joan Olivella Cruset (I)

Dr. Víctor García Carcellé (II)
Dr. Francesc Solé Parellada (III)
(I) Department of Nautical Science and Engineering - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
(II) Department of Nautical Science and Engineering - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
(III) Management Department - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.

Abstract
The paper shows the influence of ports on Catalonia’s development. Barcelona and
Tarragona ports were selected for this study. The point of departure was that ports
define strategic plans which describe their reality and environment, specifying what
they are and what they want to be and designing their future within a specified time
frame. With this in mind, the strategic plans of several EU ports in the Mediterranean
and Atlantic areas and of Barcelona and Tarragona ports were compared. Comparison
items included initial basic ideas such as mission, vision, values and commitments, as
well as a common goal of all ports which is regarded as one of their main indicators,
i.e. forecast of port traffic data and their evolution.
The paper examines port traffic data time series and compares their corresponding
ARIMA forecasting models. The Box-Jenkins method was applied considering first all
available data and second atypical data. Finally, the impact of the latter on the
future of ports is determined. This objective work practice enables the influence of
Barcelona and Tarragona ports on Catalonia’s development to be assessed from a
territorial, economic and social perspective. The conclusions of the paper focus on
this aspect.

Keywords:
Strategic Planning, Forecasting Model, ARIMA, Box-Jenkins.

INTRODUCTION
The main purpose of this work is to show the influence of ports on Catalonia’s
development, that is, the importance of this kind of infrastructures for a country or a
geographical area. The paper focuses on the definition of the strategic plans of
Barcelona and Tarragona ports, which will serve as criteria for their comparison with
those of other EU ports in the Mediterranean region, i.e. Taranto, Genoa, Valencia,
Algeciras, and in the Atlantic region, i.e. Bilbao, Pasajes, Dunkirk, Ghent, Antwerp and
Bremen [1].

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Among the indicators specified in the strategic plans, port traffic data and their
evolution stand as one of the most important to define the main goals of a port authority.
This information was obtained from the above ports and studied by the Box-Jenkins
method for data time series in order to choose an appropriate ARIMA forecasting
model. The results and conclusions of this study are given in the last sections.

1. MAIN IDEAS, STRATEGIC PLANS AND PORT TRAFFIC INDICATORS

This paper presents the most significant results obtained from the application of the
Box-Jenkins method to port traffic data time series. It also provides conclusions of an
extensive study on the strategic plans based on this information.
A preliminary study of a strategic plan should consider basic concepts such as mission,
vision, values and commitments [2]. These initial ideas should lead to the achievement
of some main targets that are sometimes common to all port authorities. As is common
in the usual methodology for a Quality System, the objectives must be expressed as
figures to allow comparison of the values of indicators with those of other port
authorities.
Barcelona and Tarragona ports were selected for this study because they are the most
important maritime infrastructures in Catalonia and may currently be properly compared
with other European Union ports. The potentiality of other Catalan ports was
investigated in a previous work by the authors.
The selection of the ports used in this study was based on several criteria, e.g. location
in the EU maritime regions, i.e. Mediterranean and Atlantic, and dimension, regarded as
the absolute value of port traffic data. This enabled us to work in terms of (ingoing and
outgoing) traffic data with not only port authorities of top EU ports, but also of ports
with a lower level of traffic data but highly specialised and connected to their
hinterland.
Since there is no communication policy common to all EU port authorities, some sent
all the information requested, others sent port traffic data but no information about the
strategic plan, and a minority sent no information at all. In order to improve
communication with port authorities, it would be advisable to implement a common
European communication policy with transparency as a priority.
There exist three forecasting models of port transport systems: ARIMA (Autoregressive
Inputs and Moving Averages) using Box-Jenkins method, MLR (Multiple Linear
Regression) and ANN (Artificial Neural Networks). In this work, the Box-Jenkins
method was used as a first step. The other two models could be implemented in a
possible further study [3]. Box-Jenkins method was chosen as an objective methodology
to demonstrate the importance and influence of Barcelona and Tarragona ports on
Catalonia’s development. This methodology can also point to improvement elements for
Catalan ports based on the information about the studied EU ports.
The use of strategic plans and statistical tools to study indicators like port traffic data by
port authorities sheds light on the reality and future of ports and of all social actors
involved. In case of unexpected external changes, an optimal definition of the strategic
plan and a careful use of statistical tools should allow essential corrective actions to be
implemented to redirect the course of a port [2].

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In order to define the final main indicators like port traffic data and have control of the
forecast of these indicators, it is essential to first define the main ideas of a strategic
plan like mission, vision and main goals for a set period of time (port authorities have
recently been working with 5-year strategic plans).
Barcelona and Tarragona ports use strategic planning as an essential tool to define their
future, and in turn, that of their hinterlands. This could mean that port authorities are
defining Catalonia’s future and the relationship of ports with their environment and all
social actors involved in their activities.
Strategic planning can be used to evaluate and compare ports qualitatively, but a
statistical tool like ARIMA is necessary to compare them objectively. In this study, all
the theories about time series and forecasting were very useful to draw conclusions from
the comparison between Barcelona and Tarragona ports and the other ports [3]. ARIMA
enabled an objective comparison between models with initial time series and with the
same time series considering atypical data.
One of the objectives of this study was to find similarities between the ARIMA models
of Barcelona and Tarragona ports and of the other EU ports in order to find define an
Airline model for all EU ports. As there was no exact model, it was interesting to find
similarities between all the models with the initial time series and with the same time
series considering atypical data.
The importance of Barcelona and Tarragona ports for Catalonia’s economy as points
of loading and unloading of goods is unquestionable. With this in mind, it is
necessary to know whether the course of these ports is similar to that of the other
studied ports or whether the Barcelona and Tarragona models can be used for
improvement of their strategic plans using information about the other ports or vice
versa.
Barcelona and Tarragona ports have defined their own strategic plans, with one of their
main goals being to achieve a favorable position not only in the European market but
also in the global market. This could be accomplished by saturating their facilities as
much as possible. Barcelona port has recently presented the third 2015 - 2020 Strategic
Plan whereas Tarragona port is developing its 2008 – 2020 Strategic Plan. Most
strategic plans are due in 2020.

2. FORECASTING MODELS: ARIMA

Models based on Autoregressive Inputs and Moving Averages are a special part of
stochastic processes. Figure 1 shows the construction method of the model with its four
main parts: Identification, Estimation, Diagnostic Checking and Forecasting.
Port traffic data was treated with R software. This is one of the most important free
statistical software and is extensively used in different scientific fields[4].
R software was used to define all the scripts for every port according to its typology and
some initial ideas about port traffic data time series (exploration of data and application
of all possible transformations).

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Figure 1 - ARIMA Forecasting Model - Iterative Scheme [3].

3. RESULTS OF BOX-JENKINS METHOD: ARIMA MODELS

The following models are the final results obtained using the Box-Jenkins method to
define the most accurate ARIMA model for each port. The first group allows a
comparison between Barcelona and Tarragona ports and the other selected ports with
initial data and the second one allows the same comparison using atypical data. As said
before, the study was conducted in two stages: the first, considering data until
December 2008 and the second, considering data until December 2014.

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Comparison between models 2014 and 2008:

2014 2008

Barcelona ARIMA(0,1,1)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(3,0,0)(0,1,1)12

2009-2014 ARIMA(6,1,0)

Tarragona ARIMA(2,0,1) ARIMA(5,0,0)

Valencia ARIMA(11,1,0) ARIMA(11,1,0)

Algeciras ARIMA(3,0,1)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(2,0,0)(0,1,1)12

Genoa ARIMA(2,0,3)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(2,0,1)(0,1,1)12

Taranto ARIMA(2,1,0) ARIMA(3,0,0)

2009-2014 ARIMA(2,1,0)

Bilbao ARIMA(5,0,0)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(1,0,2)(0,1,1)12

Pasajes ARIMA(11,1,0) ARIMA(1,0,1)(0,1,1)12

Dunkirk ARIMA(2,1,1) ARIMA(2,0,1)

2009-2014 ARIMA(0,0,1)

Ghent ARIMA(4,0,2) No model available

Antwerp ARIMA(3,1,0)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(4,0,0)(0,1,1)12

2009-2014 ARIMA(11,1,0)

Bremen ARIMA(0,1,1)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(0,1,1)(0,1,1)12

The Box-Jenkins methodology considering atypical data could be a useful tool to study
time series because it improves data analysis and the forecast ability of the chosen
ARIMA model to accurately explain the reality and future of ports.
As will be shown in subsequent sections, it is necessary to have enough information to
correctly interpret atypical data considering their values and typology. Several
possibilities must be explored to decide on a correct ARIMA model taking into account
atypical data and their weight in the new model, i.e. Additive Outliers (AO), Transitory
Changes (TC) and Level Shifts (LS).
Sometimes changes in the first steps of the Box- Jenkins method may require a revision
of data, e.g. elimination of the seasonal component, resulting in a different definition of
the ARIMA models.

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Comparison between models with atypical data 2014 and 2008:

2014 2008

Barcelona ARIMA(0,1,1)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(3,0,0)(0,1,1)12

2009-2014 ARIMA(0,1,4)

Tarragona ARIMA(2,0,1) ARIMA(5,0,0)

Valencia ARIMA(11,1,0) ARIMA(11,1,0)

Algeciras ARIMA(9,0,0)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(9,0,0)(0,1,1)12

Genoa ARIMA(2,0,1) ARIMA(3,0,0)(0,1,1)12

Taranto No model available

2009-2014 ARIMA(2,1,0)

Bilbao ARIMA(3,0,0)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(1,0,2)(0,1,1)12

Pasajes ARIMA(11,1,0) ARIMA(1,0,1)(0,1,1)12

Dunkirk No model available No model available

2009-2014 ARIMA(0,0,1)

Ghent ARIMA(4,0,2) No model available

Antwerp ARIMA(3,1,0)(0,1,1)12 ARIMA(4,0,0)(0,1,1)12

2009-2014 No model available

Bremen ARIMA(10,1,0) ARIMA(0,1,1)(0,1,1)12

4. DISCUSSION
Accurate analysis of the Box-Jenkins method results using port traffic data time series
until 2008 and until 2014 for Barcelona and Tarragona ports compared to the other EU
ports leads to an interesting discussion about the ARIMA models identified for each
port considering all data and also atypical data.
The typology of the ARIMA models obtained in 2008 and 2014 is generally maintained.
This is true for the time series finished in 2008 and for the time series finished in 2014,
but the situation changes slightly upon consideration of atypical data, especially in the
second case.
Considering the time series without atypical data, the proportion between ports with
seasonality and ports without seasonality is the same in 2008 and 2014. However, the

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level of seasonality decreases between these two years. The situation resulting from this
decrease may well be a future trend.
The exact definition of the ARIMA models and their parameters suggest that the
seasonal component is becoming increasingly irrelevant, with a clear trend towards
disappearance. This means that it may be very difficult to identify the ARIMA model by
considering only the seasonal component, regular differentiation or logarithmic
transformation. The ACF and PACF graphs obtained by using a combination or either
of the three options must be carefully observed, as well as the values of variances [5].
Observation of the port traffic time series considering atypical data shows that the
number of ports without the seasonal component has increased and it is more
complicated to identify the ARIMA model for the other ports.
It can be verified that an ARIMA model without the seasonal component may have an
autoregressive component which can be considered to be long. This type of model is
known as long-AR model [5].
Considering the above, studies were conducted for some ports using only port traffic
data between January 2009 and December 2014. For example, Barcelona, Taranto,
Dunkirk and Antwerp are defined with a model without the seasonal component and
with a general predominance of the autoregressive part.
Observation of the atypical data of every port shows that the studied EU ports with
atypical data classified as level shifts were more affected by the economic crisis.
The stability of the models according to the Box-Jenkins method for the series finished
in 2008 and in 2014 and considering the initial time series and the time series with
atypical data for Tarragona, Bilbao and Pasajes ports means that these ports were less
affected by the economic crisis than the others.
The presence of atypical data, especially level shifts with a positive trend, was detected
between 1990 and 2000 whereas between 2005 and 2010 level shifts exhibit a clear
negative trend. This further evidence of the effects of the economic crisis on Western
Europe opens up the possibility to predict future recessions and implement proactive
strategies by port authorities and related industries.
Atypical data at the end of port traffic data could make it difficult to correctly identify
the ARIMA model [6], leading to problems with forecasting values and the level of
reliability. This was solved by cutting the time series. For example, in this study data
between January 2009 and December 2014 were used in some cases.
It is almost impossible to account for every atypical data for all studied ports. Additive
outliers are very difficult to explain without a deep knowledge of the history of the port
and its port authority. Transitory changes could be explained considering the local
geography and economic situation whereas a possible level shift could be regarded as a
continuation of a transitory change. Finally, level shifts may be seen as changes with a
positive trend, which means an important development of the port, or changes with a
negative trend, which indicates a future economic crisis [5]. Both possibilities call for
corrective actions in the strategic planning to be taken by the port authority in order to
deal with the new reality [6].

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Data related to transitory changes located at the end of the time series should be
carefully examined. For instance, all the data at the end of 2008 showed a transitory
change eventually leading to a level shift which points to an economic crisis in the USA
and EU. This change was one of the first signs of the crisis but was overlooked by too
many decision makers involved.
No significant conclusions about the geographical situation of the ports could be drawn
from the ARIMA models. Apparently, there is no specific relationship between the
ports and their position in the Mediterranean or Atlantic area.
No significant conclusions about a possible relation between the typology of ports and
their dimensions could be drawn, either. For example, the port of Antwerp has the same
ARIMA model for the time series between January 2009 and December 2014 as Pasajes
(considering all the time series without atypical data).

5. CONCLUSIONS
The study and comparison of port traffic data of Barcelona and Tarragona ports and
other selected EU ports using the Box-Jenkins method led to the following conclusions:
1. It is impossible to find a global ARIMA model, like the Airline model, which is able
to explain the reality and environment of port traffic data, and therefore to forecast long-
term traffic data accurately.
2. Comparison of port traffic data time series using the Box-Jenkins method shows a
decrease in seasonality. Moreover, it is sometimes difficult to choose between seasonal
time series, time series with regular differentiation and time series with logarithm
transformation.
3. The possibility that seasonality and calendar effects will disappear from models in the
future has a crucial implication for the future of forecasting and strategic planning. It is
obvious that the elimination of seasonality and calendar effects would have a positive
effect on port traffic data control and operational needs (e.g. planning of loading and
unloading processes).
4. The ARIMA models without the seasonal have been observed to have a long
autoregressive part. A clear example of this kind of model is Valencia port. The port
authority of this port uses the same model in 2008 and in 2014, with the same results
being obtained upon consideration of atypical data.
5. Transparency in the communication policy is a priority for port authorities. This is
the only way to have a clear relationship with all social actors involved in a port’s daily
activities.
6. Strategic planning should facilitate strategic decision making by port authorities to
achieve an increase in port traffic data as well as the elimination of seasonality as an
extremely positive goal for the future of ports and all companies and social actors
involved.
7. The basis of strategic planning must be proactivity as a vital and essential behavior of
port authorities and all companies and social actors involved. This is crucial in the short,
medium and long term. A mathematic tool like Box-Jenkins method and ARIMA

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forecasting models can be very useful in this regard since they treat one of the most
important indicators for a port, i.e. port traffic data, to evaluate strategic planning
management.
8. Atypical data obtained during the application of the Box-Jenkins method should be
considered essential by port authorities from the strategic point of view because they
can be of help in the decision making process. Additive outliers are less significant than
transitory changes and level shifts, but all should be equally considered if their trend is
negative. A negative trend may be a reflection of a port’s future. This can lead the port
authority to take any corrective actions necessary to redirect the course of the port. A
clear example of this is 2008 data: observation of these data enables a fast detection of
the economic crisis that is still affecting Western Europe.

6. BIBLIOGRAFY
[1] Olivella Cruset, J. La influència dels ports en el desenvolupament de Catalunya. Els
ports de Barcelona i Tarragona. Una comparativa amb d’altres ports de la Unió
Europea. García Carcellé, V.; Solé Parellada, F. PhD Thesis, UPC, Departament de
Ciència i Enginyeria Nàutiques, 2016 [Department of Science and Nautical
Engineering].
[2] Enríquez Argós, F. El Plan Estratégico: Un instrumento para la gestión portuaria.
2nd. ed. Valencia: Fundación Instituto Portuario de Estudios y Cooperación de la
Comunidad Valenciana, 2000.
[3] Rodríguez García, T.; González Cancelas, N.; Soler-Flores, F. Forecasting models in
Ports Transport Systems. Are ANNs Applications the solution? The 2nd Electronic
International Interdisciplinary Conference EIIC 2013. Zilina, Slovakia: 2013, chapter 23
Transport and Logistics, pages 509 - 514.
[4] Cryer, J.D.; Chan, K-S. Time Series Analysis: with Applications in R. 2nd. ed.
Berlin: Springer Texts in Statistics, 2008.
[5] Martí-Recober, M.; Muñoz Gracia, M.P. Previsió i sèries temporals: mètodes
empírics, models ARIMA, metodologia i casos. 1st. ed. Barcelona: Universitat
Politècnica de Catalunya, Departament d’Estadística i Investigació Operativa, 2001,
2008.
[6] Box, G.; Jenkins, G.; Reinsel, G. Time Series Analysis. Forecasting and Control.
4th. ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2008.

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DRAFTING MARITIME POLICIES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES –

THE CASE OF LATIN-AMERICAN COUNTRIES - COHERENCY
BETWEEN NATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICIES AND MARITIME
POLICY WRITING OBJECTIVES

Dr. German de Melo Rodriguez, UPC; Capt. Rodrigo Garcia Bernal, GIZ

Abstract:
The efficiency principle imposed by the current international trade scenario requires
extreme attention to detail in the administration of production costs and in placing
products on the market. Because a product’s success is highly sensitive to cost and
distribution methods, maritime transport and its associated systems require very
specific management techniques. Those management techniques must take into account
that as transport is a service it gives added value to the cargo.
Thus, the management model, costs involved, planning processes, and maritime
sectorial policies are topics of vital importance for achieving these nations’
development objectives.
The design of specific sectorial policies, both operational as well as for development
(investments), should comply with certain minimum conditions. The resulting policies
should satisfy integrally and harmoniously the requirements the State establishes in its
general National Development Strategy. This strategy considers the factors of monetary
and trade uncertainty. States must be particularly careful to interpret changes,
tendencies, circumstances and difficulties which emerge in the international markets
they serve, correctly.

Acknowledgement:
The authors thanks to the colleagues from the Transport Unit of the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and to the Chilean Maritime
Authority (DIRECTEMAR) for their support and information.

Keywords:
Maritime Transport, Maritime Policy, Methodology.

1. INTRODUCTION

Throughout the course of time, the world has witnessed changes that have only recently
been contemplated by strategists and politicians. Advances in technology and research
have triggered the development of industry with unanticipated speed, a good example
of this being the revolution in communications and information systems.
The internationalisation of investments and the globalisation of markets have created a
high level of competition among manufacturing and service companies which has

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transcended the competition among nations. In this environment, quality information

and exact timing are the sole answers for generating comparative and competitive
advantages with respect to other manufacturers and providers.
Inspired by these challenges, Latin American countries have searched for ways to
increase and diversify their exports in order to heighten their trade balance surpluses.
This, in turn, helps them to overcome their debt problems and gain access to a better
quality of life.
With these criteria in mind, these countries have begun to join the economic aperture
and globalisation processes. United by their common ethnic heritage, they are driven by
the growing need to co-ordinate national and regional decisions in order to achieve a
harmonic community development.

The efficiency principle imposed by the present international trade scenario requires
extreme attention to detail in the administration of production costs and in placing
products on the market. Because a product’s success is highly sensitive to cost and
distribution methods, maritime transport and its associated systems require very
specific management techniques. Those management techniques must take into
account that as transport is a service it gives added value to the cargo.
Thus, the management model, costs involved, planning processes, and maritime
sectorial policies are topics of vital importance for achieving these nations’
development objectives.
The design of specific policies, both operational as well as for development
(investments), should comply with certain minimum conditions. The resulting policies
should satisfy integrally and harmoniously the requirements the State establishes in its
general National Development Strategy. This strategy considers the factors of monetary
and trade uncertainty. States must be particularly careful to interpret changes,
tendencies, circumstances and difficulties which emerge in the international markets
they serve, correctly.

2. IMPORTANCE OF CREATING AN ADEQUATE POLICY FOR THE LA

COUNTRIES.

2.1 THE MARITIME TRANSPORT AND THE COUNTRY BALANCE OF

PAYMENT.

An important obstacle exists when trying to determine the total contribution of

maritime transport on the Balance of Payment. About one third of the world’s tonnage
is transported under flags of convenience. The services that this tonnage lends to
international trade are registered as debit in the balance of payments statistics in the
countries that use them. On the other hand, corresponding credit is not allocated,
because the flag of the State considers the companies that possess and manage these
fleets as extraterritorial entities.
Consequently, by comparing the maritime trade contribution to the balance of payments
of both developed and developing countries to the gains of developed countries,

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unallocated credits must be added, because it is the citizens of these countries that are
the principal owners and beneficiaries of open license tonnage.
In 2000, the payments for freight were approximately $155 billion dollars compared
with US$ 45 billion dollars in 1980, and contributed to the present disequilibrium of the
trade balance and, as a consequence, to the debt problems of developing countries.
However, when the potential contribution of a national fleet to the balance of payments
is evaluated, one should bear in mind that, although the total freight paid to the national
company in the country’s foreign trade represents a gross savings (earnings) in foreign
currency, its overall effect on the balance of payments will be considerably inferior and
will depend on the amount of services rendered by the national company, both national
cargo services or as a cross trader. The most important expenditures of foreign currency
that result from maritime transport activities are the financing costs of ships bought
abroad, fuel expenses and port costs.
As a result, the saving of foreign currency varies from country to country, and available
figures oscillate between 10% and 70% of net earnings as a result of various factors.
Therefore, even beginning with a prudent calculation in which only 30% of gross
foreign currency savings represent an effective net savings, developing countries could
reduce their foreign currency outflows by approximately $7 billion dollars, if they
could divert towards national carriers half of those resources that are set aside for
paying foreign carrier companies.
Nonetheless, there are some examples like the Chilean case, where the economic
deregulation of the shipping sector in 1980 (i.e. abolishing the fiscal exemption to
national or Chilean owned companies and opening the trade to foreign ship-owners)
opened the national shipping market to free competition and therefore permitted the
entrance of international competitors. The main effect of this was a 55% reduction
of the Chilean flag fleet, and because of this and other reasons, in the next decade
the freight rate was reduced up to 50 % in southbound and up to 65 % in northbound
trips.
In order to maintain and, if possible, improve their position in world maritime transport,
developing countries should plan a coherent maritime transport policy, not only at a
national level, but also at a sub-regional or regional level. This policy should aim
towards establishing cooperation bases at an operational level and towards assuring
competition, in the long term, to developing country carrier companies and avoid
wasteful spending of resources that are in short supply. However, in that which refers to
planning and application strategy of this coherent policy, it is recommended that a
relatively prudent focus be adopted.
According to past experience (70´s to 90´s) in shipping and ports, most of International
Organization recommendations on economic matters have been impracticable in the
long run; this, because of their orientation towards state control of economic and
operational issues when world business was moving towards deregulation and leaving
such issues to the private sector. Policy makers must be in contact with the industry day
to day and work close to the industry sectors. An imposed policy could result in being
impracticable.
What really is imperative is the need to improve national plans and policies in order to
create necessary liaisons. The institutional requirements needed to formulate and apply
these policies have been complied with, to a certain extent, in developing countries.

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Comparative freight rate between 1992 and 2015:

TEU Container Distance 1992 2004 2015

Freight Rate in a
Liner Ship

Hamburg to 7,831 US$ US$ US$

Valparaiso (with 3,400 1,500 1,385
households)

Hamburg to Cartagena 4,943 US$ US$ US$

de Indias 4,500 1,650 1,300
Source: Information from Chilean port operator AGUNSA and Schenker Logistic Operator 2015.

2.2. CHALLENGES TO DESIGN A MARITIME POLICY.

2.2.1.Distribution of world trade and maritime transport.

The distribution among groups of countries of world maritime transport activities

continues to be unequal and notably contrasts with the respective participation of these
countries in world trade. The important participation of developing countries as a group
in world trade has made it so that, due to its access to independence, these countries
follow an active maritime transport policy.
This policy can be summarized into two objectives: firstly, protect national cargo
owners by creating a fair balance between their interests and those of the ship-owners;
and secondly, encourage the establishment and expansion of national merchant fleets.
These two objectives were not followed simultaneously.

In the beginning, maritime transport policy was directed in a general manner to

commercial aspects; for example, the protection of ship-owners interests. Later, a
second element was added, the matter of development, as the answer to structural
problems that came about from industry, as well as comprehension that a policy that
does not try to establish a minimum of direct control over maritime transport services
cannot render satisfactory results.

2.2.2. Commercial practices.

The commercial conditions convened in a sales contract determine the rights of the
buyer or seller to carry out necessary transport arrangements. The most frequent
arrangements are: "Free on Board"(FOB) or similar which estipulate that the buyer is
responsible for organizing the transport and “Cost and Freight" (CFR) or similar where
the seller undertakes the task of organizing transport.
The election of commercial terms influences in a decisive manner, the capacity of any
country to participate in the transport of their foreign trade merchandise. Although it is
not possible to define the customary guidelines of the conditions applied in maritime
trade generally, there is no doubt that in bulk trade, whether it be liquid or dry cargo, it
is possible to observe a systematic tendency in which developing countries are obliged
to accept the FOB conditions for their exports and the CFR for their imports. This
situation impedes them from initiating export activities of raw materials that could

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allow them to diversify their economic ventures and thereby reduce their dependence
on the exclusive production of raw materials.
This tendency of imposing unfavourable trade conditions which result from power
differences between businessmen of developed countries and those of developing
countries, as well as from the considerable participation of trans-national companies in
bulk trade, has frequently being doubted. This was largely confirmed by research
carried out on a worldwide scale concerning dry cargo trading during the beginning of
the eighties (UNCTAD, Review on Maritime Transport, 1992-1997).

According to information received from the importers of nearly 80% of the world trade
flow of crude oil, a group of experts in the transport of liquid hydrocarbons determined
that, according to available data, 76% of the volume of these currents was under FOB
conditions, where transport was the responsibility of the buyers, and that, in general,
originated from developed countries. Additionally, according to available data, 47% of
imports resulted to be operations between affiliated companies. Another group of
experts of the UNCTAD pointed out a similar tendency in the application of FOB
conditions in the principal markets of dry bulk cargo (i.e., iron ore, phosphates, bauxite,
aluminium) of interest for developing countries that export such cargo. In these
markets, the percentage of FOB contracts fluctuate between 80% and 94%,
corresponding to phosphates and bauxite respectively.

2.2.3. Customizing services.

In order for any type of maritime transport service, particularly a regular shipping line,
to be adequate for maintaining and/or developing relevant trade, it is imperative that
some minimum requirements be met that pertain to transit time, frequency and
regularity of trips, the type of vessel being used and the availability of services for all
the cargo that is being transported. Even though it is logical that differences of opinions
exist between the providers and the users of maritime transport services in that which
constitutes "adequate service", in general terms, one must suppose that "adequate
service" can only be the one whose quality assures an orderly development of trade
between concerned countries. This level of quality should be decided for each
commercial route after rigorous and effective consultation between ship-owners and
users.
In practice, however, shipping conferences, acting as monopolistic factions for each
trade in discussion, have frequently refused to hold meetings concerning these matters
and have arbitrarily and unilaterally decided on types of services, frequency of trips,
etc. In developing countries, in particular, no prior effort was made to discuss matters
concerning service characteristics, because, among other reasons, the Maritime
Administration is not strong, giving way to inadequate services and therefore
worsening port congestion problems.
2.2.4 Transport costs, included are the level and structure of freights.

In addition to the considerations regarding the quality of services, the level and
structure of freight also have crucial importance on trade. In international trade,
transport costs basically have the same protection effect as customs tariffs and
constitute a decisive factor in determining a country’s export potential. In view that the
principal export merchandise of developing countries is transported in regular shipping
liners, the relationship between the freight of these liners and the prices of determined

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products constitute a representative sample of freight expenses that developing

countries face and, as a consequence, indicate the repercussions of these expenses in
the competition of developing country exports in foreign markets.
The cost of maritime transport services also has a very important effect on the industry
of developing countries, particularly in the recently formed manufacturing industries
established for elaborating imported raw materials with the object of producing
manufactured or partially manufactured export products by taking advantage of
relatively low costs for labour and fiscal policies. Such industries are only viable whilst
the costs and transport difficulties do not have an adverse effect on the economic
advantages of using local labour force.
In addition to the effects of maritime transport on trade and industry, developing
countries are affected by the level of freight rates, since they are accustomed to having
to pay the cost of freights for their imports as well as their exports. If the level of
freight rates increases, generally these countries will have to pay more for their imports
and their manufacturers usually receive less for merchandise that is sold in foreign
markets. In the case of Latin America, this situation is very clear in Central American
countries, where its predominant market is USA and the freight rate of a TEU from
USA to Central America, sometimes could be more or at least similar to one coming
from USA to Chile (three time distance) generating competitive advantages for those
cargoes coming from countries with lower freight rates.
The problems developing countries have had by the level and structure of freight rates
are closely related to the existence and mechanisms of the maritime conference system.
This system (created to eliminate price competition among its members), taking
advantage of its monopolistic power, has adopted unilateral procedures and
determination of freight rates. In various international meetings, developing countries
have manifested their opinion that some of the practices adopted by the maritime
transport conferences have resulted in being damaging to trade and for their
development. The grievances of developing countries concerning the conference
system in that which refers to the level and structure of freight rates has been
concentrated in the following aspects:
a) Arbitrary imposition of freight rates, for example:
i. General increases and the level of freight rates;
ii. Fixation of determined freight rates;
iii. Absence of freight rates and promotion, and
b) Loyalty agreements and unfairness of obligations.
The scepticism of developing countries towards the conference system, which was
continuously stirred up complaints, was also largely due to the secret that surrounds the
establishment of freight rates by the conferences and other policies. Undoubtedly, the
mysteriousness in which the system has worked has given way to a considerable
amount of alienation. However, the majority of the users and ship-owners of
developing countries look at the conference system as a necessity or at least the lesser
of two evils where instability of freight rates and irregularity of services are concerned.
The problem of unilateralism and the lack of transparency in the determination of
freight rates was hoped to be overcome, or at least appeased, by institutionalizing the
consultation procedures between ship-owners and users. However, the users of
developing countries complain that the "meetings" held by the shipping conferences are

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of a superficial character. One of the complaints is that the conferences hold their "real"
negotiations with trade spokespersons of developed countries, and elude the
consultation procedures concerning basic freight rates as that this is the reason for
increasing surcharges on the prices of fuel and for adjustment factors in exchange rates,
where they frequently apply formulas, that according to the users, are
incomprehensible.
3. FORMULATION OF MARITIME POLICIES IN EMERGENT
ECONOMIES.
3.1. THEORETIC OUTLINE AND DEFINITIONS.

A policy is a group of definitions formulated by the government of a nation in order to

explicitly express the government’s field of action in specific matters, in conformity to
philosophic concepts which is inspired in a political, economic and social model.
Maritime transport policies are therefore the application of these philosophical concepts
to water transport activities with the purpose of regulating their operation, economic
efficiency and harmonic development, in national as well as international settings,
considering the present external realities and its foreseeable trends.

The maritime transport policy should be the government’s formulation of the course of
action to be taken by the State and its institutions in the area of maritime, fluvial and
lacustrine transport, as well as the necessary guideline for private sector participation.

3.2. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

Even though historically maritime transport has not been completely free of
government regulation, in the past, interventions by important maritime nations largely
limited national policy measures in order to maintain trade and military power
structures. Due to technological and organizational development of maritime transport
in the past decades and the process of decolonizing, these national policies of maritime
transport based on considerations of power have become less evident. The growing
structural and geographic segmentation of the maritime transport market has made it
more difficult, if not impossible, that isolated countries be able to formulate ample
regulatory policies.
At the same time, the mobility of their own vessels, the internationalization of market
segments and the growing of multinational crews, has necessarily presented
implementation problems of national policies, even in cases in which these policies
were formulated for isolated sections of the market.
Another important change that has characterized the evolution of the maritime transport
policy refers to the actual contents of this maritime policy. Traditionally, the
development of an active maritime transport policy has been the prerogative of the
important maritime States and only in the past decades has the concept of maritime
transport policy lost its unique significance as the promoter of the national maritime
fleet and has expanded in order to take in two elements of equal importance: the
already mentioned promotion of national maritime transport and, secondly, the
protection of the user’s interests in the most ample possible way. Thus, countries that
are basically users of shipping services now have ambitions in maritime transport

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policy matters, a fact that has influenced policy considerations at both a national as well
as international level.
These elements inevitably influence the contents of the policies. The principal objective
of the policies is to allow the industry to carry out its corresponding role in the
international maritime trade and to encourage international trade and economic
integration. Therefore, a maritime transport policy’s end result should be the
establishment of a framework which allows the industry to reach a balance between
real costs and the economic benefits it hopes for, establishing in this way the bases so
that maritime transport services may respond to the necessities of trade and offer
efficient services and at low cost. When these policies do not exist, trade can remain
subordinate to transport, which introduces the danger of limiting access of national
products to foreign markets.
Policy considerations are not limited to maritime transport commercial aspects only,
but also include development matters, and they should not be completely separated
from one another. An international maritime transport policy should also allow or
actively encourage international participation in the maritime transport sector. Bearing
in mind existing policy limitations, both economic as well as social, the ideal objective
would be that this policy should allow maritime transport activities to spread to those
countries that enjoy a comparative advantage for the lending of services.

As an example, until 1978 Chile had a Merchant Marine Development Law, whose
main objective was to promote a bigger national fleet passing from 400,000 GRT to 1
Million GRT no objective was considered on relation to cargo transported by those
companies. After 1979 this Law changed, permitting international shipping to serve
Chilean ports (inverse objective to the previous law). The main effect that occurred
was, as indicated previously, a decrease of the national fleet and the re-flagging of
almost 50 % of the Chilean owned ships into International Open Ship Registries. The
most important impact though (real objective of the new de-regulation), was the
impressive improvement of their cargo transport efficiency under competition, rising
from 1,000,000 tons transported in Chilean owned ship was in 1978 to 2,000,000 tons
in 1982, and 4,000,000 tons in the year 2000, thus favourably reducing the freight rates
of the country’s imports and exports (enormous benefit for the competitiveness of
exports and lower price for the nation last consumer of imports). The lesson learned
was that a country must be coherent and consistent with its own national economic
policy and strategy, deregulating all those sectors which could help the national
economy and the external trade and therefore allowing for competitive exports.
Promotion policies and regulatory policies complement each other, even though their
objectives are different. Exclusively applied national promotion policies assume the
acceptation of existing market structures and are basically limited to improving the
competitive situation of the national fleet in regard to its foreign competitors. On the
other hand, with ample regulatory policies, the idea is to place influence on market
structures in order to obtain a desired level of competition. In practice, it is not always
possible to clearly distinguish between these policies. The type of policy combination
chosen for each country depends fundamentally on two factors: the political framework
established by the general economic policy and the capacity of each country in
applying the formulated normative principles.
One of the most important promotion measures that is presently applied, which also
contains elements of protectionist policy, is the concession of direct or indirect

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subsidies to national ship-owners, fundamentally in developed countries. Even though

it is undeniable that these normative options are justifiable by some policy
considerations in reference to the maintenance of a minimum national fleet, the
generalized concession of subsidies has considerable negative effects on
international maritime transport markets creating or promoting inefficiency. This
policy not only does not serve to correct the distortions of the maritime transport
markets, but contributes considerably to maintain or even worsen the actual structural
disproportion, because it maintains at an artificially high level the offer of shipping
services and impedes the spreading of capital to other countries that enjoy a
comparative and or competitive advantage in the sector. Additionally, it has been
shown that this type of policy liberates a slew of subsidies that place the countries at
a disadvantage, particularly in developing countries that cannot or do not want to
participate in it.
Other types of promotion policies exist that do not present the same prejudicial effects,
but by all means are convenient to combine with a coherent regulatory policy, because
a promotion measure results all the more efficient when the development of an entire
section of maritime transport or the participation in it of a specific national fleet of the
actual market structures are limited. Structural problems can not be resolved by way of
promotion policies.
Promotion policies are frequently applied indifferently in all sectors of maritime
transport, but regulatory policies are necessarily more selective and their applications
have been largely limited to maritime transport by shipping liners. The mechanisms of
the market, particularly in liner shipping, has resulted to be only partially adequate for
permitting the industry to carry out its role in the orderly development of world
commerce. The existence of shipping conferences is usually accepted as a beneficial
factor for trade and development, but ample consensus exists in that the system is open
to abuse, by which it is necessary to establish a multilateral regulatory structure that
guarantees beneficial development of trade and maritime transport services. Whatever
policy measures are applied, the fundamental objective is to regulate two crucial
aspects of the shipping conference system: the admission of shipping lines and the
relationships between conferences and users.

The basic concept underlying maritime transport regulation for shipping liners consists
in reducing the concentration of power stimulated by the actual structure of the market,
whether establishing the necessary framework so that it develops a counteracting power
within the market or by way of an institutional neutralization of power exercised by the
cartels of maritime transport. An example of the first method would be a greater control
of the user’s suggestions, and the second, the creation of a supervising body that would
specifically see to the conferences. Consequently, the fundamental objective of a
regulatory policy should not be to reduce or eliminate competition, but to assure a
minimum level of loyal competition when the actual forces of the market cannot
generate it.
The concrete objectives of the regulatory policy, also urgently makes it necessary to
apply explicit normative measures. Bearing in mind the structural differences of the
maritime transport market sectors, these measures have to be conceived in such a way
that they allow the undertaking of specific problems. This necessary selectivity would
make any attempt to introduce wide-open regulation that covers the entirety of
maritime transport markets impracticable. There is no doubt that, both nationally and

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internationally, promotion and regulatory measures can be applied simultaneously;

what is needed is to know at what level they can be applied more efficiently. In that
which concerns concrete promotion policies, the answer largely depends on the exact
formulation. On the other hand, the situation is very different in that which refers to the
policies of regulation. As has been pointed out, their goal is to correct market
mechanisms which are, naturally, international. As a consequence, the application of
unilateral and uncoordinated regulatory measures will lead to new distortions in the
market instead of a utilization of the market structures. To design the above policy, it is
recommended to use a strategic planning methodology and model (see Picture No. 1).
Even though, the Chilean maritime transport policy case present undoubtedly success,
because of the specific cultural characteristics in the country, it is not wise to be used
by other countries. Chile apply an implicit maritime transport commercial policy (no
written, but derived and coherent with country’s macro-economic policy) and an
explicit one in regards to maritime safety, security and marine environmental matters
model which works very efficiently for the Chilean market culture.
Currently, most of the port and maritime transport policies in the region, show
deficiency on the evaluation in issues like: institutional, logistics, labour, port networks
and IT, infrastructure development, competitiveness, sustainable development and
economic regulation (Doerr at el 2011)

Figure 1. RGB Model of Strategic Planning

.
SPECIFIC
CONSIDERATIONS
G

WORLD SPECIFIC REGIONAL

SITUATION DIAGNOSIS SITUATION

S C
ECONOMIC SOCIO-POLITIC
CONSIDERATIONS STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES
CONSIDERATIONS

(RGB Model)
G

ECONOMIC
Diagnosis Management and
POLICY FEEDBACK
institutional

R C
Regulatory Framework
MARITIME POLICY

BUDGET
Specific SPECIFIC REQUIRED

Policies

PROJECTS

Source: RGB Model, own design

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

3.3. SPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS.

3.3.1. Diagnostic evaluation regarding immediate maritime surroundings.

This evaluation will consider an analysis of the following subjects:

- Position and geographic condition of the country;
- Political-institutional structure;
- Comparative advantages in regard to the resource availability and
productive factors;
- The country’s role within the scheme of transport, user or provider of services;
- State’s level of participation in the administration of the transport chain;
- Economic policy;
- Tradition and knowledge of the maritime transport market, (know how);
- Business culture;
- Market ethic (level of corruption at private and public sectors);
- Level and philosophy of investment in the country;
- Predictions of events, forecasts;
- Independence for decision-making;
- Country’s capacity to participate with other nations;
- Public and private collaboration in the rendering of services;
- International agreements and standards prevailing in maritime transport,
ratified by the country;
- Market participation;
- Maritime Governance (rule of law, accountability, commitment,
institutionalism, etc.).

3.3.2. Evaluation and analysis of the international maritime setting.

This analysis should at least consider the following material:

- World practices of maritime transport;
- The world trend regarding this topic;
- The phenomenon of regional integration and globalization;
- Technological innovation;
- Ecological consciousness;
- International regulations:
- Market conditions (level of perfection).

3.4. REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MODERN POLICIES.

- Political and institutional stability;

- Institutional flexibility when faced with changes;
- Knowledge improvement;
- Legal framework that guarantees the competitive conditions of the market
(rule of law);
- Consistency with other policies (economic, labour, safety, security, etc.);
- Access to financing of investments in terms of agility and reasonable
interest rates.

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 PORTS AND TERMINAL MANAGEMENT I

4. CONCLUSIONS AND REFLECTIONS.

Currently the countries of Latin America require an efficient and smooth international
trade to obtain their economic development. Currently the countries are more
dependants and interrelated from each other, requiring exporting their products and
importing their goods. The level of competition to reach the consumption centres with
an adequate price is tough for all of them.
The efficiency principle imposed by the present international trade scenario requires
extreme attention to detail in the administration of production costs and in placing
products on the market. The product’s success is highly sensitive to cost and
distribution methods, maritime transport and its associated systems require very
specific management techniques.
Those management techniques must take into account that as transport is a service it
gives added value to the cargo.

Most of the Latin American countries are very dependant from the maritime
transport to reach the international markets. The transport cost could be decisive to
reach the market at competitive price. Freight rates are not related to geographical
distance; in general it is more related to level of offer and demand for shipping
services and those are related to cargo availability.
It is required to perform a good sectorial diagnostic, including all component and
evaluating all links and relations. A holistic approach is important to understand
how the maritime transport works the context and it relations. A model of strategic
planning can help to draft a good diagnostic and planning.
Maritime policies must be consistent with country macro policies. Most of the
sectorial policies lack of a clear definition of goals and objective to be reach with the
implementation of the policy, only after the policy maker define the clear goals that
need to be reach, the relevant maritime policy can be drafted. If not, maybe the
policy implementation will reach other not desired goals.

The maritime transport policy should be the government’s formulation of the course of
action to be taken by the State and its institutions in the area of maritime transport in
consultation with the legislative body, as well as the necessary guideline for private
sector participation. Policies can “explicit” (in paper, regulation or law) or can be
“implicit” meaning it is not written in a document but already explicitly included in
another macro policy (like an Economic Macro policy could include an explicit
indication of promotion of the private participation on maritime transport on
competitive basis and the government support for the facilitation of the international
trade).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCE LIST

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1986.
4. Ports of the Hamburg-Antwerp Range Performance Profiles Under Changing
Conditions, Chr.Heideloff, ISL, Bremen,1985.
5. International Ocean Shipping, Gernhard J. Abrahamsson,
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6. A Guide to Maritime Joint Ventures, ICC, Paris, 1989.
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Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaiso, Chile, 1989.
8. Manual de Gestión de Puertos, ISL, Bremen, 1979.
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10. Maritime Policy and Management, vol. 19.1 to 21.3, Taylor and Francis,
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11. Port Administration and Management, J.G.Baudelaire, IAPH, Tokio, Japan,
1986.
12. Chile and the Pacific, Embassy of Chile to Singapore, Report 1986.
13. Maritime Economics, M. Stopford, Unwin Hyman London, 1990 .
14. Sea Transport, P. M. Alderton, 3rd. edition 1984.
15. Elements of Shipping, A. E. Branch, 6th.edition, Chapman and Hall, London,
1989.
16. International Shipping, B. Farthing, 2nd. edition, Lloyd s of London Press
Ltd., London, 1993.
17. Urban Ports and Harbour Management, M. J. Hersnan, Taylor and Francis,
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18. North-South Perspective on Maritime Policy, M.A. Morris, Westview Special
Studies, London, 1988.
19. Cambios Estructurales en los Puertos y la Competitividad del Comercio Exterior
de América Latina y el Caribe, CEPAL/ECLAC, ONU, Cuaderno 65, Santiago,
1991.
20. The International Common-Carrier Transportation Industry and the
Competitiveness of the Foreign Trade of the Countries of Latin-America and the
Caribbean, ECLAC, UN, Booklet 64, Santiago, 1989.
21. The Management of Business Logistics, Coyle, Bardi, Langley, 5th. edition,
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22. American Association of Port Authorities, II Latin American Meeting, Pérez O.,
11 - 13 August 1993, Buenos Aires.
23. American Association of Port Authorities, II Latin American Meeting,
Conclusions, 11 - 13 August 1993, Buenos Aires.
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through June 1993, June 1993, Valparaiso.
25. R. Garcia, World Maritime University, M.Sc. Degree Thesis, “Comparative
analysis between the Port of Valparaíso and the Port of San Antonio. How
Maritime Policy affects Port Development”, 1991.

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26. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, CEPAL, FAL
Bulletin, Latin-American Customs Service and Their Challenges in Facing the
New Demands of International Trade, Number 16, August - September 1993.
27. Goss, R. The Economic Functions of Seaport, Maritime Policy and
Management, Vol. 17, Number 3, 1990.
28. Pattillo, A. Economic and Social Effects of Chilean National Port Legislation,
IV National Transport Engineering Congress, Valparaiso, 1989.
29. Pattillo, A. The Role of Ports in Transportation, Notes from the School of
Transportation of the Catholic University, Valparaiso, 1990.
30. Pattillo, A. The Port Administration in Latin America, Notes from the School of
Transportation of the Catholic University, Valparaiso, 1990.
31. Sprout, R. Plebisch´s Thoughts, CEPAL Magazine, Nº 46, Santiago, Chile,
1992.
32. Arnoldo Hax y Nicolas Majluf, Gestión de Empresa, Ediciones Pedagógicas de
Chile, 1994.
33. Eduardo Bueno Campos, Dirección Estratégica de la Empresa, Ediciones
Piramides, 1993.
34. Chilean Customs Service, Statistical Bulletin, 1988-2003
35. CAF, Infraestructura, logística y sostenibilidad: temas estratégicos para la
competitividad global, Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF), 2003.
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Chile Portuario, Edición 13, Enero - Febrero 2003.
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América del Sur (DITIAS) Transporte Carretero (Mercosur y Chile). Autor
Néstor Hugo Luraschi, Asociación Latino Americana de Integración, ALADI,
Montevideo, Uruguay, 2000.
38. Gobierno de la Provincia de San Luis, Argentina, Anteproyecto para el
desarrollo de una zona de actividades logísticas - ZAL para la provincia de San
Luis.
39. Gobierno de Rosario, Argentina, Emprendimientos Regionales, Metropolitanos
y Urbanos, sin fecha.
40. IIRSA, Integración de la Infraestructura Regional en Sud América, Facilitación
del Transporte en los Pasos de Frontera, Síntesis y conclusiones, sin fecha.
41. Ministerio de Fomento de España, Plataformas logísticas y centros de transporte
de mercancías en España: Una visión de la situación actual y propuestas de
intervención, 1999.
42. Sánchez Ricardo; Cipoletta Georgina, Identificación de obstáculos al transporte
terrestre internacional de cargas en el Mercosur. Serie Recursos Naturales e
Infraestructura, Número 54. CEPAL, 2003.
43. FAL 205, 2003; Boletin FAL, 205: El Ferrocarril En El Comercio Entre Brasil
Y Sus Vecinos Del Cono Sur: El Potencial De Un Mayor Aprovechamiento,
Unidad de Transporte CEPAL, Naciones Unidas, 2003.
44. ECLAC, Hoffman et al 2002; Hoffmann, Jan; Pérez, Gabriel ; Wilmsmeier,
Gordon: "International trade and transport profiles of Latin American countries,
year 2000" Transport Unit, February 2002.

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45. ECLAC, 2003; Maritime Profile of Latin American and Caribbean, web site.
Transport Unit, ECLAC http://www.eclac.cl/transporte/perfil.
46. CEPAL, Serie 159, Politicas Portuarias, Octavio Doerr, 2011.
47. DIRECTEMAR, Chile, Boletín Estadístico Marítimo, Ediciones: 1980, 1990,
2000, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
48. ECLAC, Maritime Profile of Latin-America and the Caribbean, 2015.
49. ECLAC, CEPALSTAT, 2014
50. CEPAL, Serie 153, Perrotti y Sanches, La Brecha de Infraestructura en América
Latina y el Caribe.
51. CEPAL, Serie 149, Cipoletta y Sanchez, La Industria del Transporte Marítimo y
Las Crisis Económicas, 2010.
52. ECLAC, Sanches y Wilmsmeier, Maritime Sector in the Caribbean: the Case of
the CARICOM Countries, 2009.
53. CEPAL, Serie 161, Seguridad de la Cadena Logística Terrestre en América
Latina.

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 SHIPPING BUSINESS

STRATEGY ASSESSMENT IN INVESTMENT OF A DRY BULK

TANKER

Professor Simonetta Zamparelli (I)

Professor Mauro Catalani (II)
(I) Department of Economics, Management, Society and Institutions, University of
Molise, Italy
(II) Department of Economic and Legal, University of Naples Parthenope, Italy

Abstract

The knowledge of the financial structure of a shipping company consisting of equity and
loan is a pre-requisite for the evaluation of a strategic investment. The main objective of
this paper is the study of shipowner’s behavior when choosing the best investment
among different types of dry bulk tanker. The methodology is based on the comparison
of the Financial Costs-Benefits Analysis (CBA) and the Random Utility Maximization
(RUM) approaches for the choice of the best strategic decision of a Handy ship
investment.

The choice alternatives are between a new building vessel (from the shipbuilding) and a
second hand vessel (in operation by 5 years).

The effect of the research consists of a method that randomizes the variables influencing
the behaviour strategy of the shipowner when choosing an investment. The data were
provided by an Italian dry bulk shipping Group.

Keywords:
shipowner's behavior, dry bulk, cba, rum model

Acknowledgement
Many thanks to D' Amato Shipping Group for wide cooperation and to the anonymous
referees for their work

INTRODUCTION

The manuscript studies the interaction between the choices of a shipowner with the
options to purchase vessels in the market.The main objective of this paper is to evaluate
the shipowner’s behavior in choosing the best investment among different dry bulk
tankers for maritime transport.

The choice of a shipowner depends on many factors, as: price of the ship and its age,
technology, return of investment, quality of the service offered, the routings. All these
elements are difficult to analyze conjunctly due to the high volatility of the dry bulk
market, but theyare relevant even so in the process of choice. Indeed, they can also alter
or modify substantially the equilibrium of businesses of all companies which operate in

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the same sector with the backlashes on the dynamics of the economy in contiguous
sectors.That creates the need of an economic and financialanalysis of new resources and
it offers to the contenders the opportunity to draw new strategies befitting the maritime
industry in which they are operating. In our case, it is the dry bulksector.

In the shipping industry, the companies are subjected to the strategic risks linked to the
huge investments and the high technology. Generally, in the dry bulk sector the
companies operate with medium size ships in which they hope to gain by reducing the
runningcostin the mediumtermby time charter contracts. If these investments
don’tproduce returns, they could force the company to modify itsbehavior and to do
additional investments due tothe implementation of a new strategy. The company, in
this way, could lose its ground towards competitors.Usually, the choices that
haveaneconomic-financial impact on a shipping company are relatedto the investments
and disinvestments, funding and dividends. All these are linked with relations of mutual
dependence (cause-effect). These decisions fall on the structural and economic stability
of the companies. This stability is represented by the balance between the invested
capital, equity, loan and the relative influences of leverage also by the shipowner market
strategy.

Thepaper compares the results of two different methodologies of investment analysis:

the financial cost-benefit analysis (Cariou P. and Wolf F.C. 2011, Tsolakis S.D.
Cridland C. Haralambides H.M. 2003) and the Multinomial Logit (MNL) model applied
to the maritime industry (McFadden D. 1975, Frankel E.G. 1992).

1.THE COMPETITIVE DYNAMICS OF SHIPPING

The shipping industry is characterized by intensive competitiveness and relevant returns

on investments. The global economic progress influences the demand of transport.
Thefluctuationsoffreights, in increase or decrease, depend on the movements of the
demand of maritime transport. It is a demand closely related to global economy
progress. That is in particular, the demand on the transport of goods. The circuit closes
considering this link that inevitably passes through the international commerce which
produces its effects in a short term (ex.seasonal demand) and in a long period, the
reallocation on productive processing with the re-organization of transport services.
Therefore, the shipping industry is a complicated sector characterized by three main
sectors as liquid bulk, dry bulk and general cargo;then the economic, financial and
trading conditions that govern each of its subsectors are not necessarily applicable to all
others. However, such sector has to be observedas a sum of all subsectors in the
maritime industry. Each one presents its levelsofdemand and supply, the freight
movements, technology and organized management.
In the last decade, an important strategic conflict was verified. The vessel represents the
instrumental good in which the production is implemented on maritime transport
services and it has two distinct characteristics towards other types of fixed assets. The
first consists of flexibility in its use and expertise (transport of grain, petroleum, coal,
iron ore, and etc.), the second characteristic is recognized in the fact that for its
mobility:the ship can be purchased in a shipyard wherever part of the world. A
shipowner should consider these two variables in its budgets for economic convenience.
The shipping company invests in typical enduring capital assets.

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The transport of dry bulk is usually done bytramp and it is a critical decision that a
shipowner has to look after in the positioning vessel in one or more convenient freight
charges (Stopford R. 2009). The rates are determined in every transaction according to
the stability of dry bulk market dynamics. The management implements investment
policies in vessels that holds carefully into account the demand's evolution. Generally,
the economy of scale that a sector offers are known to all operating companies
(Haralambides H. 1996). However, it’s possible that the use of such economies of a firm
does not depend on the desire to improve its competitive position, but rather to protect
itself from competitors who are primarily organized to generate profitable advantages.
This strategic decision isn’t indifferent to the motivation because the company has the
problem of making the right move at the right time, considering its strength and
weakness. There are other situations verified further in which some companies, despite
of economies of scale, are concentrated on other aspects and loopholes. In consequence,
taking advantage of this situation may lead the other companies to have a competitive
economic advantage, no less of technological innovations, in pursuing against
competitors. That is changing completely in such a way the stability of the sector.
Therefore, it is crucial for a company never to glance downfrom these possibilities of
strategic advantage. Furthermore, it’s significant the decisions in ordering the correct
size of the vessels of the potential bulks to be transported. So becomes strategic the
decision to invest on a new vessel or a second hand vessel.

2.THE STRATEGIC CHOICES OF SHIPOWNERS

Bulk shipping outlines as a less expert sector in which the vessels generally show a low
technological process. For such,the important factors of gain, for shipowner, derive by
choices about the time charter, the voyage charter and the management of his vessels
considering the possibility of entrusting the vessel to a pool; furthermore, the earning
derive by the operation of buying and selling in the principal or second hand markets.
At times, such operations generate capital gain in the budget. In this paper, we analyze
the strategy in purchasing of new vessels from the shipyards, or second hand vessels
from the market. In the last decade there was a maximum growth of the investments in a
Handy size vessel that is doubled. In effect, it reached from 15 million dollars to almost
40 million dollars (Clarkson 2013). But in the last years, such value broken down
rapidly caused by the global crisis that as expected, it fully involved the demand of the
maritime transport as direct depending. In 2010,a light recovery brought the value of
capital intensive asset on levels of investment returns still promising.

The productive capacity and the prices fixed of a Handy from the shipyards depend on
an economic-financial evaluation for investment decisions of vessel. In effect, shipping
companies have a greater advantage if the investment happens in a shipyard that applies
bargain prices, because are more convenient and with a better standards on quality.
Besides, if there was the possibility for the companies to gain, make investments during
a negative economic trend, this would lead high economic yields, when progress in
demands takes a positive trend. Dry bulk shipping cycle is dependent from market
trends and classified as: trough, recovery, peak, collapse with repeated cycle.

At peak moments, a vessel increases in value as though for Handy in 2007. Usually, a
second hand vessel generates a higher attractiveness than a new building since between

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its purchase order and the delivery date it needs more than one year, while a second
hand is available in a short time. And it can even fully satisfy a dynamic demand of a
transport that generates high profits.

3.THE METHODOLOGICALAPPROACH
In maritime investment analysis the discrete choice model are generally applied and
defined in the literature( Fan L. and Lou M. 2013, Frankel E.1992)
We analyze ship investment based on shipowner choice behavioral model derived to dry
bulk companies RP/SP survey (revealed preference and stated preference methodology
Hensher D.H., Rose J.M. and Greene W.H. 2005) with MNL model, and also in
financial Cost Benefit Analysis by an application on real case directly provided by
companies. In terms of ship selection, the methodological approach used supports the
assumption that shipowners decide on a new building or second-hand purchase
evaluating the more preferable returns. For new orders, the preference increases with
high internal rate of return (IRR) and net present value (NPV). For second-hand ships,
the preference derives by a worthwhile purchase price and loan . Anyway, for each ship
types, the preference increases with increasing time-charter rate.

For shipowners the decision of investing in a vessel is crucial because the vessel may be
the whole business itself.

This paper shows the progress of the methodology used and the results based on a real
application ofamaritime investment of Handy dry bulk tanker. The strategic option will
conduct the shipowner eventually to purchase a new vessel or 5 years old second hand
vessel.

The study examines and confronts two quantitative approaches: the cost-benefit analysis
(CBA) and the multinomial logit model (MNL). The financial CBA considers the
investment of a vessel exclusively based to the comparison of costs and benefits that it
gets to the shipowner. The second, behavioral approach (MNL), allows the selection of
the bestalternativeof vessel purchase based on the random utility maximization (RUM)
asa sum of variables (attributes) considered.

The aim of this paper is to aid the final decision of the shipowner by evaluating of
investment project based on the application of twoproposed methods.

3.1 RESULTS OF THE ASSESSMENT OF THE VESSEL INVESTMENT WITH CBA

The costs-benefits analysis is a well consolidated methodology in literature and applied
in various fields. In maritime transport for investment analysis, Alizard A. H. and
Nountios N. (2011) in Culliname K. Ed, Grammenos C. (2010), Karakitsos E. and
Varnavides L. (2014) Kavussanos M. G.( 2010).This paper considers anapplication in a
selection of two vessels of the same class but of different age to find the most
convenient alternative within the financial profile. The new buildingis available in 2016
and presumably resold in 2020. Is this the better alternative for a shipowner compared
to the purchase of a second hand vessel?

The classical procedures used to answer this query are Net Present Value (NPV) and
Internal Rate of Return ( IRR).

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 SHIPPING BUSINESS

It has been done a financial application of CBA based on a real case of investment in a
new building and a second hand ship based on the assumptions of reselling vessel in
together hypothesis.

The following tables (1,2,3, 4)show the vessel characteristics and the main results.

Table 1 new vessel data

HANDY BULK 37.000,00
Price 33.000.000,00
Leverage 65,00%
Loan 21.450.000,00
OPEX 5.500,00
Installments 24
Our elaboration

Table2 New buildingresults

Year 1 2 3 4 5
Roe 0,10% 0,25% 0,37% 0,48% -3,76%
VAN 605.539,56
IRR 5,73%
Our elaboration

Table3 Second hand ship data

HANDY BULK 37.000,00
Price 26.000.000,00
Leverage 60,00%
Loan 15.600.000,00
OPEX 6.000,00
Installments 24
Our elaboration

Table 4 Second hand ship results

Year 1 2 3 4 5
Roe 5,58% 5,47% 5,33% 5,18% -0,77%
VAN 1.842.297,78
IRR 8,58%
Our elaboration

The business plan foresees the revenues from time charter and the amortization to
constant capital share. Furthermore, to be consideredthe running cost that a vessel has
to bear. Financially, to be examined the equity,debtandleverage. The assessment's
principal elements in the selection of a vessel are: price of the vessel, the running
cost,equity, loan,interest rate and leverage, butin the two hypothesis of investment these
parameters useddiffer from each other.

From the CBA results the net preference for second hand vessel. The new ship with an
investment of 33.000.000 Million $, an increasing ROE for first 4 years and a net

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reduction in the five last year of -3.76, Van of 605.000 $ and IRR of 5.73. On the
contrary all the parameters of second hand are better, with a lower price of 26.000.000
Milliom $ and are higher ROE with a modest reduction at five year of -.77, VAN
1.842.297 and IRR 8.58.

3.2 RESULTS OF THE ASSESSMENT OF THEVESSEL INVESTMENT WITH MNL

The multinomial logit model (MNL), used in this application, is based on arandom
utility maximization (RUM) and also it is well defined in the literature. The systematic
utility is a sum of attributes in which the values are calculated on RP/SP survey
(Hensher A., Rose J M., Greene W. H. 2005). The MNL, Ben Akiva M. and Lerman S.
(1985) is based on the hypothesis that the random residuals are independently and
identically distributed as Gambel .
The model has been calibrated by maximum likelihood simulation approach with the
repeated choices of the shipowners (3).
The alternatives considered are the same used in the CBA:new vessel and 5 years
second hand old.
The most common application of the MNL uses the following formulas, Cascetta
E.(2001):

exp(V j θ )
p( j ) =
∑ exp(V k θ)
k (1)
In the case of only two alternative the MNL k and j is called Binomial Logit and can be
expressed as:

1
p( j ) =
[
1 + ∑ exp (Vk − V j ) / θ ]
k≠ j
(2)
The choice probability of alternative j depends on the difference between the systematic
utilities.
The maximum likelihood method is:

ρ 2 =1−
ln L β ( ML
)
ln L (0 )
(3)
The data are available from the shipping companiescooperation, with a sample of 24
ships analyzed. The SP repeated choice has been directly managed by shipowners.
Theattributesof the utility function applied to the model are the following:

 price
 running cost
 time charter
 investment risk

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These attributes are all quantitative values excluded the investment risk. In particular, in
qualitative terms,it defines the owner’s risk in doing an strategic investment linked to its
return. This attribute was standardized in appropriate range by shipowners.

The results of the NLOGIT 3.0 software are shown in Table 5 below. Although, we are
in presence of a modest sample of repeated choices from a group of companies of the
sector, the application can be considered as an adequate accomplishment because this
model gives a satisfactory solution to our problem. All the variables are sufficiently
reliable and the scientific experiment is positive. The T test value is good for the time
charter, running cost and risk of the investment. At lower statistical level is the price.

The result of MNL model in the choice of the new ship is not aligned with the CBA.
The modeling approach gives also a complete reply about the choice probability (with
model predicted probability on 80% of actual) for all two vessel alternative of
investments.

The model output evidences a preference for alternative 1 (new ship) with a choice
probability of 0.55, and 5 years old with 0.45. In this analysis the time charter with the
best T of 1.018 is a relevant variable as in the CBA. At last the application reports also
the relevance of investment risk for the shipowner’s choice.

The general test of model simulation attests a log likelihood function of about -3.78,
Rsqrd= 0.50 and RsqAdj = 0.10, Chi-squared 7.59 .

Tab.5. MNL results model coefficients, std and T

Parameters Coefficients Stderror b /St.Er PZ>z

Variables

Price -1.03815291 1.50629794 -.689 .4907

Runningcost -2.01022902 2.13602434 -.941 .3466

Time charter .84663617 .83168295 1.018 .3087

Investment risk 7.97545658 8.79332896 .907 .3644

A_1 1.33584211 2.89166738 .462 .6441

Log Likelihood -3.78

Function

Rsqrd .50

RsqAdj .10

Our elaboration on shipping companies data

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Tab 6 Direct and cross elasticity as regard attribute price

Alternatives Choice 1 Choice 2

Choice1 (newbuil) 1.814 -1.583

Choice 2 (5years) -1.253 1.295

Our elaboration

In the application it is been also calculated the elasticity (table 6),in the direct and cross
formulas, of demand varying the way-in vessels. They are computed averaging over
observation of the attribute price in two choice and reveal the effects on changing
probabilities. From the table we see the direct elasticity effect of the attribute price that
is high as regards two vessel choice. The direct elasticity is as regard new ship equal
1,814 respect a cross elasticity of 1.583 in absolute value. The two alternatives have
high elasticity values; it means that the price variations of the vessels influence their
demand. In the second choice for direct elasticity for second hand vessel we have an
higher value of 1.295 as regard cross elasticity of 1.253 (absolute value) of new vessel.
Considering both the elasticity of the new vessel, a reduction of its price would lead to
higher changing choice probability of investment, as regard of the second hand ships. In
effect, the cross elasticity demand of the new building relative to the price of 5 years
second hand is equal to 1.583 and it signifies that a reduction of the price of second
hand vessel it would be an increasing of choice probability for the second hand ship
more than proportional but less than the previous value 1.814 of the new vessel.

4. CONCLUSIONS

The model was calibrated in a temporal arch of time 2015-2020 in a dry bulk volatile
demand with a supply surplus and an overcapacity of hold. A market's negative phase,
the collapse, gives the shipowner the chance to implement profitable investments
generated by favorable conditions of purchasing from shipyards, because of the low
levels of demand. It is usual in these conditions that shipyards came to face with the
idea to bid newly built vessels commissioned by ship owners, but not anymore collected
with an obvious cut down of prices and, therefore, an edge to those whom have a
positive status to purchase. At present, the scenery still records a contrasting
movements, and also the situation of freight rate that remains in low levels casting year
2013 a negative critical condition, in which the slight recovery of demand on new
building cannot manage to reach the progress of supply, that is rather showing-off
higher and higher.

The model results of the two different methodologies, CBA and MNL, led to different
assessments; in effect, the MNL identifies a clear preference for new vessel. It reveals a
speculative phenomenon by the owner, in which the vessel is the subject. The
behavioral model applied in the context of vessel choice can be considered a valid
alternative to cost benefits analysis in the assessment of an investment. It is to state that
the random utility approach is more powerful of a traditional CBA as much as it is
capable to identify a plurality of variables able to represent the behavior of the ship
owner. The data used to test the model is the SP survey in the context of the repeated
choice of leading operators in dry bulk market with a modest sample.

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The application of CBA identifies clearly the best investment in purchasing of the
second hand vessel. The time charter used in two methodologies derive by owners
experience and market statistical data. The reducing of capital recovery period in CBA
gives relevant limitation to the application. On the contrary,we have a very significant
set of variables to define the behavior of the owner introduced in the functions of utility
of the vessel choice. The goodness of statistical fit evidences the scientific relevance of
MNL model with some variables like time charter, price, running cost at a good T level.
It is so possible to affirm that the number of random variables involved in the analysis
and particularly the investment risk define completely the behavior of a ship owner who
operates in an international dangerous and volatility market subject to wide oscillations
of the time charter variable. In synthesis, the two applications reveal a different result.

While the CBA analysis reveals a low statistical goodness due to little number years
used in the IRR simulation and then the unpredictable of capital recovery after 5 year by
reselling; instead, the MNL model consents to use same non quantitative variables as
investment risk, fundamental in the analysis.

Under the methodological aspect, the future research of behavioral models is opened to
new fields of application with the possibility to make use of financial variables as equity
and loan, leverage, interest rate; furthermore with these models it possible to analyze
also the seaport infrastructures problems and choice of port , the expert system
technology integrate behavioral approach, etc. At last, they allows to put in some
indicators just like those psychometrics which may improve a decision making process
of the owner.

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REFERENCES

Alizard A. H. and Nountios N. (2011) An investigation into the effect of risk

management on the profitability of shipping investment and operation. International
Book of Maritime Economics, Kevin Culliname Editor, Edward Elgar, Chentenham,
UK.
Ben Akiva M. and Lerman S. (1985). Discrete choice analysis. The MIT Press
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts02142.
Cariou P and Wolf F.C. (2011) Shipowner decision to outsource vessel management .WP
JEMN University of Nantes
Cascetta E.(2001).Transportation system engineering: theory and methods. Kluver
Academic Publishers, 95-101.
Clarkson Research Serviced Limited (2013) Oil & Tanker Trades Outlook
Fan L. and Luo M. (2013). Analyzing ship investment behavior in liner shipping.
Maritime Policy and Management 40
Frankel E. G. (1992) Hierarchical logit in shipping policy decision-making. Maritime
Policy and Management 19(3)
Grammenos C. (2010 ) The handbook of maritime economics and business. Grammenos
Editor . Lloyd ‘s List, London
Greene W.H. (2002) Nlogit. Econometric software,Inc.Australia
Haralambides H.E. (1996) The economics of bulk shipping pool. Maritime Policy &
Management 23 (3).
Hensher D.A., Rose J. H., Greene W.H. Applied Choice Analysis. Cambridge
University Press, New York
Hensher D.A.,Rose J. H., Greene W.H.(2005) Applied Choice Analysis. Cambridge
University Press, New York
Karakitsos E. and Varnavides L. (2014) Maritime Economics : A macroeconomic
approach. Palgrave MacMillan
Kavussanos M. G.( 2010) Business risk measurement and management in the cargo
carrying sector of the shipping industry. An update. Grammenos Editor , Lloyd ‘s List,
London.
McFadden D, (1975) Aggregate travel demand forecasting from disaggregated
behavioural models. Transportation Research Record: Travel behaviour and values,
354,24-37,
Stopford M (2009). Maritime Economics. Routledge, Taylor and Francis
Tsolakis S.D. Cridland C. Haralambides H.M. (2003) Econometric modeling of second
hand hip prices. Maritime Economics and Logistics

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ANALYSIS AND STRATEGY OF BARCELONA’S PORT IN THE

PROJECT HORIZON 2020
Eduardo Sáenz Alcántara (I) Correspondent author and presenter
Jesús E. Martínez Marín (I)
Ernesto Madariaga Domínguez (II)
Luis M. Vega Antolín (II)

(I) Nautical Engineering and Science Department. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,

Pla de Palau, 18. 08003 Barcelona, Spain. eduardo.saenzalc@gmail.com,
jemartinez@cen.upc.edu
(II) Sciences and Techniques of Navigation and Shipbuilding Department. Cantabria
University. School of Maritime Engineering. Gamazo, 1. 39004 Santander, Spain.
madariagae@unican.es, luismanuel.vega@unican.es

Abstract
Barcelona´s Port has been overtaken by its competitors in the last years. This paper
offers a complete analysis of Port of Barcelona with a comparison to Port of Rotterdam,
Port of Valencia and Port of Marseille to detect its weaknesses and strengths, focusing
on future strategies.
Moreover, the sustainability of the shipping sector has become an important matter at
the current time. A clear example is the project Horizon 2020 that needs now to focus
on future goals, as the introduction of the Polar Code, which produces new
opportunities for shipping lines. However, in the near future Port of Barcelona can
offer a good shipping time to the different continents (through Suez Canal, Strait of
Gibraltar and the Mediterranean). Furthermore, it could act as a hub for Southern
Mediterranean, offering excellent connections by railway (contributing to Horizon
2020), avoiding the unnecessary risks of the Northern Sea Route and taking profit of the
scales economies.

Keywords
Shipping, Port Management Strategy, Polar Code, Project Horizon 2020, Hinterland.

1. PORT OF BARCELONA
Port of Barcelona is one of the most important sea ports in Europe. It is located in the
country of Catalonia, in the North-East of Spain. Barcelona has a privileged location
thanks to its closeness to: the strait of Gibraltar (connecting to America and Africa),
North Africa, the Suez Canal (easy access to Asia and Middle East) and Southern
Europe by train, being the best located port of Spain thanks to its proximity to central
Europe (through France). For all these reasons, this study can consider it a strategic port
in the Mediterranean Sea (Figure 1).

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Figure 1 – Geographical location of Barcelona´s Port.

Source: Google Maps by authors.

We must also take into account that Catalonia represents the 16% of the total Spanish
population (7.5 million inhabitants), it generates 19% of the Spanish GDP [1] and 27%
of the national maritime trade is carried by Port of Barcelona. For this reason, the port is
also located in an economical area, mostly focused on high added value goods,
providing 32.000 jobs.
Concerning its infrastructures, Port of Barcelona is a modern port thanks to the latest
investments. For example, there was an investment recently of 500 million Euros by the
Chinese company Hutchison Port Holdings to the container terminal Barcelona Europe
South Terminal (BEST) [2]. Thanks to the investment it has been possible to implement
the semi-automated system in the terminal, achieving the average of 78 movements per
hours, only behind Bremerhaven (Germany) and Rotterdam (Netherlands) in Europe
[3]. Moreover, in January 2016 the other most important terminal in Barcelona,
Terminal de Contenidors de Barcelona (TCB), has been bought by the important group
APM Terminals. This change in the management is expected to be positive in the near
future, increasing its benefits and its growth.

1.1. CONTAINERIZED TRAFFIC

Nowadays Port of Barcelona is considered the third most important port in Spain (the
16th in Europe) regarding the containerized traffic. For this reason, we are going to
focus firstly on this type of traffic.
Port of Barcelona moved in 2015 1.965.240 TEUs, Twenty Feet Equivalent Unit, (3.8%
more than in 2014), which only 281.983 TEUs were transhipment containers (it means
only the 14,35% of the total traffic) [4]. The best advantage is that, as we can see, it is a
port that benefits a lot from high added value goods. It signifies that it is generated a
large benefit thanks to the reduced amount of cargo for transhipment. On contrary,
497.967 empty TEUs (25.34% of total traffic) were also loaded and mostly unloaded,
being a big amount that signifies almost no benefits for the port. Regarding the loadings

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and unloading, we can consider Port of Barcelona as an exporter port. Figure 2 shows
that in terms of full containers the number of loadings was much larger than the
unloading ones. Taking into account the empty containers, the unloading signifies
42.23% of total traffic whereas the loading signifies the 43.43%.

Figure 2 – General cargo distribution by operation 2015 (TEU).

Transit 66.000 215.983 Total transit:

281.983
Operation

Unload 332.504 497.327 Total Unload:

829.831

Load 99.463 753.964

Total Load:
853.426

0 100.000 200.000 300.000 400.000 500.000 600.000 700.000 800.000 900.000 Empty

Total TEUs Full

Source: Authors.

Regarding the main markets of the port we have to consider the following facts in order
to detect the main foreland of the port. First, we have to take into account the
importance of the Asiatic market in the last years. Because of the economical crisis,
there was a big hit in worldwide markets that produce a reduction of the goods imported
and exported. The case of Asia is a clear example; Figure 3 shows that from 2007 to
2012 there was a decrease of 37% in the trades between Port of Barcelona and China,
having a big impact in the total traffics of Port of Barcelona [4].

Figure 3 – Evolution of the traffic in Port of Barcelona from/to main countries and total traffic
2007-2015 (only full non-transit containers are considered).

China USA United Arab Emirates Brazil Total FULL TEUS

400.000 1.400.000
1.135.415 1.251.291
(Transit not included)
FULL TEUs/Country

(Transit not included)

350.000 1.200.000
300.000 1.000.000
Total TEUs

250.000
800.000
200.000 861.317
600.000
150.000
100.000 400.000
50.000 200.000
0 0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Years

Source: Authors.

On the other hand, we can analyze the case of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In this
case, we observe that, despite the economical crisis, there was a continuous increase of
the traffic to/from UAE (trend line of Figure 3). This signifies that it is a market

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upwards that has made possible a small increase of the traffics in the last years. At
present, the evolution has been stabilized.
Finally, it is important to take a look at the traffic to/from Africa taking into
consideration that Port of Barcelona could be one hub for the continent thanks to its
geographical location and its accessibility to central Europe. We can consider it as a
strategic market because it is a market that was not much affected by the crisis and it is
growing slowly in the last years. In this way, there was in 2015 a traffic of 109.339
TEUs (full non-transit containers) to/from North Africa and only 20.304 TEUs to/from
West Africa. We can conclude that despite none of the markets are close to the figures
of the Asiatic market, the North of Africa is a potential market for the port and special
attention must be taken. Surprisingly, the situation of West Africa is very different,
where Port of Barcelona has seen as there has been a decrease of the traffic and it is
almost an insignificant port for this market.

1.2. BULK TRAFFIC

The case of bulk traffic is very different to the containerized one. Port of Barcelona is
focused mostly on the containerized traffic because of its infrastructures, being now
positioned in a non privileged position, very far from ports like Tarragona. In this
specific case, Port of Tarragona moved 22,315 million metric tons (M mt) of Liquid
Bulk and 8,365 M mt of Dry Bulk in 2015, being the third most important port for this
type of traffic in Spain [5].

Figure 4 – Bulk traffic of Port of Barcelona and main types of Liquid bulk in 2015.
Hydrocarbons Chemical products Other liquid bulk Biofuel

9.259.034mt

Solid Bulk Liquid Bulk

4.426.087mt 12.055.321mt

851.051mt

1.062.668mt
882.568mt

Source: Authors.

In 2015, the Port of Barcelona moved 12,055 M mt of Liquid Bulk and 4,426 M mt of
Dry bulk (almost 7% less than 2014 in both traffics) [4]. Then, we can conclude that
Port of Barcelona is not really focused on this type of traffic. However, it is important to

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observe (Figure 4) that most of the traffic is imported liquid bulk (hydrocarbons,
chemical products, etc.). Those products are usually used for the transport sector and
industries. Generally, they are not produced in Europe, so they are always imported
from Russia, Middle East or some other areas.

1.3. HINTERLAND
For understanding the actual position of the port, it is needed to recognize as well the
current situation of its hinterland, an important factor that can have a big influence on
the traffics and to profit of its geographical location. Nowadays Port of Barcelona has 4
different railway’s lines, being the Transversal Iberian Corridor the most important one
[6] (it connects Barcelona – Zaragoza – Madrid – Lisbon), moving about the 72% of all
traffic carried by rail.
In 2015, the average of goods carried by railway signified the 14% of all imports and
exports of the port [7]. It is true that is constantly growing, but the pace is not enough if
the goal of the 20% wants to be achieved. For this reason, it is obvious that Port of
Barcelona must promote the transport by rail if a clean port is wanted. This percentage
signifies that the 86% of inland cargo is carried by trucks, which are only capable to
move two TEUs, being much more pollutant, producing traffic jams and not taking
profit of the scales economies [8].
The main problem of the port is the track gauge of Port of Barcelona. Today Spain has
the Iberian gauge (1.668 mm) that signifies that it is impossible for the Spanish
exporters to carry directly their goods by train to other European countries.
Accordingly, it is urgent for Port of Barcelona that a Standard gauge (UIC Gauge, 1.435
mm) is built to/from the French border in order to make possible the connection of the
port with central Europe and to increase the transport by railway, reducing the pollution
and taking advantage of the scales economies.

2. ROTTERDAM VS BARCELONA
For the time being, the Port of Rotterdam is the main hub of Europe, being the biggest
of the continent and being able to achieve the 11th place worldwide in terms of
containerized cargo (the most important port after the Asian ones) [9]. Therefore, Port
of Barcelona is very far from Rotterdam, but it is important to focus on the hinterland of
the port in order to understand why it is moving such traffic.
In 2015, Port of Rotterdam moved 12.234.535 TEUs (2.423.668 TEUs were empty
containers, Figure 5), what means that Port of Barcelona moved only the 16% of the
total Rotterdam’s TEUs in that year. Of those containers, almost the exports and the
imports were equal, with 51,92% of the containers being discharged and 48,08% being
loaded [10].
Concerning the bulk cargo, Port of Rotterdam is also the leader in the continent. In
2015, it moved 87,379M mt of dry bulk (97,6% were imports) and 224,640M mt of
liquid bulk (77,7% were imports) [10]. Consequently, we can consider Port of
Rotterdam as an importer of bulk, because of the importance of Crude oil, Mineral Oil
products, Iron Ore, Coal etc. that are being imported. In addition, it is obvious that Port

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of Barcelona is very far from the figures of the Dutch port because of its infrastructures
and its strategic plan (among other reasons).

Figure 5 – Comparison between Port of Rotterdam and

Port of Barcelona of TEUs full/empty in 2015.
12.000
Teus x 1.000

10.000

8.000

6.000
80,19%
Empty
4.000 Full
2.000
19,81% 25,34% 74,66%
0
Rotterdam Barcelona
Ports

Source: Authors.

In comparison with the main markets of Port of Barcelona, we must comment that for
Rotterdam the most important bulk markets are Brazil (importation of Iron Ore),
Colombia (importation of Coal), and Russia (importation of Crude Oil and Oil mineral
products). In contrast, about containers' market (Figure 6): Asia (about the 47% of total
TEUs), Europe (thanks to Short Sea Shipping Routes), and much smaller the American
market [10]. On opposite, we should remark that for Port of Rotterdam, in spite of
moving about 100.000 more TEUs to/from Africa than Port of Barcelona, it is not a
potential market for him in terms of percentage. For this reason, it is important for Port
of Barcelona to focus on this market and benefit from the geographical position, as
already commented.

Figure 6 – Incoming and outgoing TEU in Port of Rotterdam.

Incoming Outgoing Total
Europe 2.075 2.138 4.213
Africa 151 75 226
America 1.151 833 1.984
Asia 3.012 2.803 5.815
Oceania 27 33 60
Total 6.416 5.882 12.298
Unit: Number of TEU x 1.000
Source: Authors.

The most important part of the comparison is the hinterland factor. Nowadays any port
is completely dependent on its hinterland in the way that it is one of the most important
factors. Hence the bigger hinterland a port has, the bigger influence in the territory it
will have. That is why Port of Rotterdam is a clear example of a well developed
hinterland.
The main feature of Rotterdam is that it is located surrounded by long navigable rivers
that let the port having good connections by road, by rail and by barge. The last

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mentioned mean of transport is very important if we consider that about the 35% (in
2011) of all cargo arriving to the port is being delivered to other European destination
by barge [11]. We must not forget that this mean of transport is much cleaner than the
truck because it can carry lots of containers at the same time and it does not produce
traffic jams. On contrary, Port of Barcelona cannot benefit from barges because Spain
doesn’t have any navigable river and it is impossible to promote the transport by barges.
Apart from this mean of transport, the most important network is the railway. With
railway it is also possible to take profit of the scales economies and to connect with
cities which don’t have navigable rivers, expanding its hinterland. For this reason, Port
of Rotterdam has multiple daily connections to European countries (France,
Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Austria…) and it has an important cargo railway link to
Germany called Betuweroute (more than the 50% of the cargo is containerized [11]).
The important network to Germany was built in 2007 and was the project nr.5 of the
Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). The main problem of Betuweroute is that
it had a very big environmental impact. As we can see, Port of Barcelona is still far
from the railway connections of Rotterdam and that is why the hinterland is much
smaller, being impossible to increase its traffics without the international gauge.

2.1. THE POLAR CODE: NEW ROUTES

The new “International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters” was adopted by the
International Maritime Organization (IMO) and SOLAS amendments during the 94th
session of IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee (MSC), in November 2014. The
environmental provisions and MARPOL amendments were adopted during the 68th
session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) in May 2015. The
Polar Code was developed considering the different maritime safety and pollution
requirements that already existed (SOLAS, MARPOL, UNCLOS and STCW) [12] so as
to provide for safe ship operation and the protection of the polar environment [13]. The
main reasons for creating the code were the raise of the worldwide temperatures and
consequently, the reduction [14] of the Arctic sea ice extent (Figure 7). This problem for
the environment (future geographical changes [15]) could become also a conflict of
interests not only of the surrounding countries but also of the shipping routes, becoming
indispensable the publication of the Polar Code.
Northern European countries could then have a privileged position for the new shipping
routes considering that it will be possible to sail almost the whole year in the near future
[16]. Port of Rotterdam is a clear example of the new advantages in terms of reducing
the transit times. The distance from Rotterdam to Shanghai (e.g.) through the Suez
Canal is about 19.300 Km. while through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) it is 14.875
Km. [17]. Therefore, it will signify a reduction of some days of the navigation time
between both cities.
On the other hand, the Polar Code is very restrictive (Figure 8) and special economical
efforts must be carried to perform the future legal navigation through the NSR [17].
Firstly, the vessels must be constructed with materials resisting very low temperatures,
being suitable only specific ship categories [13]. Secondly, the equipment on board
must be suitable for this type of navigation: special clothing, lifeboats must be partially
or totally enclosed type, windows on bridge must clear possible external affectations,
etc. [13]. Thirdly, for the operations of the vessel it is required that the most important

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crew such Masters, Chief Mates and Officers have a specific training, that the vessel
must carry the Polar Code and the Polar Ship Certificate, etc. [13].

Figure 7 – Arctic surface air temperature anomaly over land 1900-2012.

Source: UK Government. UK policy towards the Arctic.

Figure 8 – Requirements for vessels (Polar Code).

Source: IMO.

Apart from the risk of navigating surrounded by ice, the NSR presents some risks and
obstacles. The most important ones concerns to the oil pollution management, having a
different behaviour in low temperatures, and the absence of an adequate infrastructure
of Search and Rescue (SAR). Furthermore, the knowledge of the area is not very high
[17] (lack of information about safe ports, about local oceanographic conditions, about
ice and meteorological data, insufficiently detailed charts, etc.) and there can be some

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problems due to high latitudes (communication equipment and conventional gyro).

Finally, it is not known the exact fee that could be implemented by Russia to navigate
through the passage, but possibly it will become an economical handicap due to a high
imposed fee [18].
For all these reasons, the study can conclude that despite Port of Rotterdam could
reduce its transit time to Far East, Port of Barcelona should promote its position.
Barcelona could offer a reduced transit time through the Suez Canal without the need of
increasing risks (through Arctic Route), acting as a hub for Europe (thanks to its
geographical location) and reducing costs (because the special needs of Northern
Passage and taking profit of the scales economies).

3. VALENCIA VS BARCELONA
The case of Valencia Port is much more different to the case of Port of Rotterdam.
Valencia is a direct competitor of Port of Barcelona not only because its geographical
location but also because its types of traffics. These days, Valencia Port is the second
most important port in Spain (the 6th in Europe) in terms of containerized traffic, very
close to Port of Algeciras. As we will see, the bulk traffic has a completely different
situation because of the strategy and infrastructure of the port that today is considered a
hub of MSC in South Europe.

Figure 9 – Containerized and bulk traffic of Valencia Port by operation in 2015.

3.000.000 2.500.000
Metric Tons
TEUs

2.500.000 2.000.000
2.000.000 1.271.559
1.500.000
1.500.000
2.508.901 1.000.000 Solid
1.000.000
Liquid
500.000 1.089.798
500.000 1.035.134 1.035.881 233.391
0 0
222.747
Loading Unloading Transshipment Loading Unloading
Operation Operation

Source: Authors.

Regarding the containerized cargo of the port, it moved in 2015 a total of 4.579.916
TEUs. Comparing the total figures of both ports it is completely clear that the difference
between Port of Barcelona and Valencia Port is very huge (2.614.676 TEUs), but if we
focus on the type of traffic it changes a lot the situation. We can observe in Figure 9
how most of the cargo that is moved in Valencia Port is transhipment cargo (2.508.901
TEUs, 54,78%) and only 2.071.015 TEUs are loaded/unloaded for imports/exports
to/from the port [19]. This fact has a big importance considering that the benefit of an
operation is maximum when it is not a transit container. For this reason, if we only
focus on the containers loaded or unloaded, the difference between Port of Barcelona
and Valencia Port is 387.758 TEUs and in this way it is not a vast difference between
both ports.
The foreland of Valencia Port is not very different to Port of Barcelona. Some of its
main markets are [19] the Mediterranean and Black Sea (23,27% of the traffic because

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of the transit containers) and the Far East (17,08% of the traffic), being the exports,
imports and transit more or less equal. We should also comment the cases of Africa and
South America. In both cases, the traffic to/from Africa is the 8,58% of the total traffic,
being mostly transhipments to West Africa and almost insignificant for the South and
East Africa. The market of South America represents the 6,77% of total traffic. We can
obviously verify that Valencia Port benefits from its position of hub thanks to its
geographical location, being lots of containers discharged from one maritime line, and
afterwards loaded in another one, reducing costs for the company.
The situation of the bulk traffic is very different. In 2015, Valencia Port moved
1.317.773mt of Liquid bulk and 1.504.950mt of Dry bulk (Figure 9), of which most of
both traffics were importations. Therefore, it is a port importer of bulk but it doesn’t
have big figures. For example, if we compare to the figures of the Port of Barcelona, it
is not a big competitor in bulk traffic because of its infrastructures that are mostly
focused on containerized cargo.
Finally, Valencia and Barcelona are only 350km far one from the other, sharing similar
hinterland. It’s important to remark that Valencia Port is considered “the port of
Madrid” thanks to its proximity to the Spanish capital [20]. Anyway, Valencia Port has
also the problem of the Iberian gauge that makes almost impossible to transport goods
from/to European countries by railway. However, Port of Barcelona has a better
strategic position thanks to its proximity to France and could be the most beneficiary of
a hypothetic UIC Gauge.

4. MARSEILLE VS BARCELONA
Port of Marseille-Fos is completely different to the ones already explained because its
infrastructures and its main traffics. The French port is considered the 7th most
important port in Europe in terms of total traffic, thanks to the bulk cargo that is
handling every year.
The containerized cargo is not very important for the port and it is not its actual target,
but despite not being a big competitor for this type of cargo, it is important to take it
into account. In 2015, the Port of Marseille moved 622.002 TEU’s, almost one third of
the Port of Barcelona, being the imports and exports very similar [21]. For the
geographical location, we can consider Port of Marseille a competitor port for Port of
Barcelona. On contrary, if we focus on the figures, it is obvious that the traffic of
containers is very reduced, being very difficult for Barcelona to attract the traffic of
Marseille.
The importance of Port of Marseille remains on the traffic of bulk [21]. In 2015, the
port moved a total of 31.341.708mt, mostly liquid products (Figure 10) like crude oil
and refined products that are used for transport and for industries. Accordingly to the
figures, Port of Barcelona is very far from the French port, but it is important to remark
the fact that Marseille is concentrated on bulk traffic while Barcelona is focused on
containerized cargo.
Regarding the hinterland of the port, Port of Marseille has the big advantage of being
very close to central Europe and the Mediterranean. In addition, Marseille has the
feature of having the most important navigable waterway in the EU thanks to the River

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Rhône that can connect Port of Marseille to Antwerp, crossing Lyon. Today, the port
acts as the gate of Lyon, the second biggest city in France, and in 2015 the port moved
about 6,5% of the containerized inland traffic by barges [22]. This characteristic makes
possible to increase its hinterland in an environmentally friendly way.

Figure 10 – Bulk traffic of Port of Marseille by operation in 2015.

Operation

Loading 4.468 673 Liquid

Solid
Unloading 19.598 6.602

0 5.000 10.000 15.000 20.000 25.000 30.000

Metric Tons x 1.000

Source: Authors.

Despite all the advantages of Port of Marseille (barges and railway connections, having
the Standard gauge), we can consider that most of the hinterland is condensed [22] on
the Southern French regions (60% of all traffic according to the French ministry of
transport) [23]. Moreover, we must comment that the traffic of the North is usually
carried to Le Havre (France), the most important port of France in terms of
containerized traffic, or Rotterdam (Netherlands).

5. PROJECT HORIZON 2020

Horizon 2020 (H2020) is a project launched by the European Commission with the aim
of creating more job occupations and promoting a smarter and sustainable European
Union (EU). For the project, all sectors of the economy and the society are considered,
and one of the most important is the transport. The transport is surrounding all type of
commerce at the present moment, being essential for the economy worldwide and
representing about the 3,7% of total EU’s GDP [24].
We have seen how the transport has grown very fast without considering its possible
consequences to the Earth, using means of transports completely dependents on oil. The
oil used is one of the main pollutants of the planet and it is estimated that about the 63%
of all oil consumption [25] and the 29% of all CO2 emissions are produced by the
transport sector [26]. Furthermore, it is said that the transport will increase in the
following decades, producing more traffic jams and increasing the pollution, arriving to
a point of no return.
If we focus on the importance of the shipping industry, it is necessary to remark that
90% of the world’s consumer goods have been transported by vessels, having then a big
impact on the environment. For this reason, despite the maritime transport is considered
to be an efficient transport (because of the amount of cargo that can be carried in one
only trip), the 2,5% of the total world greenhouse gases are calculated to be produced
each year by the shipping industry [27]. Moreover, apart from the pollution produced by
the vessels, we have to comment that there is a concentration of pollution in the ports
because of the number of vessels and trucks that are working at the same time (Figure

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11). This pollution can be very harmful not only for the environment (sea and air), but
also to the surrounding communities that are living nearby the cities [28].

Figure 11 – NOx (Nitrogen Oxides) and PM10 (Particulate Matter, to analyze the air) emissions
from ports compared to other important polluters.

Source: Natural Resources Defense Council.

Figure 12 – Proposals for Horizon 2020 and possible improvements in the Port of Barcelona.
SITUATION in the Port of Barcelona (possible
PROPOSAL for Horizon 2020
improvements)
Plug in to shore side power while the operations are taking place
(Cold ironing system [29]) for berthed vessels.
• Requirements for vessels
To minimize the effect that can Offer incentives (reducing taxes and tariffs) to the vessels that
cause to the surroundings while control their emissions.
vessels are berthed.
Award the ship owners that have vessels using cleaner fuels than
Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO).

• Green and clean railway

Railway is the cleanest mean of
Tariffs to trains that exceed a minimum environmental protection
transport. Therefore, it is
standards regarding to the engines could be enlarged.
indispensable to promote the shift
of traffic from trucks to trains.

• Bidding process
For ensuring a good performance
of the port, Port of Rotterdam This bidding process, applying special criteria for the
implemented a concession sustainability, could make possible a reduction of the pollution
contract enhancing the produced in Port of Barcelona.
sustainability and the good
performance of the terminal [30].

It already exists the project of a Mediterranean Corridor [32] that

consists in the creation of a railway network from Algeciras to the
Ukrainian border. This project could:
• Promotion of railway and
TEN-T network
-Increase the hinterland of the port thanks to the UIC Gauge [33].
To promote efficient means of
transport (like Short Sea Shipping
-Promote a clean and efficient mean of transport that could reduce
[31] and railways) to strengthen
the congestions (bottlenecks) in roads.
the efficient intermodality.
-Attract goods that are now being loaded in Valencia Port or in
Southern France.
Source: Authors.

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 SHIPPING BUSINESS

Barcelona´s Port is a clear example. The port is surrounded by different cities, having a
big impact on the people living in the vicinity. This is why it is important to minimize
the risks for avoiding the pollution produced by the operations of the port and to reduce
traffic jams produced by the trucks arriving to the terminals. For all this reasons, some
proposals are given in this paper for improving the efficiency and the respect to the
environment in the Port of Barcelona (Figure 12).

CONCLUSIONS
Nowadays Port of Barcelona is not very well positioned in comparison with its
competitors. Important factors such as the hinterland, being conditioned by the absence
of UIC Gauge, are limiting the growth of the port and making impossible the expansion
of the area of influence to the North of the continent (through France). However, in the
near future Port of Barcelona could benefit from an advantaged position for
containerized traffic in the Mediterranean and the South of Europe. Firstly, Port of
Rotterdam is not a direct competitor because the large figures that it is moving each
year are still very far from Barcelona.
The privileged geographical location of Barcelona lets the port have an easy access to
Far East (through Suez Canal), Africa and America (through Gibraltar strait) without
unnecessary risks through the Northern Passage (regulated in Polar Code). The
advantages of the traditional route instead of the Northern Sea Route are clear: reduced
transit time, economical saves due to special requirements in the Polar Code and the
possibility of navigating during the whole year with any weather condition.
Valencia Port and Port of Marseille represent good actors for co-operating with Port of
Barcelona to create an important shipping area in Southern Europe. The co-operation
would let the Port of Barcelona act as a containers’ hub thanks to the proximity to
France and complement its traffics thanks to the bulk terminals of Marseille.
Barcelona’s port could then act as a hub for European goods, reducing costs and taking
advantage of the scales economies. Furthermore, the distribution of goods to Europe
using sustainable means of transport (railways and Short Sea Shipping routes) could
clearly act as an important contribution to the project Horizon 2020.

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[6] Van den Berg, R., De Langen, P. W., & Costa, C. R. (2012). The role of port
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[11] Guihery, L., & Laroche, F. (2015). Hinterland Portuaire: Le Nouveau Rôle Du Fer.
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[12] Deggim, H., & Senior Deputy Director, I. M. O. (2014). PROGRESS TOWARDS
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[23] Olaf, M. E. R. K. (2015). The Mediterranean Port-City Economy: The Cases Of

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Cold ironing and onshore generation for airborne emission reductions in
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Environmental Performance: Short Sea Shipping Vs Road Transport. Journal Of
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del Corredor Ferroviario Mediterráneo en el marco de la Red Transeuropea de
Transporte. RUE: Revista universitaria europea, (20), 49-72.

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RISK MANAGEMENT IN MARITIME BUSINESS: A QUALITATIVE

STUDY ON MANAGERIAL DECISION MAKING OF SHIP OWNING
COMPANY MANAGERS
Res. Asst. Hatice AKPINAR (I) (II)
Asst. Prof. Dr. Didem ÖZER ÇAYLAN (III)
(I) Dokuz Eylül University, Maritime Faculty, Maritime Business Administration Phd
Candidate, hatice.akpinar@deu.edu.tr
(II) Karadeniz Technical University, Surmene Faculty of Marine Sciences
(III) Dokuz Eylül University, Maritime Faculty

Abstract
Maritime Business is a risky business as its nature and managing uncertainty under
high risk often causes accidents and catastrophic events. But besides technical and
environmental sources of accidents however one of the basic sources of risky situations
lies under managerial decision making failures. Managing these uncertainty and fuzzy
situations becomes very important in averting risky circumstances or minimizing the
difficulties while handling them.
The purpose of the study is to discuss the importance of managerial decision making in
risk management taking into account the effects of the relevant culture. The originality
of the study lies in highlighting the differences and similarities to figure out the main
source of failures through handling the risk from management point of view. Semi
structured interviews were conducted with branch managers of global ship owners in
Izmir and managers of Turkish ship owning companies in Izmir. The management
decision making styles have been evaluated with the help of interviews. This paper has
the potential to contribute to understanding the main approaches and cultural
differences when managing the maritime risk by considering the human resources in
land offices.

Keywords
Maritime Safety, Managerial Decision Making, Maritime Risk Management, Safety
Culture

1. INTRODUCTION
In today’s global and competitive world companies should be able to manage and
operate their businesses with rapidly changing industrial habitat. Within changing rules,
industries themselves have their standards and own rules in order to make businesses
easier (Muniz et al., 2012).
Twentieth century was formed the grounds of the specific and industry possess rules
and regulations for maritime transport business in order to enable safety of the industry.
Although the industry regulates the basic standards, the shipping accidents are keep
going with catastrophic results (Chauvin et al., 2013). The sources of accidents,
collisions, capsizing are categorizes in many sources under different headings such as
human factors, technical failures, environmental and weather conditions etc. But one of
the main and most important factors could be the managerial decision making failure of
managers of shipping companies, ship owners and operators.

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The results of shipping accidents leave the owners in a very difficult situation from loss
of life to environmental pollution with big economic penalties and moral
responsibilities. With all these important consequences ship operators and managers are
aware the importance of risk management in maritime business with high attention
(Merrick and Dorp, 2006).
Safety culture has appeared as an important factor that affects the risk management
applications of ship owners and shaping the decision making process of shipping
managers in literature (Havold, 2000; Horck, 2004; Chauvin, 2011).
As its nature maritime business is a multinational industry in which ship owners and
managers are in touch with different people from different countries with different
languages and different national cultures from ship board to land offices (Horck, 2004).
While working with such a broad spectrum of cultural wealth, decision makers of
maritime companies face difficult processes to handle.
Ship owners and the managers make their decisions under existing data gathered from
the related situation. The given decisions shaped by the previous experiences of
decision makers and lead the process and the results (Fan, 2005). Decision making is
the main activity of the managers. From strategic to operational, managers of each layer
and department should hand down a decision as a daily routine. But while decisions are
made each situation has its own circumstances to judge and uncertainty makes decision
making process complicated.
Risk management enables to respond the fuzzy situations through decision making.
Under their circumstances each decision evaluated and controlled. Through these
processes each alternative reviewed and the best solution is chosen among the others.
And these solutions consist of its own components like technical, social and economic
etc. (Mullai, 2009).

2. RISK MANAGEMENT IN SHIPPING COMPANIES

Risk is seen as a consequence of undefined incident. And in order to manage the unknown
you have a strategy to measure and decide the unknown (Manuj and Mentzer, 2008).
Even though we could understand unknown could create a problem from the meaning of risk
as a word, the situation is believed to be managed if the situation and consequences could be
forecasted, through these forecast the results could be mitigated (Massingham, 2010).
Another definition of risk is seen as resulting in an undesirable situation that stems from
an operation of a firm which directly affects the conduct of the business itself. Risk
management is a management application which could handle the process of the
operation, protection, evaluation of mentioned operation for the sake of the company.
By risk management the organization could handle the unknown and could change it in
company’s favor. For effective risk management, decision makers should, first of all,
understand the situation with available information. There are many tools and tactics for
managers to handle the fuzzy situations in order to decide under uncertainty. By
effective risk management the shipping company could analyze the situations which
could have high economic impact, then after realizing the probable situation shipping
company could evaluate the consequences and take required precautions and ways to
handle that undesirable event (Nadrljanski et al., 2010).

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According to Erven (2012) “Human resources have two roles in risk management.
First, people are a source of risk. Second, people are important in handling risk.
Company members affect the organizational situations as a negative and positive way.
And as a human being, employees are affected by environmental, social and emotional
factors. These factors are the main sources of cognitive and biases of employees while
managing the risk.

3. MANAGERIAL DECISION MAKING IN MARITIME BUSINESS

Maritime business is a risky market which requires special risk management
applications in the companies. As its nature maritime business itself needs a regulative
environment for international harmony. Maritime business players are all around the
world, which requires basic standards for running daily routines.
Last century the importance of source of failures has been changed from technical errors
to company systems, managerial decision making, safety culture etc. (Havold, 2005).
The source of safety system problems comes from the management deficiencies,
organizational standards and applications, insufficient precautions and so on (Havold,
2000). In shipping, with its high risk occurrences and probabilities, the importance of
managerial decision making has been understood (Kontogiannis, 2010).
Decision making could be explained as a way of searching the necessary data,
evaluating the mentioned data and with the realization of the situation, making a
judgment for taking the required action. This period is called decision making process
which is the managerial system of handling a situation (Simons and Thompson, 1998).
Making decisions, applying new rules or changing operational applications are daily
duties of managers where decision making is the natural variable of mentioned
mechanisms. But in order to make a decision and reach a verdict, shipping managers
need to evaluate these mechanism shaped by the past experiences of the manager, social
statutes of the situation, economic consequences of each phase, company goals,
psychological sufficiency of the decision maker, life stress, fear, education of the
decision maker etc. (Martinsons and Davison, 2007; Oltedal, 2011; Wagenaar and
Groeneweg, 1987).
Making a decision means choosing an alternative among the others and it is sometimes
difficult to choose any alternative because of contradiction goals, indefinite and
unsettled environmental factors. Hence information flow and source of data are very
important for decision makers in order to give required decision for the sake of
company (Mullai, 2009).
Also giving a decision is another choice between risk and required return for the
company. The literature classifies managers into three according to their risk handling
styles as risk avoiders, risk takers and risk makers. The risk avoiders are the ones who
would rather low risk with low return; they are the risk averse decision makers. Risk
seekers are braver in taking risks than risk averse decision makers. An astute manager
should be seen as taking risks when necessary rather than gambling (March and
Shapira, 1987).
Human beings make mistakes, which is impossible to change whatever the organization
and the industry. Humans could not change but the conditions under which humans

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works could be. Inadequacies in organizations appear according to two sources which
are called “active failures” and “latent conditions”. Active failures are untrustable
applications of people who are directly contacted with the system. Latent failures are the
unseen and hard to realize until they come in sight, they are ineluctable which arise
from the decisions given in the system. Latent failures cause two conditions in
organizational operations; they could turn into an accident or they can turn into
persistent inabilities which could diminish the whole system (Reason, 2000).
Managers are workers of the organizations. They are recruited to manage the situations,
give decisions and handle the problems. They are able to plan future, choose required
consequences, control the operation and intervene when necessary. They are expected to
do right thing at the right time in competitive environment (Green and Twigg, 2014).
Managers could handle all these tasks by taking decisions and managing their
subordinates. Making decision means decision maker is aware of taking decision which
is a conscious choice among alternatives. With managers past experience and
predictions of future, environmental conditions and required information, the decision
has been shaped. Managers are also in a subordinate position which sometimes stuck
them in the middle between their superiors and inferiors while taking decisions
(Tannenbaum, 1950).
Additionally in an emergence without enough information and knowledge, managers
have to decide and apply an urgent solution in order to mitigate the risky situation.
Sometimes received information for the solution could be incorrect or not enough to
settle on. With all these difficulties managers with leadership talents are precious
(Sayegha et al., 2004).

4. RISK MANAGEMENT THROUGH DECISION MAKING

Decision making could be evaluated as risk taking under fuzzy situations. Shipping
companies face different conditions from all over the world which shape the industry. In
order to cope with these difficulties managers should understand the dynamics of the
industry which evoke a pressure and stressful conditions, anxiety, fear or etc. (March
and Shapira, 1987). Under those circumstances managing risk becomes an important
and complicated duty for decision makers. By managing risk, shipping companies could
prevent serious accidental problems or system failures or at least minimize the effect of
problem. Understanding the industry characteristics, matching them with the
organizational priorities, evaluating and forecasting the possibilities could show that
risk could be manageable through decision making (Massingham, 2010).
With accurate and timely information flow managers could improve the knowledge they
gained and make much realistic and appropriate decision through controlling and
managing the risk. Having enough knowledge able to clear the fuzzy conditions and
cope with uncertainty (Massingham, 2010; Riabacke, 2006).
With managing skills and giving right decisions, managers could increase the reliability
and the value of the shipping company. Therefore managers are in charge to make right
decision, apply necessary steps to overcome the risks of his company. Shipping firms
need to be proactive than reactive in highly competitive environment of global world.
Also managers could analyze, identify and learn from the mistakes of the company,
system and their own decision failures in order not to repeat the same mistakes and

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risky situations (Rode, 1997). By good decision making process organizations could
block the severity of the risk to the company.
As decision making enables to reduce and manage risks, the process becomes vital for
shipping companies. Managers could face three kinds of uncertainty and fuzzy
situations to handle which are insufficient understanding, deficient information and
identical alternatives (Lipshitz and Strauss, 1997). In order to minimize the severity of
these uncertainties managers could apply five ways according to Lipshitz and Strauss
(1997) as belows:

• Reducing uncertainty
• Assumption-based reasoning,
• Weighing pros and cons of competing alternatives,
• Suppressing uncertainty,
• Forestalling.

5. THE IMPACT OF SAFETY CULTURE ON RISK MANAGEMENT

Accidents and catastrophic events in maritime businesses change decision making ways
of regulative bodies and emphasize the safety culture and management application of
the industry. From the lessons learned from those losses managerial decision making,
organizational safety culture, human factors, both sea crew and land personnel, become
crucial for companies (Ek and Akselsson, 2005).
The term of safety culture first arise as a source of accidental operations evolved by
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after the disaster Chernobyl nuclear power
(Hetherington et al., 2006; Oltedal, 2011).
Although accepted international conventions in maritime industry put some operational
standards initially, the idea of safety culture was formally placed after ISM
(International Safety Management) Code and FSA (Formal Safety Assessment)
applications. Safety culture and inefficient management applications are seen as sources
of accidents and catastrophic events in maritime industry and regulative bodies and
maritime countries decide to put additional guidelines by ratifying mentioned
applications. By applying those standards maritime companies could take important
precautions and improve the safety of their systems and operations (Oltedal, 2011; Lois
et al., 2004).
The definition of culture varies in the literature but the following definitions broadly
describe the term. According to Chauvin et al., 2013 culture is “unofficial or unspoken
rules, values, attitudes, and beliefs and customs of an organization”. Other definition of
the culture according to Guldenmund, (2010) is “generally conceived of as having a
largely implicit, tacit core of shared values, beliefs, convictions, basic assumptions, etc.,
and manifests itself in artifacts like formal and informal dress, buildings, rituals and
behavior, and verbal expressions like statements and explanations”
The safety culture of the organization shapes the managerial decision making and
affects the way of handling risk. The organizational safety culture shows itself in
relationships of the employees, procedures of the organizations, values and priorities of
the organizational goals and even behavioral attitudes of employees. The organization
which has its own safety approaches gives required attention for safety (Chauvin, 2011).

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Safety culture settle the working environment of the company, management style of risk
management, decision making procedures, problem perception and solving approaches
etc. Managers embedded the decision making process with the safety culture of the
organizations (Erven, 2012; Havold, 2000).
Every shipping company has its own cultural systems and approaches and perhaps
consists of many subcultures through application which affects the safety practices
(Hopkins, 2006). Besides organizational safety culture, people who lives in different
countries belongs to different cultural dimensions.
As already indicated, maritime business has an international dimension in which
companies face advantages and some disadvantages of being a national player. The
headquarter of the company could be in a different country with different cultural
characteristics where the division of the shipping company is established in different
country with different cultural dimensions and market dynamics.
Of course national culture of shipping company is directly shaped the decision making
procedures and risk management of the division. Also national culture shapes even the
thinking procedures of the managers (Dimitratos et al., 2011).
The land offices of the shipping firms and the on board crew are affected directly by
organizational safety culture and national cultures that they belong to (Havold, 2000).
Also besides the organizational safety culture and national culture, the social and
industrial environment of the shipping companies, the size, the market of the firm it
operates, the structure of the organization etc. could affect the managerial decision
making and risk management strategies of the managers (Theotokas, 1998).
Figure 1 - Cultural Interaction

Organizational Safety Culture

Industry Culture National Culture

Source: Authors

National culture is an important variable for determining the decision making process,
management of risky situations and improvement of organizational safety culture. All
variables are connected with each other and they are in a cyclical relationship.
Important variables of the Figure 1 could be categorized as bellows;
Organizational Safety Culture: Focal Ship Owner, Local Organization, Organizational
Safety Procedures/Standards/Hierarchy, Training and Development, Managerial
Experiences/Skills, Crew and Land Personnel Skills/Education/Experiences etc.
National Culture: Social Factors, Emotional Conditions/Habits, Professional Skills,
Customs/Procedures/Hierarchy, Past Experiences etc.

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Industry Culture: International Regulations (Safety of Life at Sea/International Safety

Management Code/ Formal Safety Assessment/etc.), Available Information Resources
Customs/Procedures of Sea Trading, etc.
With the help of the cultural approaches risk management could be designed and
developed for urgent, important solutions under the operational effectiveness with
global solution centers in managerial decision making (Nadrljanski et al., 2010).
The above mentioned points revealed that culture directly shapes the land offices
decision making procedures. In addition culture could be decrease the uncertainty via
enabling standard approach to the managers. With these standards managers could use
less time to decide important operations and apply firm specific solutions directly
(Guldenmund, 2010).

6. METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

Decision making is a vital process for each person to survive. The main aim of the study
is to figure out decision making process of shipping companies and the effect of this
process on the risk management system. But making a good decision is not enough for
efficient and effective shipping system. Decision makers should also be able to
understand and evaluate the micro and macro environmental factors of the company in
which culture itself is a big influencer.
Every organization has its own cultural attitudes that form the running of all
departments, procedures, communication styles and so on. Managerial decision making
process is under the influence of organizational safety culture. Moreover national
culture plays a determining role in business styles of shipping companies. Managers
should be capable considering of all these variables and other unseen factors that affect
the whole company success.
Semi-structured interviews are conducted through the ship owning companies in order
to explore the decision making process, risk management styles and the effects of
organizational and national cultures on the mentioned situations of the companies.
Exploratory research framed by semi-structured interviews included 9 Turkish
managers from ship owning companies located in Izmir. The four managers interviewed
are working at Turkish ship owner companies and the five interviewees are working at
global ship owner companies established under their global ship owner’s name. The two
ship owners are dealing with bulk shipping and the seven ship owners are dealing in
container shipping.
Table 1 - Sample of the Study – Interviewed Turkish Managers
Business Bulk Shipping Container Line
Nationality Company Company

Turkish Ship Owner 2 2

Foreign Ship Owner - 5

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The main reason behind using semi-structured interviews in this study is for collecting
data and exploratory reasons in order to understand the management styles of the ship
owners. Content of the semi-structured interviews is prepared in accordance with the
main literature. Semi-structured interviews are categorized between the structured and
unstructured types of interviews. They are widely accepted and preferred which may be
due to “the expectation that the interviewed subjects’ viewpoints are more likely to be
expressed in a relatively openly designed interview situation than in standardized
interview or questionnaire” (Flick, 1998). Semi-structured interview is used in this
research to reach major beliefs, opinions and experiences of ship owners in handling
risky situations and taking their decisions. The ship owners are chosen via convenience
sampling which is also called accidental, availability, or haphazard sampling. “The
primary criteria for selecting samples are that they are easy to reach, convenient, or
readily available. A nonrandom sample in which the researcher selects anyone he or
she happens to come across” (Neuman, 2014). A sample of the questionnaire is given in
Appendix 1
Selected companies were contacted and the aim of the interview was briefly explained
by phone before conducting the interviews. 7 interviews were conducted face to face, 2
interview answers were gathered via phone conversation and mail options. Duration of
the interviews was between 20 to 35 minutes. The names of the individuals and ship
owners were kept secret due to confidentiality issues. Voice recording was not
permitted by any interviewee so the answers were collected via note taking.

7. FINDINGS
Decision making is at the center of maritime transportation and it mainly could not be
separated from daily operational activities. Maritime transportation is at the center of
global trade in which each action of the players belongs to a decision. The main aim of
the study is to figure out the decision making processes of the managers which are
directly affected by culture and directly affects the risk management applications and
risk handling styles; the similarities and differences of Turkish and global ship owners
while applying their operational activities. In the light of the literature review, nine
questions were prepared.
Decision making is an ordinary but important duty for managers, but Turkish managers
of foreign container lines could not feel free themselves while taking decisions under
risky circumstances and need to get approval from their foreign ship owners.
“We are just a representative of the ship owner; we need his approval to decide
on unusual subjects” (Manager T/ Container Line Company 3)
“My daily tasks are certain and I cannot make a decision which is uncertain
without ship owner’s approval” (Manager K/ Container Line Company 5)
The main problem is time difference between foreign ship owner and the Turkish
manager in Izmir which is an important obstacle for the manager. Also because of the
hierarchal structuring, the management of container line has been divided into sub-
regional headquarters and the managers in Turkey should directly contact the
European/East Mediterranean headquarter first, then the mentioned sub-regional
headquarter could contact and get the approval from ship owner which causes time and

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opportunity lost. Turkish ship owner representatives feel comfortable while facing risky
circumstances but they also need to get approval from Turkish ship owner too.
“I can reach my owner and get his approval any time I need and I use this
opportunity as a marketing strategy to handle any kind of operational problem”
(Manager Y/ Container Line Company 4)
Nine of the shipping managers indicated cost as an important variable while deciding on
risky situations. Also time is stated another essential variable of decision making by
seven managers. Shipping managers mentioned that, decision could need to be analyzed
in terms of:

• Cost - whether it causes an important obligation/ penalty/ market profit loss etc.
• The urgency requirement of the intervention/ circumstances

“I cannot make an urgent decision without evaluating the cost of related

problem to my company” (Manager I/ Bulk Shipping Company 2)

“I need some information related to mentioned problem in terms of cost and

emergency situation” (Manager S/ Bulk Shipping Company 1)

“In order to make right decision, I need to get timely information and cost
analysis of mentioned problem” (Manager T / Container Line Company 3)
While listing risky situations Turkish ship owners’ managers and foreign ship owners’
Turkish managers both specified same headings as; accidental loss (human
life/ship/cargo), any loss in market profit, customer loss, reputation lost etc.
“Crew lost and environmental pollution are unacceptable catastrophes
according to our company” (Manager S / Bulk Shipping Company 1)
“Losing cargo is an undesirable operational outcome in maritime business”
(Manager U/ Container Line Company 1)
“Reputation can easily be lost due to accidental problem like ship or cargo loss”
(Manager A/ Container Line Company 2)
The precautions they apply could also be highlighted under the same topics as; applying
international regulations, taking extra care to special cargo/customer, working with
educational/skillful staff, getting new and required additional training at office, safety
meetings for land personnel, crisis management centers at land offices etc. Nine
managers emphasize the significance of communication between ship and office and
they strongly emphasize the importance of:

• Learning from their own mistakes/ competitors’ faults/ industry

• Reliable, accurate and timely information flow,
• Communication between parties (ship-office-owner/ office-customer/ office-
world)
“We sent operational mistakes or accidental casualties faced by one of our ships as
a scenario drill to other fleet ships” (Manager I/ Bulk Shipping Company 2)

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“Classification Society of our company prepares special safety drills. We send these
problems to our fleet ships so as to our crew take lessons from those difficulties”
(Manager S / Bulk Shipping Company 1)
“Timely and accurate information flow is one of the most important factors in
making decision” (Manager K/ Container Line Company 5; Manager T / Container
Line Company 3; Manager U/ Container Line Company 1)
The managers all indicate the necessity of establishment and improvement of
organizational safety culture. Both side give high importance to office personnel
trainings, standardized office procedures/customs, improving the system under the
global trading needs, applying international regulations, taking additional precautions
and warnings.
“We got periodical office trainings on safety issues and health” (Manager Y/
Container Line Company 4)
“Carrying dangerous cargoes need special care, we have special trained
personnel deals with dangerous cargo shipments” (Manager A/ Container Line
Company 2)
“We always instruct and advise our master regarding port requirements and
cargo safety” (Manager S/ Bulk Shipping Company 1)
“Implementing international regulations is not enough you have to update your
safety system and take the necessary precautions” (Manager I/ Bulk Shipping
Company 2)
Also the organizational safety culture of the company is directly affected by ship
owners’ nationality. Nationality of the ship owner is the determinant of the
organizational safety culture. Also management styles of managers are important while
determining and developing organizational safety culture at land offices of ship owner
companies.
“Our owner has strict operational rules which sometimes mismatch with our
container market demands” Manager U/ Container Line Company 1; Manager
T/ Container Line Company 3)
“Sometimes a new manager assignment at the headquarter of ship owner could
change the way of operational activities we apply” (Manager A/ Container Line
Company 2)
As a result this research has revealed that;

• Decision making is seen as an important variable for daily routines, operational

requirements and managing risky situations.
• Companies are taking lessons from their own and from their competitors’
mistakes.
• Establishing and developing organizational safety culture is seen as an important
factor to survive in global world.
• Organizational safety culture is influenced by national culture and industrial
safety culture. National culture is a determinant that shapes organizational safety
culture.

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8. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

The research has some limitations and further research into this area should be
extended. This study is designed as an exploratory research in order to provide an
insight to the field and understand the main views and perceptions of related ship
managers. And semi structured interviews are used as a research method. There could
be other research methods that could be easily adapted to this kind of studies. Also there
were 9 ship owner companies contacted which is another limitation of the study. The
number of the companies could be increased. Izmir was chosen as sample city which
could be seen as another limitation of the study, the research could be extended to other
cities and companies in order to reach more answers.
The research has evaluated the relation between managerial decision making and risk
management styles of Turkish and foreign ship owners. It would be also interesting to
investigate any possible relationship between the effects of decision making and market
profits or operational effectives of ship owners. In addition relationship between
decision making process and cost-benefit analysis of ship owners could be an
interesting research topic.

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APPENDIX 1 – QUESTIONS OF THE STUDY

1- Is it an obligation to get approval from your superiors while taking decisions under
risky circumstances and applying the necessary precautions or not?
2- What kind of risky situations have you ever faced in your company?
3- What kind of precautions did you take to avert these risky situations?
4- Do you remember any risky situation that you avert via making right decision
making in this company? If yes, please briefly explain the situation and the decision that
you took.
5- In your opinion, what kind of risky consequences arises from the decisions taken by
the managers?
6- In your company, what kind of implementations has applied in order to improve
organizational safety culture?
7- Do these implementations have any benefit to solve risky situations in your
company?
8- In your company, what are the effects of Turkish national culture on your risk
management applications?
9- Does your foreign ship owner’s national culture effect to solve risky situations in the
company? (asked only to foreign ship owners).

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Interviewed Companies:
[57] Manager S/ Bulk Shipping Company 1/ Interview Date: 22.02.2016
[58]Manager I/ Bulk Shipping Company 2/ Interview Date: 25.02.2016
[59]Manager U/ Container Line Company 1/ Interview Date: 23.02.2016
[60]Manager A/ Container Line Company 2/ Interview Date: 22.02.2016
[61]Manager T/ Container Line Company 3/ Interview Date: 24.02.2016
[62]Manager Y/ Container Line Company 4/ Interview Date: 23.02.2016
[63]Manager K/ Container Line Company 5/ Interview Date: 25.02.2016

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SPANISH MERCHANT MARINE AND CARGO MOVEMENTS AT THE

PORT OF BARCELONA IN 1875
By Laureano Carbonell Relat
Professor of FNB (UPC), retired

Abstract

This paper begins with a brief analysis of the Spanish fleet of merchant ships, taken
from the “Lista Oficial de los buques de guerra y mercantes…, 1875”, whose results
are given in a table, and it is followed by a synthesis of the ships, ports of origin, goods
and commodities carried by them, and other interesting details, which arrived to the
port of Barcelona during the above said year. The data was published by the newspaper
“Diario de Barcelona”, in the special Trade Section of the port of the city, which
appeared in its usual morning and afternoon issues, of every working day.
Unfortunately, the information about the ships leaving the port of Barcelona doesn’t
detail the cargo carried by the most, or nearly all of them, because it is just mentioned
as effects. Of course, a detail of the said effects could be obtained from other historical
papers and sources, but it hasn’t been done because the desire of the author has been to
limit this text to the data from the above said newspaper.

Keywords
Steamer, sailing ship, coaster, port

INTRODUCTION
Accordingly to the Spanish Official List of Ships, 1875 1, whose previous issues were
published in 1871 and 1873 2, we are able to obtain an optimal overview of the
characteristics of the Spanish merchant ships, as their respective Code Sign, name,
province of registry, registered tonnage and horse power. Unfortunately it does not
appear the rigging of any of them, so we can only use its horse power to classify as
sailing ships when the number is 0, and steamers, if that shows a value above that
figure. As it is explained in the Prologue, the List contains only ships of 20 t and more,
but curiously there are enclosed in it one of 16 t, and another of 17 t.
1875 The lowest powered steamers are 7, with 10 HP each, being their
Type
Steamers
Quantity
319
tonnage between 21 and 103.9 t. Contrarily, the biggest are 5,
Sailing ships 3,600 with 500 HP, whose tonnages are amongst 530, for Emiliano,
Total 3,919 from Bilbao, and 1,503 for España, from Barcelona. Sailing ships
are from 16 t, with the Segundo María, from Santander, to 1,405 t for the China, from
Havana.
Hereby is also enclosed a table giving the number of ships and the amount of their
tonnage, save for error or omission, alphabetically listed by the existing maritime
provinces of that time. As it is obvious, the headings Qty, t (min) and t(max) mean
Quantity, tonnage minimum and tonnage maximum, and mean the number of ships
whose tonnage is comprised between the lower and higher values shown there.
The newspaper Diario de Barcelona of 1875, from January 1st till December 31st,
publishes a daily Trade Section –-Parte Comercial–- which details the ship Arrivals

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(Entrados), Departures (Salidos) and Cleared (Despachados) or authorized by the

authorities to leave the port every day. The contents of that section was typed by the

Ships of every Maritime Province

author of this paper in an
Qty Place t (min) t (max) Total Access file, with 9,581 records,
19 Algeciras 21.0 51.6 661.6 as resumed in the next table.
269 Alicante 20.0 339.0 17,543.7 First of all we shall clear that
2 Alicante (Santa Pola) 22.0 23.0 45.0
2 Alicante (Torrevieja) 22.0 23.0 45.0 those numbers are not exact,
45 Almería 20.0 255.0 2,430.3 because every section encloses
635 Barcelona 20.0 2,520.0 148,519.7 two kind of records: the first is
488 Bilbao 17.0 1,912.0 92,793.3
78 Cádiz 20.0 819.0 12,036.4
one for each ship, and the
39 Canarias 21.0 775.0 5,430.4 second also one for every group
1 Cárdenas (Cuba) 138.0 138.0 138.0 of small ships -Coasters coming
47 Cartagena 22.0 243.7 3,435.2 from or going to the ports of
74 Cienfuegos (Cuba) 21.0 458.0 4,644.3
77 Coruña 21.0 1,171.0 13,285.0 this Principality3-. So in
1 Cuba (Cuba) 121.0 121.0 121.0 Arrivals they are 350 groups
8 Ferrol 41.0 407.0 1,693.0 with a total of 3,285 units. For
100 Filipinas 32.0 610.0 8,161.8 this reason, the number of ships
1 Gibara (Cuba) 31.0 31.0 31.0
79 Gijón 21.0 1,608.0 17,295.0 arrived to Barcelona would be,
7 Gran Canaria 103.0 523.0 1,636.5 error or omissions excepted,
379 Habana (Cuba) 20.0 1,405.0 62,542.1 3,810 minus 350 and the
57 Huelva 21.0 677.0 2,807.0
31 Ibiza 20.0 91.0 1,287.0
addition of 3,285. So the total
46 Málaga 20.0 521.0 6,482.4 of arrivals was really 6,745
312 Mallorca 20.0 625.0 34,573.5 units. The information given by
57 Manila 52.0 1,171.0 18,905.6 the newspaper for these groups
1 Matanzas (Cuba) 205.0 205.0 205.0
23 Mataró 23.0 152.0 1,124.0
is nearly useless, because it
32 Menorca 21.0 245.0 1,901.5 doesn’t detail the ports of origin
9 Motril 20.0 59.0 295.7 and usually gives only a notice
14 Nuevitas (Cuba) 20.0 196.0 1,216.1 of the cargo of together in
35 Palamós 24.0 662.0 4,046.9
65 Puerto Rico 20.0 371.0 4,230.1 generic terms as effects or
120 Remedios (Cuba) 20.0 138.0 6,348.0 goods.
85 Rivadeo 223.0 650.0 7,392.1
1 SagualaGrande (Cuba) 91.0 91.0 91.0 In the table there is also an
1 San Fernando 20.0 20.0 20.0 entry for Cleared ships, which
58 San Sebastián 21.0 331.0 5,275.0
9 Sanlúcar 20.0 225.0 516.5 are the ones allowed by the
1 SantaCruzdelaPalma 134.0 134.0 134.0 Customs Office and other local
60 Santander 16.0 1,118.0 authorities to sail away, so the
15,839.0
42 Santiago de Cuba 21.0 204.0 2,938.2
62 Sevilla 30.0 614.0
total of them, calculated as we
12,925.2
2 Tarifa 28.0 29.5 57.5 said in the previous paragraph,
23 Tarragona 21.0 280.0 is 6,594 ships. Some of them
1,369.9
1 Tenerife 862.0 862.0 862.0 appear also in the section of
52 Tortosa 25.0 90.5 2,146.3
174 Valencia 20.0 589.0
Departures of the next day or
11,612.5
21 Vigo 36.0 517.7 later, whose total is 2,513 ships.
4,269.7
67 Villagarcía 20.0 416.0 It is very interesting to show
5,838.5
91 Vinaroz 20.0 220.0 4,018.2
that the addition of Cleared
16 Vivero 21.0 40.0 487.9
3,919 ships and Departures is 9,107
551,704.7
ships, a quantity higher than
arrivals. The error is because the section of Departures, which as we said encloses many
of the Cleared ships, was very irregularly published; and unfortunately, when it
appeared in the newspaper, the only data reliable is the port of destination, because their
cargo, if mentioned, was in the same generic terms as we said before. In addition,

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coasters never detail the port of destination. For these motives, the author decided to
omit them in this paper.

1875 Data about all ships which called in or

Movement Quantity
Coasters Total
Groups Units Units
departed from Barcelona were taken from
Arrivals 3,810 350 3,285 6,745 Diario de Barcelona, as it was said before,
Cleared ships 3,280 283 3,597 6,594 and typed in an Access file, not as an exact
Departures 2,491 2 24 2,513 transcription because most usual words, as
Totals 9,581 635 6,906 13,852
the names of envelopes –bags, cases,
barrels, etc. –, nautical title of the master of the ship –captain or skipper–, the type of
the ship –brig, frigate, etc.–, and many others were typed in abbreviated words; also the
courtesy of the receivers of the goods was omitted, because it was the easiest way to
save time in typing and space in the width of the rows cells, but any of these changes
modified the meaning of the entries. By other hand it is necessary to say that the low
quality of printings of the original don’t allow to use scanned copies and convert them
into text, by an OCR program, so all had to be typed by hand. Anywhere, the results
was a table of Access with the following columns:
Number of order, Source, Date, Page, Movement of the ship (arrival, departure or
dispatched), date of the said movement, Port of origin or destination, Days of the
voyage, Hours –only for ships coming from a nearby port–, Type of ship, Flag, Name of
the ship, Tonnage, Master (captain or skipper), Name, Second names, Cargo,
Passengers, Shipping agent, and Notes.
As a sample, we can see the following file which reproduces the first paragraph of the
following copy:

Reproduction of Diario de Barcelona of January 30th 1875, Morning edition, page 1,086

833 (Numeral of order) DB (Diario de Barcelona) 30.01.1875 M(añana =

Morning) (Date of the newspaper) 1,086 (Page) E(ntrado =Arrived) 29.01.1875
(Date of arrival) Cartagena (From) 1 (Day) No data (Hours) vp
(Vapor = Steamer) Esp(añol = Spanish) Jorge (Ship’s name) 180 (t) c (Captain)
Mariano (Name of the captain) Sánchez (Surname of the captain) Rams:
560 to Ramón Soler y Cª, and 559 to Isidro Gibert y Cª; 16 parcels of glasses and
earthenware to Ramón Girona, o/e (= other effects) (Cargo) 2 (Passengers) No
data (Shipping agent) No data (Notes)

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CARGO OF SHIPS CALLING BARCELONA

In the following study about entering or calling in ships to the port of Barcelona,
including the ones coming from the “Coast of the Principality”, we can classify them
into three groups:
a) Ships coming from a single port
b) Ships coming from several ports
c) Ships coming from the Coast of the Principality
The reason of this classification is because the cargo carried by most of the ships of the
former group undoubtedly came from the site or region around the port of departure,
except when the port is really a great place where are joined, collected or concentrated
the goods received from overseas and distant countries, as occurs in Cádiz, Génova,
Marsella, Palma, Rouen, Valencia and a few more –even Barcelona-, for their
subsequent tranship and distribution to other ports, generally of smaller size. For units
from the b) group is difficult to associate each merchandise or commodity to any of the
calling in ports during their voyage until their arrival to Barcelona. For this reason the
author omits the analysis of them. The same occurs with units of the c) group, even in
this case the cargo carried by them was local products of the soil as plants, fruits and
cereals, or made there, as coal, earthenware, soap, etc.
So, we will see an alphabetical list of ports with a summary of the cargoes and, between
parenthesis, the number of ships arrived from every single port, whose names are typed
as they appear, or should appear, in the Diario…, as follows:
Abo (Åbo, Finland) (1) Timber
Agde (France) (2) Potatoes
Aigues-Mortes (France) (2) In ballast
Águilas (14) Bark, esparto, linseeds, other products, rags, sulphur
Alcudia (33) Bark, coal, firewood, palms, pigs
Alicante (81) Crap iron, stones, tobaccos, wheat
Almería (4) Canvas shoes, esparto, lead, soapstone
Altea (2) Carobs
Andraitx (33) Almonds, bark, coal, firewood, iron, olive oil, palms, soap
Androssan (UK) (7) Coal, iron
Anzio (1) Coal
Arrecife (1) Chickpeas, cochineals
Avilés (2) Glasses
Ayr (UK) (1) Iron

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Badino (Bulgaria) (1) Coal

Baltimore (USA) (2) Petroleum, staves
Bayona (1) Cotton clothes, turpentine
Benicarló (14) Wine
Berdyansk (Ukraine) (1) Wheat
Bergen (Norway) (8) Codfish
Bilbao (2) Iron products
Bjorneborg (6) Timber
Borrowstone (UK) (4) Coal
Bouc (France) (6) Acid, timber for shipbuilding
Brunswick (1) Timber
Buenos Aires (Argentine) (8) Cowhides, tibia bones
Burriana (1) Carobs, earthenware, tiles
Cádiz (25) Goods from America, goods in transit for Manila, in
ballast, wheat
Cagliari (16) Coal
Canarias (1) Washing soda
Cardiff (UK) (138) Coal
Carloforte (1) Coal
Cartagena (49) Lead, rams, scrap iron, sheep
Castellón (5) Beans, carobs, earthenware, flour, tiles, vetches, wheals,
wheat
Castelsardo (Sardinia) (8) Coal
Castellamare (Italy) (1) In ballast
Charleston (USA) (19) Cotton
Christianestad (Finland) (2) Timber
Christiansund (Norway) (2) Codfish
Cienfuegos (Cuba) (4) Cowhides, mahogany, wax
Ciudadela (32) Almonds, barley, broad beans, cheese, cows, goats, locust
beans, resin, shoes, turkeys, wheat
Civitavecchia (Italy) (29) Coal, staves

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Constantinopla (Turkey) (3) Wheat

Coruña (4) Coal, glasses, hides, scrap
Cullera (38) Beans, flour, oranges, pomegranates, rice
Denia (4) Drugs, raisins, scrap
Esmirna (Turkey) (4) Cotton
Felanitx (3) Chairs, locust beans, salt
Fiumicino (Italy) (1) Corn
Frederikshavn (Denmark) (2) Wooden planks
Gandía (1) Oranges
Garrucha (2) In ballast
Génova (27) Ballast, beans, brazil wood, cedar, coal, corn, firewood,
hides, marble, pasta, petroleum, rags, staves, sumac, transit products

Gibraltar (2) Broad beans, chickpeas, hides

Gijón (1) Glasses
Glasgow (6) bricks, coal, iron, ore
Gotemburg (1) Wood
Granton (2) Coal
Greenock (2) Coal
Grimsby (10) Coal
Guayaquil (2) Cocoa, coffee, cotton, earth, samples
Guayra, La (1) Cocoa
Habana (27) Cocoa, cooper scrap general cargo, horns, liquor,
logwood, mahogany, splits, staves, sugar, tobacco, wax

Hernosand (2) Wooden planks and beams

Ibiza (40) Almonds, bronze, eggs, figs, halves (barrels), lemons,
locust beans, oat, old iron, pine bark, pine resin, rags, salt, skins, sweet, wineskin, wool
Irvine (1) Iron
Isafjord (5) Cod
Isla Cristina (1) Products
La Nouvelle (1) Empty barrels

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Laguna de Términos (Mexico) (4) Cocoa, coconuts, hides, logwood and tint stills, mahogany,
pita
Leith (6) Coal
Liorna (2) Beans, goods in transit
Liverpool (3) Coal, in ballast
Londres (1) In ballast
Longosardo (8) Coal
Maddalena (11) Coal
Mahón (18) 4 Almonds, barley, beans, bran, broad beans, bulrush,
cheeses, cocoa, coffee, cotton, old iron, other goods and commodities, rags, resin, rum,
salt, shoes, sugar, tissues, trumpet trees, wheat

Málaga (5) Aceitillo, bitter drops, cocoa, esparto grass, guano, horns,
iron, lead, old copper, old iron, sugar, wood
Mallorca (1) Fruits
Malmö (1) Wooden planks
Maravera (1) Coal
Marianópolis (8) Wheat
Marsella (298) Achiote, acid, alcohol, alkalis, alum, aniline, animal
grease, anise, baleen plates, barley, beans, benzine, berries, birdseed, bitumen, blue,
borax, bran, brass, bricks, butter, calcite, cardboards, cardboard, cato, cement, cheeses,
chemical products, chickpeas, chicory, chlorate, chloride, chloride of lime, cinnamon,
citric acid, coal, cocoa, coconut oil, coffee, cognac, colours, concentrated milk, copaiba
oil, copper sheets, cork, corn, cotton, cotton seed oil, cow leathers, deer horns, dextrin,
dividivi, dressed wood, drugs, drugstore commodities, dyeing extract, earth,
earthenware, essences, estoraque, ether, extracts, felt, fertilizer, figs, flour, flowers,
foodstuffs, furniture, gambir, gelatine, gills, glass, glucose, glue, glycerine, grains,
grease, grease balls, green, haberdashery products, hair, hams, hardware commodities,
hemp, herbal remedies, hides, horns, horses, in ballast, indigo, intestines, iron, iron
plates, iron sheets, lead acetate, leather drugs, condensed milk, lichen, liqueurs, litharge,
live plants, locust beans, logwood, machinery, magnesia, magnesia sulphate, mane,
manna, marble, masts wood, matches, metal, millstones, mineral or ore, mineral water,
minium, muslin, mustard seeds, nails, nut meg, oil, oleic, opium, orange blossom water,
other commodities, paintbrushes, paints, palm oil, paper, pasta, potato flour, pearl
barley, pepper, peppers, perfumery, petrol essence, pharmaceutical products, pigs,
plants, potash, potatoes, products in transit, prussiate of potash, pumice stones,
quercitron, quinine sulphate, rams, roan colour, roman cement, rose essence, rubber,
sandal, sandalwood, sausages, screening clothes, screws, sebum, seeds, seeds oil,

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several commodities, sharpening stones, siccative’s, silks, skin’s fat, skins, sleepers,
smoke black, smoke tree, sodium carbonate, Spanish flies, splits, sponges, springs,
stains timber, starch, staves, stearin, steel, sugar, sulphur, sumac tar, tartaric acid, tin, tin
leaves, tissues, tools, tragacanth rubber, steel boxes, trinket, turmeric, turpentine,
ultramarine, varnish, vermouth, wax, waxed canvas, wheat, white lead, white sand,
white skins, wickers and basketry, wine, wire, wood, wool, yarns, zinc

Matanzas (11) Sugar, cane liquor, commodities, copper, half barrels, old
copper, rags, tobacco, wax
Mataró (1) In ballast
Mayagüez (1) Coffee, hides, hors, old iron, splits, sugar
Mazarrón (6) Alum, grenade bark, mineral, plaiting, red ochre,
soapstone, spices
Mobila (1) Cotton, resin, staves
Montevideo (5) Calve hides, claws, dried beef cattle and calve hides, dried
hides, feathers, hides, horns, wool

Mostaganem (2) Bran

Motril (1) Beans, chickpeas, plaiting, raisins
Muravera (1) Coal
Muros (1) Sardines
Nápoles (1) In ballast
Newcastle (61) Bricks, coal, commodities, iron
Newport (30) Coal
Nicolaiftad (1) Wooden planks
Nistad (1) Wooden planks
Nordmaling (2) Wooden planks
Nueva Barcelona (1) Cotton, cocoa, dyer’s mulberry
Nueva Orleans (35) Cocoa, cotton, resin, staves, wood, wooden planks
Nueva York (10) Announcements, bramble, Florida water, perfumery,
Petroleum, staves
Nuevitas (1) Cedar, billet rigging, bronze, haired beef hides, iron,
mahogany, old iron, splits
Nystad (2) Wood, wooden planks
Odesa (1) In ballast

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Orán (17) Barley, bulls, calves, chickpeas, lambs, rams

Orebak (1) Cod
Palamós (4) Clay tiles in transit for Havana, commodities, firewood,
skins
Palma (164) Abaca rigging, almond oil, almonds, ash, bark, barley,
beans, birdseed, blankets, bones, books, bran, brass, broad beans, bronze, calcite,
capers, cardboard, caulking, cement, cheese, cochineal, cocks, coffee, commodities,
copper, cordages, cotton, cow leathers, dyer’s mulberry, eggs, empty demijohns, fabric
samples, figs, firewood, flour, frames, fruits, garlics, generous wine, glass canisters,
glass foam, glass, grapes, hatboxes, hats, hemp rigging, hides, horns, in ballast, iron
chains, lima beans, liquors, locust beans, machinery, machos and mules, mainstream
fabrics, maraschino, matches, mules, nails, nougat, oil, old copper, old iron, olives,
orange trees, other commodities, ox hair, palm, palm work, paper, petroleum, pickling,
piglets, pigs, pine bark, rags, rams, rigging, rolling paper, salt, sardines, shoes, skins,
soap, sobrassada, soles, splits, squids, stones, sugar, tanned cow leather, tea, trinket,
turkeys, wheat, wool, zinc
Panzacola (1) 5 Wood
Pernambuco (15+11 6) Commodities, cotton
Philippeville (1) Staves

Pisagna (1) Commodities

Pitea (2) Wooden planks
Plymouth (1) Roman cement
Pollensa (14) Bark, coal, firewood, locust beans, olives, palm, pigs,
squids
Ponce (1) Coffee
Porto (1) General cargo
Portoferrajo (6) Coal
Portvendres (23) Calves, cows, hens, in ballast, pigs, potatoes, white earth,
wooden rings
Propiano (5) Coal, wood
Puerto Cabello (5) Cocoa, coconuts, coffee, cotton
Puerto Colom (1) Salt
Puerto Plata (1) Cocoa, copper, hides, lead, mahogany, wax
Puerto Rico (2) Achiote, coffee, hides, sugar, other products and
commodities
Rammo (Ramno o Rauno) (4) Wooden planks

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Rejkiavik (3) Cod

Riga (1) Wooden planks
Río de Janeiro (4) 7 Chicaranda, cotton, old iron, rags, wool, zinc
Río Grande del Sur (4) Hides
Rosario de Santa Fe (3) Hides
Rosas (23) Awning, big peas, coal, earth, stearin, flour, in ballast,
military products, oil, paper, peas, shawls, skins, soapstone, stones, sumac, tannings,
tissues, walnut wood, wheat, wood
Ruán (5) Acetic acid, acid, alkalis, alum, aluminium sulphate,
borax, bricks, Campeche extract, Campeche, clay, dry dyeing extract, glassware sand,
machinery, pipes earth, posts, printers wood, refractory earth, Rouen earth, sand, tint
stick, white of Rouen
San Carlos (7) Barley, broad beans, bulrush, in ballast, locust beans, oil,
salt, wheat
San Feliu (11) Commodities in transit, in ballast, State horses
San Fernando (2) Iron, old iron
Santa Cruz de Tenerife (2) Cedar, in ballast, mahogany
Santa Pola (4) barley, oranges in transit, , pomegranates, salt, wine
Santa Teresa de Gallura (38) Coal
Santander (6) Anchovies, bait, flour, iron, other commodities, paints,
paper, wheat
Santiago de Cuba (3) Cane liquor, cocoa, coconuts, coffee, mahogany, old
copper, old iron, rum, splits, sugar, wax
Santo Domingo (6) Campeche, coffee, furniture wood, hides, mahogany,
pitch, splits, wax
Santos (13) Cotton, coffee, hides
Savannah (15) Cotton, firebrands, resin, staves, wood
Segna (2) Wood for oars and masts
Sete (France) (217) A great variety of commodities and manufactures, cheeses,
cocoa, drugs, earth, extract, flowers, hens, iron, iron bars, oil, other goods, paper, pigs,
sinnamon, springs, starch, stearin, tools, wool,
Sevilla (7) Big peas, chickpeas, commodities, cork, earthenware,
flour, gin, oil, olives, wheat
Sóller (3) In ballast, locust beans, oil

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Spezia (11) Marble

Sunderland (3) Coal
Sundsvall (6) Beams, wood, wooden planks
Swansea (30) Coal
Tarragona (22) Artillery train, esparto grass, horses and ammunitions, in
ballast, mineral, oil, other commodities, plaster, rags, sardines, sulphur, wine
Tenes (1) Big beans
Terracina (5) Coal
Terranova (33) Coal, in ballast
Thangsnud (1) Wooden planks
Torredembarra (2) In ballast
Torrevieja (21) Bags, commodities in transit, figs, other goods,
pomegranates bark, potatoes, salt, tartrate
Tortoli (3) Coal
Tortosa (2) Locust beans, oil, refractory earth, wood
Trieste (1) Steel, wood
Trinidad de Barlovento (4) Cocoa, coconuts, cotton
Trom (1) Coal, iron
Valencia (325) Anise, atalaje, baggage, bark, barley, beans, beans, big
peas, birdseed, black pencil, blankets, bran, brass, broad beans, broken glasses, bulls,
bulrush, capes, cement, ceramic tiles, chickpeas, chocolate, coal, cochineal, cocoa,
commodities military products, cork, corn, cumin, display cases, drugs, drums, earth,
earthenware, empty bags, espadrilles, fans, figs, flour, flowers, fruits, garlics, goat hair,
goats, grapes, green anise, grenades, groundnuts, heath complex, hemp, hens, hides,
hooves, horns, horses, in ballast, indigo, inner band skins, iron benches, iron, kid goats,
lima beans, liquor, livestock, locust beans, machinery, marshmallow, matches, matches,
matches, mats, melons, money, mosaics, old iron, olives, onions, other commodities,
palms, paper, paperboard, paprika, peanuts, petroleum, pigs, plaiting, potatoes, rags,
raisin, raisins, rams, rice flour, rice, riles and blankets, sackcloth, saffron, sardines,
sealed paper, sebum, semolina, sewing machines, sheep, sheepskins, silk, skins, small
tiles, soldier clothes, stationery, staves, sulphur, sumac tannings, thread, tinplate,
tissues, tobacco, trinket, tuna, vegetables, wheat, wickers, wine, wine spirit, wood, wool
Vendrell (2) In ballast
Viborg (1) Wooden planks
Vigo (8) Beans, in ballast, sardines, splits
Villanueva (5) In ballast

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 SHIPPING BUSINESS

Vinaroz (50) Barley, beans, big peas, bran, bulrush, cast iron, ceramic
tiles, corn, earthenware, espadilles, firewood, flour, lima beans, locust beans, oat, mane,
pigs, rice, salt, sardines, sumac, sweet potatoes, tiles, wine
Westervik (2) Wooden planks
Wilmington (1) Resin

PORTS OF DESTINATION FOR SHIPS LEAVING BARCELONA

Unfortunately, as we said before, for ships leaving Barcelona, “Diario…” omits to
detail the cargo carried by any of them, which is mentioned as effects, goods and similar
generics. For this reason here will be an alphabetized list of destination ports with the
number of ships to every one. The result is as follows:
Águilas 18 Boulover 1 Sette 179 Gijón 1

Alcudia 8 Buenos Aires 93 Charleston 2 Girgenti 3

Alicante 92 Builoow 1 Cienfuegos 9 Glasgow 2

Almería 11 Bullwer 1 Ciudadela 5 Gotemburgo 1

Amberes 4 Burriana 2 Civitavecchia 18 Grimsby 1

Amsterdam 1 Cabo Verde 1 Constantinopla 17 Guayaquil 1

Andraitx 3 Cadaqués 1 Coruña 3 Guayra 1

Arendal 2 Cádiz 20 Cristiansund 1 Habana 121

Argel 4 Cagliari 20 Cuba 2 Haití 1

Atenas 1 Calaforte 1 Cullera 1 Hamburgo 3

Avenza 6 Campeche 1 Denia 5 Huelva 37

Avilés 1 Canarias 3 Escombreras 1 Ibiza 15

Barletti 1 Carboneras 1 Esmirna 1 Ibraila 1

Bari 1 Cárdenas 5 Frostik 1 Isla Cristina 23

Benicarló 4 Calaforte 8 Gaeta 1 Jávea 1

Benisaf 1 Cartagena 63 Gallipoli 2 Laguira 1

Bilbao 54 Catallamare 1 Garrucha 22 Liorna 19

Bona 9 Castellón 1 Génova 15 Lisboa 1

Bouc 1 Castelsardo 5 Gibraltar 2 Liverpool 70

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MARTIME TRANSPORT VII

Londres 37 Muros 2 Portvendres 15 Spezzia 2

Longosardo 12 Newcastle 2 Prócida 1 Sura 1

Magdalena 2 Nueva Orleans 5 Puerto Cabello 3 Susa 1

Mahón 66 Nueva York 2 Puerto de Santa Fe 1 Swansea 1

Málaga 13 Odesa 1 Río de Janeiro 5 Syra 1

Malta 59 Oporto 1 Río de la Plata 1 Tabasco 1

Manila 11 Orán 29 Río Grande 10 Tahití 1

Marsella 229 Palamós 2 Río Grande del Sur 2 Tangarok 3

Matanzas 6 Palermo 1 Rio Marina 1 Tarragona 35

Mataró 1 Palma 112 Rivadeo 1 Tenerife 2

Mayagüez 3 Pansacola 2 Rosario de Santa Fe10 Terracina 1

Mazarrón 2 Para la mar 24 Rosas 5 Torredembarra 1

Messina 7 Parazujelas 1 Rotterdam 1 Terranova 12

Montevideo 37 Patrás 1 San Feliu 8 Torrevieja 47

Muravera 2 Paysandú 1 Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1 Trapani 2

Pernambuco 2 Santa Teresa 8 Trieste 2

Philippeville 3 Santander 16 Trinidad 5

Pireo 1 Santiago de Cuba 10 Valencia 200

Pollensa 2 Santo Domingo 1 Vendrell 1

Pomaran 6 Segna 2 Veracruz 3

Ponce 1 Setúbal 9 Villagarcía 1

Portmán 1 Savannah 2 Villajoyosa 1

Portrieuse 1 Sevilla 113 Villanueva 5

Vinaroz 5

Nevertheless, there are other sources to obtain a summary of the cargo exported from
Spain to other overseas or foreign countries. As a sample, here is enclosed a detail of the
products carried to Cuba and Puerto Rico 8:
Almonds, ceramic tiles, cotton fabrics, earthenware works, figs, hazelnuts, oil, pickling
in vinegar, raisins, saffron, shoes, tools, walnuts, wine.

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PASSENGERS
In the data furnished by the “Diario…” used as a source, is the number of passengers
carried by 520 ships, being all steamers, except one. Following the same criteria used as
in the cargo, we will refer here only to ships with a single call or stop, showing the port
of departure in alphabetical order followed, between parenthesis, by the number of them
coming from each, and two quantities separated by a dash indicating the lowest and
highest number of the passengers arrived from that port in one unit. The result is as
follows:
Cádiz (3) 5 – 34 Marsella (94) 2 – 242 Sette (91) 1 – 158
Cartagena (1) 2 Palma (54) 9 - 257 Tarragona (2) 27 – 89
Mahón (2) 19 – 26 Portvendres (1) 24 Valencia (34) 2 - 521
Accordingly with the above said, the maximum passengers were 521 from Valencia, but
if we consider the ones coming with several stops or layovers that quantity is 533,
which arrived in two Spanish steamers. One was Apóstol, of 228 t, from Sevilla and
stops in 8 days, and the other Francolí, of 508 t, from Liverpool and layovers in 20
days.
There is a sailing ship too, but possibly is an error, because she was a small schooner,
named Antonieta, of 66 t, coming from Palma in 2 days, with 600! passengers. Of
course, on board there should not be enough space for such a quantity of people.
Curiously, the Diario… doesn’t give any passenger for groups of ships from or to the
Coast of the Principality, nor for any one leaving Barcelona.

CONCLUSION
All data furnished by Diario de Barcelona of 1875 has been summarized trying to do it
readable and easy to understand. It is a hope that it will be so interesting as to reward
the efforts applied for its completion. Nevertheless, there is not any wish to compare the
dates with the corresponding ones of our time, because there are a lot of differences
which make them unreliable: a) then, the population of Spain was about 1/3 of the
nowadays existing one. b) The way of life has changed, and the use of some goods and
commodities too: at that time most people could remember that petroleum, for example,
was sold mainly in chemist’s. c) Systems of transport have been increased notably:
railways, airlines, motorways; and they have introduced many changes in the mode of
carriage, as the birth of tankers, gas carriers, containers, pallets,…; and d) There has
been too many changes, not only in the cities, but in the countries of origin of goods.

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REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

1
“Lista Oficial de los Buques de Guerra y Mercantes de la Marina Española, con sus señales co-
rrespondientes según el Código Internacional de Señales”, Dirección de Hidrografía, Madrid, 1875.
2
Its has been used the 1875 edition because that year agrees with the data of one of the years taken by the
author from the newspaper (exactly those ones are the last quarter of 1792 –because the newspaper
appeared on 1 October-, and all the years ended with 0 or 5 since 1795 to 1900).
3
The mentioned Principality is Catalonia, and it is formed by four northeastern provinces of Spain, along
the French border, which at present form the Generality of Catalonia.
4
The goods evidence that the port was for quarantine.
5
Quarantine in Mahón
6
Quarantine in Mahón.
7
Quarantine in Mahón.
8
The source of this paragraph is omited because there are many historians and professors which have
written about that subject, so the list would be excessively long. On the other hand, it is easily available in
any book dealing about this topic.

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CRUISE TRAFFIC SEASONALITY ON WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN

PORTS
Dr. Jerónimo Esteve-Pérez (corresponding author and presenter) (I)
Dr. Antonio García-Sánchez (II)
Dr. José Enrique Gutiérrez-Romero (I)
(I) Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (UPCT), Department of Naval Technology.
(II) Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (UPCT), Department of Economics.
jeronimo.esteve@upct.es; a.garciasanchez@upct.es; jose.gutierrez@upct.es

Abstract
Cruise tourism has been dynamically advancing over the last two decades, with an
average annual growth rate in the worldwide number of cruise passengers of 7.63 per
cent between 1990 and 2014. This paper analyses cruise traffic seasonality and its
changes and proposes suggestions for cruise port management. The analysis of the
changes in seasonality is structured in two steps. In the first step, annual changes in
seasonality for the period 2000–2015 are analysed. The annual analysis is conducted
using the Gini coefficient and the coefficient of Variation. In the second step, monthly
changes in seasonality for the period 2000–2015 are determined by calculating the
interannual variation rate by month. This seasonality analysis methodology is applied
to the particular case of Spanish Mediterranean ports because this set of ports accounts
for 75 per cent of cruise passengers in the Spanish Port System.

Keywords:
cruise industry, seasonality, cruise ports, Mediterranean, Gini coefficient.

1. INTRODUCTION
In cruise tourism, shore destinations and port cities are successfully combined with
various amenities/services on board the cruise ship. The market structure for cruising is
comprised of three basic elements. These are transport, typified by a cruise ship,
tourism and leisure, which is attractive to the cruise tourist, passenger or guest and,
finally, travel, that forms the cruise itinerary (Wild and Dearing, 2000). The product
provided by the cruise industry is a combination of the cruise vessel and the itinerary,
which is the sum of the destinations/ports visited. Therefore, this product is multi-
destination tourism due to the different ports and territories visited on the itinerary, with
the advantage of passengers not having to carry luggage between destinations because
of the simultaneous transport and accommodation characteristics of the cruise ship.
This tourist product and maritime business has dynamically advanced over the last two
decades; from 1990 to 2015, the number of cruise passengers worldwide has grown at
an average annual rate of 7.45%. Focusing attention on the last 20 years, the five-year
periods from 2001 to 2005 and from 2006 to 2010 were periods of higher growth, with
an average annual rate of 9.22% and 10.64%, respectively. Moreover, forecasts indicate
that in 2019, the cruise industry will exceed 25.3 million passengers worldwide (Cruise
Market Watch, 2016). This positive development means that cruise tourism is one of the
fastest growing tourism typologies.

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Seasonality is a major concern in several markets for different sectors. Tourism is one
of the markets most affected by seasonality, but fields such as transport and energy are
also affected. In economic terms, seasonality generally consists of systematic, although
not necessarily regular, movement of a variable during a selected period, usually a year
(Hylleberg, 1992). The definition given by Baron (1973) allows for a global view of the
economic effects of seasonality:
Seasonality implies an incomplete and unbalanced utilisation of the means
at the disposal of the economy, and this is similar to the imbalance of the
business cycle, where the economy is either overheated or running under
full potential at different phases of the cycle.
According to Butler (1994), seasonality, particularly for the tourism industry, can be
defined as ‘a temporal imbalance in the phenomenon of tourism, which may be
expressed in terms of dimensions of such elements as numbers of visitors, expenditure
of visitors, traffic on highways and other forms of transportation, employment and
admissions to attractions’. Biedermann (2008) stated that seasonality is ‘a prevalent
characteristic in travel and tourism marked by sharp variations in demand depending on
the time of the year’. Bender et al. (2005) stressed that seasonality ‘refers to the
existence of unevenness or fluctuation in the course of the year, which occurs in relation
to a specific season’. Furthermore, ‘seasonality is a global tourism phenomenon caused
by temporary movement of people’ (Chung, 2009). In addition, seasonality can be
defined as ‘the temporal fluctuations of tourism on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual
basis’ (Cooper et al., 2008).
According to Baron (1975) and Hartman (1986), seasonality has two distinctive origins:
the natural and the institutional. Natural seasonality, as the name implies, is caused by
natural phenomena, predominantly related to weather and climate, which are beyond the
control of decision makers. Institutional seasonality, conversely, stems from religious,
social, cultural, and/or ethnic factors, which are partially under the control of decision
makers. Among the institutional factors, school and public holidays significantly
influence institutional seasonality. In addition to natural and institutional seasonality,
other causes can be considered: social pressures, mega-sporting events, and the inertia
of travellers (Butler, 1994).
Thus, seasonality is exogenous to entrepreneurial activity, resulting in a series of
negative effects. Seasonality generally indicates a phenomenon of fluctuating demand
or supply in a market. Baron (1975) stated that seasonality generates costly losses called
‘seasonal losses’. Therefore, the negative effects of seasonality can be divided into three
categories: employment, environment, and investment (Butler, 1994). For instance, in
the labour market, the seasonality phenomenon causes widespread peak-season
employment and off-season underemployment and unemployment. With regard to the
environment, for example, seasonality demand on transport and energy production can
contribute to severe local air pollution derived from transport emissions and emissions
from high energy production concentrated over a short time period. In terms of capital,
this phenomenon generates the overuse and under-utilization of resources and facilities.
Thus, greater demand seasonality is associated with greater difficulty in determining the
optimal amount of public and/or private capital to invest. If investors consider peak-
season demand to determine facility dimensions, in the off-season, there will be a
certain level of under-exploited capacity and, hence, associated fixed costs. The return
on capital could be lower and more volatile due to demand seasonality (Cellini and
Rizzo, 2012).

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The concept of seasonality and its negative effects has a direct application in cruise
tourism and cruise traffic. There is a lack of literature on cruise traffic seasonality. The
negative effects of seasonality affect each one of the three key stakeholders involved in
drawing up a cruise itinerary—the cruise line, the tourist hinterland and the port—in a
different way.
In the case of cruise lines, seasonality affects the occupancy rate of ships, which is
directly related to institutional seasonality. However, they are also affected by natural
seasonality because there are regions with weather constraints. To minimize the
negative effects of this type of seasonality, cruise lines reposition their ships between
destination regions. This repositioning coincides with the peak season at each
destination. Both types of destination regions, annual (perennial) and seasonal
destinations, relate to this aspect of the industry. On the one hand, annual destinations
remain active throughout the year, although with significant differences in the deployed
capacity from one season to another. The Caribbean and the Mediterranean are annual
regions. On the other hand, seasonal destinations only remain active during a specific
period or season, primarily because of weather-related factors. Alaska and Northern
Europe are examples of seasonal regions.
The Mediterranean region, which is the area of analysis of this study, is the second most
popular worldwide cruise destination. In the 2000s, the deployed capacity in this region
grew at an average annual rate of 12.3%. This growth meant that the Mediterranean had
18.6% of the worldwide deployed capacity in 2014 (CLIA, 2015). The monthly
distribution of cruise passengers in MedCruise ports in 2010 and 2014 showed that
approximately 84% of passengers were served between the months of April and October
(see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Monthly distribution of cruise passengers in MedCruise
ports in 2010 and 2014

Source: Author’s elaboration based on data from MedCruise (2011) and MedCruise (2015).

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The tourist hinterland of a port of call is defined as the geographic area that cruise
passengers are able to visit (on cruise excursions) while in the port of call (Esteve-Perez
and Garcia-Sanchez, 2015). Therefore, the number of tourists visiting the hinterland is
affected by the seasonality of cruise tourism. The tourist attractions visited during the
call are not exclusive to cruise tourism because they are shared with other types of
tourism. Cruise traffic seasonality may exacerbate the negative effects of seasonality on
the tourist hinterland if it coincides with that of the remaining tourist typologies that
share the same tourist hinterland.

Ports embody the singular but fundamental connection between the ship and the
territories visited (Gui and Russo, 2011). Cruise ships maintain a tight schedule in port,
both in homeports and in ports of call. Seasonality affects cruise ports, causing the
underutilization of capacity in off-season months, with consequent economic losses in
terms of the return on deployed capital. Ports may also experience problems during the
peak season related to recruiting and allocating human resources, allocating physical
resources, maintaining service quality, managing congestion and minimising
environmental impacts, such as noise and air pollution. Furthermore, cruise lines are
constantly pushing for better port infrastructures. In addition, port facilities must be
adapted to mega-cruise ships because they increasingly show greater representation in
the global cruise ship fleet.

The investment required to provide cruise terminals is substantial and can occasionally
require the displacement of other maritime traffic that is incompatible with cruise traffic
in the same basin. Investment may be required to meet existing or future demand, but it
may be difficult to attract or justify if it is only required to finance capacity for a few
months each year (Halpern, 2011). Several Mediterranean ports have developed
investment plans for cruise infrastructure in recent years. For instance, the Piraeus Port
Authority Investment Plan 2012–2016 involves an investment of €230 million, which
includes the creation of six places to moor cruising vessels that are approximately
350-m long (Piraeus Port Authority, 2012). The port at Marseille has invested €35
million over the last three years to widen the North Channel to facilitate cruise-ship
access in all weather conditions. In 2011, the port of Genoa invested €13 million in
Ponte dei Mille to extend the quay and to perform dredging work (Econostrum,
2013). In Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, Royal Caribbean has invested €35
million to expand its cruise terminal to avoid bottlenecks (Port di Roma, 2015).
Additionally, the port of La Goulette has constructed two new berths, each 300-m
long, with a total investment of €28 million. Seventy-five per cent of this investment
is provided by a private investor, and the remaining 25% is provided by MSC
Cruises (Reyna, 2009).

Spanish Mediterranean cruise ports have also made substantial investments. Barcelona
has invested over €100 million over the last ten years. Of this amount, over 80%
represents private investments from two terminal operators: Creuers del Port de
Barcelona and Carnival Cruises. The remaining 20% is from the Barcelona Port
Authority for infrastructure development (Econostrum, 2013). In addition, in September
2013, Carnival Corporation received a concession for a new cruise terminal with an
associated investment of €20 million. Another example can be found in the Strategic
Plan 2020 of the Valencia Port Authority, with an investment of €59.6 million for cruise

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facilities. This investment is associated with four additional berthing points and a new
cruise terminal. The investment is a public-private partnership, with a public investment
of €33.2 million and a private investment of €26.4 million (Juan-Martínez and Pérez-
García, 2013).

The high level of investment required for cruise facilities and the seasonality patterns
that ports experience require them to cover relevant fixed costs with very low revenues
in the off-season. Therefore, the seasonal concentration of demand can result in
challenges for cruise port management in terms of the planning and operation of
infrastructure and services.

The aims of this work are (1) to determine the seasonality pattern of cruise passenger
movements and to analyse their changes, as registered in Spanish Mediterranean ports;
and (2) to provide a number of useful suggestions on cruise port management. This
study chooses to analyse the Spanish Port System because Spain is clearly a tourism
powerhouse. In 2014, Spain was the third country in the world in terms of the number
of tourists, with approximately 65 million foreign tourists (Tourspain, 2015); whereas
France was the first country in the world—83.7 million foreign tourists—, and also in
Europe, and United States of America was the second country in the world—74.8
million foreign tourists (OMT, 2015). Furthermore, Spain has a strategic geographical
position at the gates of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. In addition,
changes in cruise traffic in Spain were also positive, with an average annual growth of
11.4% from 1997 to 2015. During this period, Spanish Mediterranean ports served 75%
of total cruise passengers in the Spanish Port System. Moreover, in the Western
Mediterranean, Spain was the second European country in cruise passenger throughput
in the period 2009–2014 (MedCruise, 2015).

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the data and
presents the methodological approach to determine seasonality patterns and to analyse
their changes. Section 3 presents the empirical results, and important implications of
these results are discussed in this section. The last section presents the investigation’s
conclusions.

2. DATA AND METHODOLOGY

Along the Spanish Mediterranean coast, there are 24 general interest ports. Of these
ports, 18 serve cruise traffic, but they differ significantly in terms of passenger
throughput (see Table 1). Five of these ports are excluded from the analysis because
they served, on average, fewer than 5000 cruise passenger movements per year from
2000 to 2015. Cruise traffic in these five ports has a remarkably irregular character;
moreover, it is not one of the main sources of port business in these basins. The total
cruise passenger movements is the variable used to perform the analysis. This
variable is selected because it has the highest precision in measuring the cruise
traffic registered in each port. The number of cruise calls is also a variable that is
capable of measuring cruise traffic, but this variable shows a high degree of
uncertainty because of the differences existing in terms of vessel size and occupation
rate.

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Table 1. Average cruise passenger movements per year in Spanish

Mediterranean ports during the period 2000–2015
Port Cruise passenger movements Port Cruise passenger movements

1. Barcelona 1 729 762 10. Almería 29 064

2. Palma de Mallorca 1 018 152 11. Sevilla 12 059
3. Málaga 347 992 12. Motril 8100
4. Cádiz 235 674 13. Ceuta 6633
5. Valencia 207 411 14. Tarragona 3588
6. Ibiza 111 648 15. La Savina 1956
7. Mahón 74 201 16. Melilla 1188
8. Cartagena 61 208 17. Huelva 737
9. Alicante 58 381 18. Castellón 298
Source: Author’s elaboration based on data from Puertos del Estado (2016).

The seasonality analysis is performed with a time series composed of 192 observations
corresponding to each port’s monthly registers for the period 2000–2015. The source of
cruise passenger movement statistics is Puertos del Estado, a public organization in the
Public Works Ministry of the Spanish Government.
An aggregated seasonality analysis for Spanish Mediterranean cruise ports is conducted in two
steps. In the first step, the seasonality pattern is determined; in the second step, seasonality
changes are analysed. The seasonality changes are analysed annually and monthly.
To determine the seasonality pattern, the first step is to identify the type of model associated
with the time series of cruise passenger movements (see Figure 2): additive or
multiplicative. To do so, two methods have been used, one graphical and one numerical.
Figure 2. Time series of cruise passenger movements in Spanish
Mediterranean ports from 2000 to 2015

Source: Author’s elaboration based on data from Puertos del Estado (2016).

The graphical method is associated with a plot of the standard deviation and mean
for each annual observation. In Figure 3, there is a trend of increasing standard

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deviation by increasing the mean, which is characteristic of a multiplicative model

(CSIC, 2006).
To confirm the choice of a multiplicative model, a numerical method consistent for the
analysis of the coefficients of variation (CV) of the variability of seasonal differences
and seasonal ratios was used. The seasonal difference, 𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 , is defined as the difference
between two data points in the same season, in this case, the month, related to two
consecutive years, i-1 and i. It is calculated according to the following equation:

𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = 𝑦𝑦𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 − 𝑦𝑦𝑖𝑖−1𝑗𝑗 , (1)

where 𝑦𝑦𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 is the value of the series in year i and month j.

With respect to the seasonal ratio, 𝑘𝑘𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 , is defined as the ratio between two data points in
the same season, in this case, the month, related to two consecutive years, i-1 and i. It is
calculated according to the following equation:
𝑦𝑦𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖
𝑘𝑘𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 = , (2)
𝑦𝑦𝑖𝑖−1 𝑗𝑗
where 𝑦𝑦𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 is the value of the series in year i and month j.

Once 𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 and 𝑘𝑘𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 were calculated, the coefficients of variation (CV) are calculated,
defined by equations (3) and (4). If 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶(𝑑𝑑) ≤ 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶(𝑘𝑘), the additive model is chosen;
otherwise, the multiplicative model is chosen (UPCT, 2009).
𝜎𝜎𝑑𝑑
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶(𝑑𝑑) = . (3)
𝑑𝑑̅
𝜎𝜎𝑘𝑘
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶(𝑘𝑘) = . (4)
𝑘𝑘�
Using equations (3) and (4) with the time series of cruise passengers obtains 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶(𝑑𝑑) =
2.03 and 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶(𝑘𝑘) = 0.26. Therefore, 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶(𝑑𝑑) > 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶(𝑘𝑘); thus, the time series follows a
multiplicative model, as also suggested by Figure 3.
Figure 3. Distribution of standard deviation and average annual cruise passenger movements in
Spanish Mediterranean cruise ports between 2000 and 2015

Source: Author’s elaboration.

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In a multiplicative model, the seasonal component of the time series is measured by an

index called seasonal variation index (SVI) (Rey-Graña and Ramil-Díaz, 2007). This
index, expressed as a percentage, represents the value fluctuation of the series with
respect to the value of the annual average trend. To calculate the SVI, the ratio-to-
moving-average method has been employed. The SVI is calculated for each month i
according to equation (5):

𝑒𝑒̅𝑖𝑖
SVI (month 𝑖𝑖) = · 100, (5)
1� ∑ 𝑒𝑒̅
12 𝑖𝑖

where 𝑒𝑒̅𝑖𝑖 is the mean (for each month) of the monthly ratio of the original series values
divided by the moving averages obtained.

In the second step, two coefficients have been calculated to determine inter-annual
seasonality changes: the coefficient of variation and the Gini coefficient. Both
coefficients are widely used in the analysis of concentrations in markets such as the
tourism industry and the port industry. References to these indicators can be found in
the works of Aguiló and Sastre (1984), Fernández-Morales (2003), Nieto et al. (2000)
and Parola and Veenstra (2008).

The coefficient of variation is a measure of a dataset’s relative dispersion, which is

obtained by the ratio of the standard deviation to the arithmetic mean. A higher CV
value is associated with the greater heterogeneity of variable values; a lower CV is
associated with greater homogeneity in the values of the variable. The CV is calculated
according to the following equation:

2
∑𝑁𝑁 (𝑦𝑦 − 𝑦𝑦
�)
�
� 𝑛𝑛=1 𝑛𝑛
𝑁𝑁 (6)
𝜎𝜎
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶 = = ,
𝑦𝑦
� 𝑦𝑦
�

where σ is the standard deviation; 𝑦𝑦� is the arithmetic mean of the dataset; 𝑦𝑦𝑛𝑛 is each
monthly observation; and N = 12.

To compare with the results obtained with the CV, the Gini coefficient is also calculated
for the same analysis period. The Gini coefficient (G) was developed to measure the
degree of concentration (inequality) of a variable in a distribution of its elements
(Rodrigue et al., 2013). The Gini coefficient ranges between zero, where there is no
concentration (perfect equality), and one, where there is total concentration (perfect
inequality); it is calculated as follows:

1 2
𝐺𝐺 = 1 + − 2 (𝑌𝑌1 + 2 𝑌𝑌2 +. . . +𝑛𝑛 𝑌𝑌𝑛𝑛 ) where 𝑌𝑌1 ≥ 𝑌𝑌2 ≥ 𝑌𝑌𝑛𝑛 , (7)
𝑁𝑁 𝑁𝑁 𝑌𝑌�
where N is the number of observations (in this case, N = 12 because these are monthly
data); 𝑌𝑌� is the arithmetic mean of the sample; and 𝑌𝑌1 ≥ 𝑌𝑌2 ≥, … , ≥ 𝑌𝑌𝑛𝑛 are the
observations in decreasing order.

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Next, to determine the monthly changes in seasonality, the monthly variation rate
compared with the same month in the previous year is applied between 2000 and 2015
and calculated according to equation (8):

1
𝑦𝑦𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡
𝑇𝑇12 = − 1, (8)
𝑦𝑦𝑡𝑡−12
where 𝑦𝑦𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 is the number of cruise passenger movements in month t of year i, and 𝑦𝑦𝑡𝑡−12
is the number of cruise passenger movements in month t of the previous year.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Cruise traffic in Spanish Mediterranean coastal ports between 2000 and 2015 presents a
seasonal pattern (see Table 2). Six months (from May to October), three of which have
presented higher numbers than the annual average by 60%, constitute the peak season.
Of the off-season months, January and February were the months with less cruise
activity. The numbers registered during these months were lower than the annual
average by 75%. Additionally, in the off-season, April and November mark the
transition months at the beginning and the end of the peak season, respectively, with
minor differences compared with the annual average.

Table 2. Monthly seasonal variation index of cruise passenger movements registered in

Spanish Mediterranean ports between 2000 and 2015

Month SVI (%) Interpretation

January 22.04 -77.96% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

February 16.99 -83.01% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

March 33.93 -66.07% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

April 93.04 -6.96% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

May 148.82 48.82% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

June 129.98 29.98% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

July 146.99 46.99% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

August 161.49 61.49% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

September 166.00 66.00% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

October 166.89 66.89% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

November 81.79 -18.21% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average
December 32.04 -67.96% cruise passenger movements compared with the annual average

Source: Author’s elaboration.

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The seasonality pattern obtained reveals the existence of idle capacity in cruise facilities
due to differences in the monthly distribution of cruise passengers. A cruise terminal’s
occupancy rate is of interest to port operators because, a port faces several dilemmas
when decides to invest in cruise facilities. For instance, there may be incompatibilities
between cruise traffic and other cargo traffic in the same basin. In addition, cruise
terminals require a large number of facilities, including a passenger terminal with
suitable services for passengers, access to the terminal and sufficient logistical capacity
to serve a ship’s needs. These requirements are even more evident with the current fleet
of mega-cruise ships, whose complex logistics operations arise from their large size and
high passenger capacity. Thus, the necessary investments are substantial, and there is
the chance that, once the cruise terminal is built, the itinerary will be unprofitable, and
the ships will not call at this port.
The results of the CV analysis indicate a seasonality decrease in the total cruise
passenger movements from 2000 to 2015. A similar result was obtained by segregating
the passenger movements into categories of turnaround passengers and transit
passengers (see Table 3). The Gini coefficient results also yield a seasonality decrease
from 2000 to 2015.

Table 3. Annual values for the coefficient of variation (CV) and

the Gini coefficient (G) for the cruise passenger movements from
2000 to 2015

Total passengers Turnaround passengers Transit passengers

Year
CV G CV G CV G
2000 0.67 0.37 0.84 0.46 0.59 0.33
2001 0.69 0.39 0.80 0.44 0.63 0.36
2002 0.65 0.37 0.75 0.41 0.60 0.34
2003 0.70 0.39 0.84 0.46 0.63 0.36
2004 0.64 0.36 0.78 0.44 0.60 0.34
2005 0.62 0.35 0.72 0.40 0.57 0.32
2006 0.66 0.37 0.74 0.41 0.62 0.35
2007 0.60 0.33 0.69 0.39 0.55 0.31
2008 0.59 0.32 0.67 0.37 0.53 0.29
2009 0.53 0.30 0.55 0.31 0.53 0.30
2010 0.55 0.31 0.63 0.35 0.51 0.28
2011 0.57 0.32 0.73 0.41 0.47 0.27
2012 0.56 0.31 0.68 0.38 0.48 0.27
2013 0.49 0.27 0.57 0.31 0.45 0.25
2014 0.46 0.26 0.52 0.29 0.47 0.26
2015 0.50 0.28 0.60 0.33 0.46 0.26

Source: Author’s elaboration.

Relating the changes in cruise passenger movements to the changes in seasonality by

calculating an index number and referring to the values from 2000, it was determined

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that the increase in cruise passenger movements was accompanied by a decrease in

seasonality (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Index number change curves for cruise

passenger movements and CVs for the period
2000–2015

Source: Author’s elaboration.

The Gini coefficient represents the area of concentration between the Lorenz curve and
the line of perfect equality because it expresses a proportion of the area enclosed by the
triangle defined by the line of perfect equality and the line of perfect inequality. In the
plot of the Lorenz curve for the years 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015, a progressive
decrease of seasonality and an accompanying increase of total cruise passenger
movements are observed (see Figures 4 and 5). Therefore, a decrease in the annual
seasonality in the period 2000–2015 is obtained by both methods.

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Figure 5. Lorenz curve associated with the total cruise passenger

movements in the years 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015

Source: Author’s elaboration.

The cumulative results of the monthly variation in rates for the period 2000–2015 and the results
of the average monthly variation in rates for the same period reveal that off-season months register
higher growth compared with peak-season months (see Figure 6). This finding indicates a trend
towards a more equitable distribution between months, despite significant differences existing
between them, i.e., the monthly seasonality has also been reduced. Thus, there is a gradual trend
towards a de-seasonalization of cruise traffic in Spanish Mediterranean ports.
Figure 6. Cumulative and average monthly variation rate for the period 2000–2015

Source: Author’s elaboration.

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Although there has been a decrease in seasonality, it continues to affect the three key
stakeholders involved in creating a cruise itinerary, though in different ways. First, the
cruise line is the stakeholder with the greatest opportunities to address seasonality
effects through the repositioning of ships between destination regions. However, such
repositioning to avoid low ship occupancy rates and lower revenues per passenger also
involve high costs to the cruise line, particularly fuel costs. Second, the negative effects
of seasonality on the tourist hinterland may vary by its dependence on cruise tourism.
Therefore, seasonality may have a direct effect, as in the case of ports, or minor effects
because cruise tourism resources are shared with other types of tourism. Third, the port
is the stakeholder most affected by seasonality because, during some months, it will
register very low cruise activity in its berths. Compatibility with other traffic in the
same berths is complicated by the high requirements of cruise traffic, other than liner
passenger traffic, which would be compatible with cruise traffic.
During off-season cruise traffic, there is an under-exploited capacity of port
infrastructures, as observed in this analysis. Low occupancy rates during these months
negatively affect port revenues. Furthermore, the idle capacity is not readily usable for
other port activities if it has not been previously allocated. In the literature, one can find
some propositions to reduce the negative effects of seasonality in the exploitation of
cruise terminals. First, public-private partnerships for the management and operation of
cruise terminals appear relevant because they have some bearing on the number of calls
and passengers (Esteve-Perez and Garcia-Sanchez, 2015). These partnerships are
formalized with private port operators who act as investors, reducing the investment risk
for the public sector and increasing the occupancy rate of the port in off-season months.
Currently, cruise lines also act as terminal operators, continuing the process of vertical
integration at the port’s operational level. This measure aims to more evenly distribute
the risk of investing in cruise facilities, and, when applicable, the cruise line makes a
commitment to guarantee a minimum number of calls in each period.
To address the negative effects of seasonality on cruise ports, it is suggested that port
fees be restructured (ship fee and passenger fee), stratifying fees depending on the
season. By decreasing fees, cruise lines, as stakeholders with high bargaining power, are
encouraged to keep their vessels for a longer time in a destination region and to attract
cruise calls outside the peak season. In contrast, increasing fees in peak season will
improve the port’s revenues.
In addition, another strategy involves developing policies to limit cruise passenger
movements per day, especially in must-see ports during the peak season. This strategy is
particularly important in ports with a tourist hinterland that seems to have overestimated
the burden that the hinterland’s residents can accept. High concentrations of cruise
passengers give rise to congestion, affecting the habits and customs of the local
population.
Another measure to reduce the harmful effects of seasonality is to make the passenger
terminal a multi-use facility by developing other activities compatible with passenger
transit in the terminal building, such as offices, restaurants and a business centre.
Examples of this approach can be found in the port at Piraeus, with the creation of a
luxury five-star hotel in the “Pagoda” building (Piraeus Port Authority, 2012), and in
the port at Málaga, with the development of a hotel project on the “Dique de Levante”
pier (Rodríguez, 2015). Finally, providing the cruise terminal with alternative uses on
the days with no passenger transit, such as conventions and other events, is

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recommended (Billows, 2013). In fact, marked seasonality is the main cause of the
multifunctional nature of the infrastructure built in Venice, Civitavecchia, Genoa and
Barcelona (Soriani et al., 2009).

4. CONCLUSIONS
Cruise traffic in Spanish Mediterranean cruise ports follows a seasonal distribution
throughout the year. The peak season is from May to October; the last three months of
the peak season register the highest numbers of cruise passenger movements – higher
than 60% of the annual mean. In contrast, January and February are the months with the
lowest cruising activity; cruise passenger movements are less than 75% of the annual
mean.
With regard to changes in seasonality, from 2000 to 2015, the seasonality of cruising
activity decreased. Furthermore, the seasonality decrease was registered in both
turnaround passengers and transit passengers. In addition, the seasonality decrease was
accompanied by an increase in cruise passenger movements. This seasonality decrease
is associated with a greater increase of cruise passenger movements in off-season
months compared with peak-season months.
To address the negative effects of seasonality on cruise ports, four counter-strategies
related to terminal partnerships, port fees, peak-season restrictions and complementary
terminal uses are suggested. First, a private terminal operator can be incorporated to
distribute the risk of high investments more evenly and to even guarantee a minimum
number of calls during a period if a cruise line acts as a terminal operator. Second, to
restructure port fees (ship fee and passenger fee), implementing a stratified pricing
scheme from peak season to off season is recommended. With this measure, cruise lines
are encouraged to maintain their itineraries more often during the off-season, and port
authorities improve their revenues in the peak season.
Next, an upper limit of cruise passenger movements per day can be established in ports
experiencing high congestion during the peak season. This measure would help the port
to allow a more equitable distribution of cruise calls and would also reduce congestion
in the tourist hinterland associated with that port. Finally, an additional recommendation
involves the promotion of multi-use cruise terminals, combining them with offices and
restaurants and hosting leisure and business tourism events on days without cruise
passenger traffic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aguiló E, Sastre A. La medición de la estacionalidad del turismo: El caso de Baleares.
Estudios Turísticos 1984; 81: 79-88.
Baron RRV. Seasonality in tourism – part II. International Tourism Quarterly 1973; 1:
51-67.
Baron RRV. Seasonality in tourism: a guide to the analysis of seasonality and trends for
policy making. London: Economist Intelligence Unit; 1975.

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Bender O, Schumacher KP, Stein D. Measuring seasonality in Central Europe’s tourism

– how and for what? Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Information
& Communication Technologies (ICT) in urban planning and spatial development and
impacts of ICT on physical space, Wien, February 22–25, 2005.
Biederman PS. Travel and tourism: An industry primer. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Education; 2008.
Billows N. Multi-Use of Cruise Terminals and Financing. Proceedings of the 2013
American Association of Port Authorities Cruise Seminar, San Francisco, April 24,
2013.
Butler RW. Seasonality in tourism: issues and implications. In Tourism: A state of the
art, edited by Seaton, AV, 332–339. Chichester: Wiley; 1994.
Cellini R, Rizzo G. Private and public incentive to reduce seasonality: a theoretical
model. Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal 2012; 6 (2012-43):
1-33.
Chung JY. Seasonality in tourism: A review. e-Review of Tourism Research 2009; 7
(5): 82–96.
CLIA (Cruise Lines International Association). 2014 Year in Review. CLIA; 2015.
http://www.cruising.org/sites/default/files/pressroom/StateofCruiseIndustry_2015_Infog
raphic.jpg. Accessed 14 June 2015.
Cooper C, Wanhill S, Fletcher J, Gilbert D, Fyall A. Tourism: Principles and practice.
Fourth ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited; 2008.
Cruise Market Watch. Growth of the Cruise Line Industry. Cruise Market Watch; 2016.
http://www.cruisemarketwatch.com/growth/. Accessed 20 January 2016.
CSIC (Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas). Series temporales. Madrid:
CSIC; 2006.
Econostrum. Mediterranean ports invest in cruises. Econostrum; 2013.
http://en.econostrum.info/Mediterraean-ports-invest-in-cruises_a211.html. Accessed 25
February 2015.
Esteve-Perez J, Garcia-Sanchez A. Cruise market: Stakeholders and the role of ports
and tourist hinterlands. Maritime Economics & Logistics 2015; 17: 371-388.
Fernández-Morales A. Decomposing seasonal concentration. Annals of Tourism
Research 2003; 30 (4): 942-956.
Gui L, Russo AP. Cruise ports: A strategic nexus between regions and global lines-
Evidence from the Mediterranean. Maritime Policy and Management 2011; 38 (2): 129–
150.
Halpern N. Measuring seasonal demand for Spanish airports: Implications for counter-
seasonal strategies. Research in Transportation Business and Management 2011; 1 (1):
47-54.
Hartmann R. Tourism, seasonality and social change. Leisure Studies 1986; 5 (1): 25–33.

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Hylleberg S. Modelling seasonality. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1992.

Juan-Martínez MC, Pérez-García E. Valencia Cruise Terminal, Spain. In COST Action
TU1001 Public Private Partnerships in Transport: Trends & Theory P3T3, edited by
Roumboutsos A, Farrell S, Liyanage CL, Macário R, 141–153. Brussels: COST Office; 2013.
MedCruise. Cruise activities in MedCruise ports: Statistics 2014. Piraeus: MedCruise;
2015.
MedCruise. The New Medcruise Statistic Report. Barcelona: MedCruise; 2011.
Nieto JL, Amate I, Román IM. Estudio de la estacionalidad turística en la provincia de
Almería durante el periodo 1980-1998. Revista de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales del
IEA 2000; 17: 13-26.
OMT (Organización Mundial del Turismo). Panorama OMT del turismo internacional,
edición 2015. Madrid: OMT; 2015.
Parola F, Veenstra AW. The spatial coverage of shipping lines and container terminal
operators. Journal of Transport Geography 2008; 16 (4): 292-299.
Piraeus Port Authority. Piraeus Port Authority S.A. Investment Plan 2012-2016.
Piraeus: Piraeus Port Authority; 2012.
Port di Roma. Cruise terminal, Civitavecchia. Port di Roma; 2015.
http://www.portidiroma.it/en/front_progettien/civitavecchia. Accessed 6 May 2015.
Puertos del Estado. Estadísticas mensuales de pasajeros de crucero. Puertos del Estado;
2016. http://www.puertos.es/es-es/estadisticas/Paginas/estadistica_mensual.aspx.
Accessed 16 February 2016.
Rey-Graña C, Ramil-Díaz M. Introducción a la estadística descriptiva. Second ed. A
Coruña: Netbiblo; 2007.
Reyna M. Current port and terminal development. Proceedings of the 2009 American
Association of Port Authorities Cruise Seminar, Mazatlán, February 18, 2009.
Rodrigue JP, Comtois C, Slack B. The geography of transport systems. Third ed.
Abingdon: Routledge; 2013.
Rodríguez JV. El Puerto aprueba el documento que permite el hotel del dique de
Levante. Diario La Opinión de Málaga 2015; April 22.
Soriani S, Bertazzon S, Di Cesare F, Rech G. Cruising in the Mediterranean: Structural
aspects and evolutionary trends. Maritime Policy and Management 2009; 37 (3): 235-251.
Tourspain. Nota de coyuntura de Frontur: Diciembre 2014. Madrid: Tourspain; 2015.
UPCT (Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena). Series temporales. Cartagena: UPCT;
2009.
Wild P, Dearing J. Development of and prospects for cruising in Europe. Maritime
Policy and Management 2000; 27 (4): 315-333.

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 PORTS AND TERMINAL MANAGEMENT II

ADRIATIC MOTORWAYS OF THE SEA ANALYSIS

Prof. Natalija Kavran, Ph.D.

Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences
Vukelićeva 4, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia, natalija.kavran@fpz.hr
Prof. Alen Jugović, Ph.D.
Maritime Faculty University of Rijeka
Studentska 2, Rijeka, Croatia, ajugovic@pfri.hr
Prof. Zvonko Kavran, Ph.D.
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences
Vukelićeva 4, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia, zvonko.kavran@fpz.hr

Key words: Motorways of the Sea, Adriatic sea, analysis

Abstract

The massive shift of traffic to motorways of the sea will bring significant economic
effects. As well-known, the transport cost of motorways of sea transport is much lower
compared to road transport. Maritime transport is the most energy-efficient transport
mode. When traffic is shifted to the motorway of sea, logistics would take the cheaper
route and the total transport cost is decreased.

The purpose of - cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of relevant Motorways of the Sea (MoS) in
the Adriatic region covering the European trans-national Adriatic maritime traffic
flows is to: a) consider existing situation at the relevant ports and terminals for
proposed MoS, b) review existing development plans and strategies, c) perform detailed
cost-benefit analysis taking into account relevant data as well as micro, mezzo and
macro business and social environment, and d) to analyse possibilities of achieving
higher growth rates.

Determined methodology for estimation of values of parameters that characterize

current condition at the relevant ports and terminals is presented: current and expected
requirements of users in connection with gross turnover and planned traffic volumes;
strategic objective of the European regional development to bring the utilization rate of
maritime transport capacities into optimum scope and in line with reasonably expected
requirements of users, to develop new capacities, and other significant relevant factors
for development and strengthening of proposed MoS.The analysis involves the current
transport conditions and determine future goals aimed at supporting an efficient,
integrated, balanced and sustainable development of relevant MoS as well as their
initial integration into EU transport sector.

This paper present results of research on AdriaticMoS project, IPA Adriatic Cross-
border Cooperation Programme, during 2014.

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1. INTRODUCTION

The Adriatic Sea occupies important strategic position between three continents –
Europe, Asia and Africa. Furthermore, it has a key position along trade routes of major
global importance. A number of recent trends such as globalization and growth in
international and intercontinental trade, the opening up of Eastern Europe and the re-
routing of European trade flows gave new impetus for the development of the Adriatic
Sea ports and for the re-definition of their roles as critical nodal points within the wider
area transport network. The Adriatic Gateway is of strategic importance for Europe, and
its prospects of development appear very high. Presently only 1.5% of the containers’
cargo flows enters Europe from the North Adriatic Ports Cluster, the increase of some
few % of this amount, could produce considerable benefits, balancing the northbound –
southbound cargo flows, reducing the land transport distances, thus releasing
bottlenecks and congestions on the roads, reducing pollution and increasing safety of
transports. [1]

In the global scenario, transport flows in Europe are bound to increase consistently over
the next decade despite the negative aspect of the current economic crisis. The trend in
increasing freight flows, in the medium - long term perspective, is a result of growing
international trade. The growing weight of Asia and, broadly speaking, the emerging
markets, in world economy and trade is changing the dynamics of the freight
transportation market as projections of many international organizations are showing:
OECD forecasts that developed economies will grow on average by 2.15% during the
next five years, while countries such as China and India will grow by 7.2%. Even if
Western European markets are still the richest on an absolute level, Eastern European
Markets are the most dynamic, showing a higher growth rate. In the post crisis scenario,
this trend is expected to be stronger. On the maritime layer this change will affect
heavily the world and European freight routes, opening a window of opportunity for
Northern Adriatic ports. The growth of Euro Asian trade will increase the traffic
through the Suez Channel and the Mediterranean basin, modifying well - established
trade relations. [1]

Implementation of the motorways of the sea system understands creation of common

development strategy of all the contries in the area of transport and including transport
systems. [9]

2. METHODOLOGY

For the reason of transport market development in Adriatic sea and international
trade increse new MoS corridors are to be defined determined mainly by the
clusters they serve and then by the corresponding ports. These proposed MoS
corridors are estimated to both serve the excess of demand due to future growth in
the decades to come as well as succeed a mode shift from the road transport after
the establishment of the new maritime connections in the Adriatic Sea additional to
the existing ones.

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Table 1: Potential MOS corridors scenarios

Potential Indicative Link Type of
Cluster-to-cluster
MoS Corridor (port-to-port) Service
MoS 1 North East NAPA ports & Rijeka - Ancona Ro-Ro
West Adriatic ports

MoS 2 Northern NAPA ports & Trieste - Igoumenitsa Ro-Ro

Northern Ionian ports

MoS 3 Southern Adriatic ports & Bari-Koper Ro-Ro

Northern NAPA ports

MoS 4 Sicily ports & Catania - Koper Ro-Ro

Northern NAPA ports

MoS 5 Southern Adriatic ports & Bari - Bar Ro-Ro

Montenegro ports

MoS 6 Southern Ionian ports & Albania Patra - Durres Ro-Pax

ports

MoS 7 Northern NAPA Ports & Northern Koper - Patra Ro-Ro

Ionian Ports

MoS 8 Northern NAPA Ports, Croatian Koper - Zadar/ Split - Ro - Ro

Ports & Albania Ports Durres

To determine if proposed MoS is a sound decision (investment) from the perspective of

business operators and society in the region as well as key public authorities, cost and
benefits of each eight MoS should be analysed. The proccess of comparing each MoS
involves process of comparing the total expected cost of each option against the total
expected benefits. While performing identification of priority needs analysis to
overcome barriers and harmonization of procedures, the CBA should be defined in a
way that it describes the ultimate cost-effectiveness of those projects that are not
estimated at present time.

Effective management of revenues and expenditures, and in particular of projects

related to ports with a long-term life cycle, whose construction and exploitation
sometimes involve considerable costs over a long period of time, implies taking account
of the time preference of money, that is the time value of money. The time preference of
money is the value of money over a given amount of time. The same quantity of money
has a higher value today than in the future. The difference in value compared to the
relevant time is directly connected with the discount rate. The same non-discounted
values of the whole life cost will have different present values if the individual values of
revenues and expenditure are calculated at different times. The financial values
calculated in earlier periods of time have a higher present value. Consequently, the
benefit is higher when the revenues are calculated in the near future, and expenditures in
the distant future.

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Costs and benefits are discounted with a real discount rate. Suggested benchmark values
chosen for this research of cargo volume and related scenarios are: 5.5% for Cohesion
and IPA countries, and for convergence regions elsewhere with high growth outlook;
3.5% for Competitiveness regions [4]. Updated value are available for further research
in Guide, 2014.

Alternative implementation scenarios for proposed and selected MoS are recognized
as:

• Policy implementation scenarios:

− Scenario 1 – Ecobonus - Constitutes an incentive for trucks,
allocating the subsidy directly to the users of the maritime transport
service, in order to promote a gradual shift of heavy goods vehicles
from road to sea, by compensating the external costs incurred from
road transport in relation to the identified maritime connections on a
certain number of eligible routes.
− Scenario 2 - Reduction of port charges - Potential agreements
between MoS links operators and involved ports would result to a
reduction of port operation costs, contributing to the increase of
competitiveness of the MoS corridors, the attraction of increased
freight flows and the increase of number of calls of the ports.

• Scenario on MoS operation:

− Scenario 3 - The implementation of MoS corridors with different
frequencies is examined within the developed scenario. The
frequency of MoS links has a direct impact on travel time and
consequently on the estimated freight demand. A potential change on
MoS frequency could potentially affect the estimated demand and
the overall operation of MoS.

• Demand Scenario:
− Scenario 4 - The freight demand has been estimated, identifying the
MoS corridors and the potential freight flows. However, unexpected
events, such as economic crisis or the accession of several IPA
countries in EU could possibly have an impact on the estimated
freight flows, higher than the expected. The demand scenarios are
lower and higher demand than estimated initially

Input values for Cost-benefit analysis of relevant Motorways of the Sea are as follows:

• new demand (t/year);

• average amount of freight (t/TEU);
• discount rate (%);
• newly obtained value for the port (EUR/TEU);
• number of ports included in MoS.

Projection of potential freight demand are outputs of the project Adriatic Master Plan or
MoS, WP5, IPA Adriatic Cross-border Cooperation Programme, 2013.

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Table 2: Potential freight demand

Potential MoS New demand (tons/ year)
Corridor
Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4
MoS 1 725.651 684.903 684.577 679.100
MoS 2 368.903 348.555 413.996 336.885
MoS 3 383.963 362.607 428.168 404.284
MoS 4 174.735 165.270 98.907 183.983
MoS 5 157.479 149.018 118.852 153.320
MoS 6 257.713 245.981 171.808 253.393
MoS 7 153.207 147.035 80.635 160.406
MoS 8 713.316 679.982 679.349 804.009

Analysis of costs for each MoS scenario considers infrastructure interventions

(investments) costs and administrative costs. These elements have been identified as a
necessity for MoS implementing for ensuring reliability and higher service quality.
Costs are identified as administrative cost estimated as equal amount for all scenarios
and this amount is added to the total amount of all estimated costs for each MoS
scenario.

3. CASE STUDY: MOTORWAYS OF SEA RIJEKA-ANCONA

For first case study MoS 1 is chosen connecting port of Rijeka (Republic of Croatia)
and port of Ancona (Republic of Italy). Total cost of MoS 1 is calculated as cost of
infrastructure plus administrative cost. Cost of infrastructure – (I) integrates all
infrastructure investments in ports and is calculated as follows.

Table 3: Infrastructure investments at port of Rijeka

Total
Proposed project MoS
Bottle neck or missing link cost
description segment
(mil €)
Inadequate Ro-Ro Reconstruction and Ro – R / N/a
modernization of ro-ro Ro – Ro
terminal in Bakar passenger
Missing ramp for the Ramp construction at the Ro – Ro N/a
loading/unloading of the trucks railway station
on the railway
Insufficient sea depth for New terminal Container / N/a
accommodation the biggest construction at Ro-Ro
MoS ship Zagrebačka quay
Not existing information Electronic exchange of All N/a
exchange and documentation document management
service system
Non existing system for waste, Waste, sewage and bilge All N/a
sewage and bilge disposal in disposal facilities
the port

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Table 4: Infrastructure investments at port of Ancona

Total
Proposed project Mos
Bottle neck or missing link cost (mil
description segment
€)
Inadequate and inappropriate Direct road connection Ro-Ro / Ro
road connection from/to to highway – Ro pax / N/a
terminal container

Missing ramp for the Ramp construction at the Ro – Ro

loading/unloading of the trucks railway station 9,52
on the railway

Not computerized management Electronic exchange of All

system of electronic exchange document management N/a
of document at the terminal system

I (Scenario MoS 1) = I1 + I2 + I3 + I4 + I5 + I6 + I7 + I8

I1 = reconstruction and modernization of ro − ro terminal in Bakar = N/A amount

I2 = ramp construction at the railway station at port of Rijeka = N/A amount
I3 = new terminal construction at Zagrebačka quay at port of Rijeka = N/A amount
I4 = electronic exchange of data management system at port of Rijeka = N/A amount
I5 = waste, sewage and bilge disposal faclities at port of Rijeka = N/A amount
I6 = direct road conect to highway at port of Ancona = N/A amount
I7 = ramp contruction at the railway station at port of Ancona = 9,52 mil €
I8 = electronic exchange of data management system at port of Ancona = N/A amount

𝑰𝑰 (𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺 𝑴𝑴𝑴𝑴𝑴𝑴 𝟏𝟏) = 𝑰𝑰𝟏𝟏 + 𝑰𝑰𝟐𝟐 + 𝑰𝑰𝟑𝟑 + 𝑰𝑰𝟒𝟒 + 𝑰𝑰𝟓𝟓 + 𝑰𝑰𝟔𝟔 + 𝟗𝟗, 𝟓𝟓𝟓𝟓 𝒎𝒎𝒎𝒎𝒎𝒎 € + 𝑰𝑰𝟖𝟖

Total infrastructure cost for that service is 9, 52 mil Euro plus other 7 investments costs.
Following analysis is valid for 15 years and 25 years investment period. Results of cost-
benefit analysis, based on expected cargo volume, macro and micro economic indicators
and for scenarios 1-4 are presented as follows.

Table 5: MoS 1 cost-benefit analysis for 15 years period

Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4

Appraisal period (years) 15 15 15 15

CBA of monetary costs
and benefits
Present Value of Benefits 62.768.223 59.243.306 59.215.150 58.741.953

Present Value of Costs 7.154.960 7.154.960 7.154.960 7.154.960

Net Present Value 55.613.263 52.088.346 52.060.190 51.586.993

For costs I1 + I2 + I3 +I4 + I5 + I6 + I7 + I8 available amounts as follows.

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Table 6: MoS 1 cost-benefit analysis for 15 years period - investment policy costs

Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4

Appraisal period (years) 15 15 15 15

Available cost for I1, I2, I3,
55.613.263 52.088.346 52.060.190 51.586.993
I4, I5, I6, I7, I8

Table 7: MoS 1 cost-benefit analysis for 25 years period

Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4

Appraisal period (years) 25 25 25 25

CBA of monetary costs
and benefits
Present Value of Benefits 83.881.636 79.171.040 79.133.414 78.501.045

Present Value of Costs 8.888.939 8.888.939 8.888.939 8.888.939

Net Present Value 74.992.697 70.282.101 70.244.475 69.612.106

For costs I1 + I2 + I3 +I4 + I5 + I6 + I7 + I8 available amounts as follows.

Table 8: MoS 1 cost-benefit analysis for 25 years period - investment policy costs

Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4

Appraisal period (years) 25 25 25 25

Available cost for I1, I2, I3,
74.992.697 70.282.101 70.244.475 69.612.106
I4, I5, I6, I8

4. CONCLUSION

Ports are strengthened by their infrastructure, facilities, installations and inter-

connections with other modes of transport. Accordingly, activities in the port and
around the port region will be created and enriched, benefiting employment and local
economic development in the port region. Ultimately, the ports’ position as economic
centres of development supports the creation of jobs, rebalancing economic
developments between regions and good planning of land use. Normally expected
profitability of an investment is that rate of return which provides enough income to
cover the inputs opportunity cost.
EU regulations designing the Funds interventions consider the profitability normally
expected in order not to provide over-financing. For a project to require the contribution
of the Funds, the net present value of the investment should usually be negative (and the
financial rate of return lower than the applied discount rate).
MoS services are better alternative to road transport because larger part of the route uses
ecological and more socially acceptable mode of transport (sea and railway). However,

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it is not possible without a justified economic basis to redirect freight to MoS services.
Given that transport is an economic activity and that all stakeholders are economic
entities which aim at higher profit, it has to be taken into account that freight will
change the mode of transport only if it is economically justified and instructed by legal
mechanisms. At this point the guidelines of the European Union have left the modal
shift to the market and the Member States are not motivated to use legal mechanisms to
dictate the mode of transport and routes. Therefore, in order to perform modal shift to
the MoS services, they have to function flawlessly and have to be in the functional and
economic sense a better solution.
Analysis of the Adriatic MoS based on identified infrastructure and organizational
elements that constitute barriers to functional maintenance of MoS services. Based on
the developed scenarios, where it was possible, costs of infrastructure and
administrative intervention are to be evaluated. Since it is not possible to estimate all
costs, the proposed methodology of adjustment with the cost-benefit analysis that will
assess the economic benefits of each scenario should be applied. Ultimately, benefits
from a scenario from CBA provides a financial framework for planning the remaining
costs of infrastructure investments.

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REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] Adriatic Master Plan for MoS, WP5, „Developing of motorways of sea system in
Adriatic region”, AdriaticMoS project, IPA Adriatic Cross-border Cooperation
Programme, 2013.
[2] Aifandopoulou G, Motorways of the Sea as part of the revised TEN-T”,
International Conference on TEN-T, Vienna, 2004.
[3] Baird A J, The Economics of Motorways of the Sea, Maritime Policy and
Management, 2007; 34 (4): 287-310.
[4] Cost-benefit analysis of Relevant Motorways of the Sea, „Developing of motorways
of sea system in Adriatic region”, AdriaticMoS project, IPA Adriatic Cross-border
Cooperation Programme, Eufondia, 2014.
[5] Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis of Investment Projects, , European Commission,
Directorate General Regional Policy, 2008.
[6] Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis of Investment Projects, European Commission,
Directorate General Regional Policy, 2014.
[7] Haralambous G, The contribution of the “Sea Motorways” to the European
Transport Policy, Hellenic Institute of transport, Piraeus, 2005.
[8] Jugović A, Debelić B, Brdar M. Short Sea Shipping in Europe factor of sustainable
development transport system of Croatia, Pomorstvo: Scientific Journal of Maritime
Research, 2011; 1: 109-125.
[9] Jugović A, Žanić Mikuličić J, Maglić L. Impact of external costs on the
implemetation of Motorways of the Sea system, Pomorstvo: Scientific Journal of
Maritime Research, 2014; 1: 17-21.
[10] Smojver Ž, Jugović A, Perić Hadžić A. Implementation of „ECOBONUS“ project
in the Republic of Croatia, Pomorstvo : Journal of maritime studies, 2012; 1: 95-11.

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HOTELING CRUISE SHIP’S POWER REQUIREMENTS FOR HIGH

VOLTAGE SHORE CONNECTION INSTALLATIONS

Sergi Espinosa Sanes (I)

Pau Casals-Torrens, PhD (II)
Marcel·la Castells, PhD (III)
(I) Barcelona School of Nautical Studies (FNB), Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya. BarcelonaTech (UPC). Corresponding author and presenter.
sespinosasanes@gmail.com
(II) Department of Electrical Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
BarcelonaTech (UPC). Barcelona, Spain. ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0464-3831
(III) Department of Nautical Sciences and Engineering, Universitat Politè cnica de
Catalunya. BarcelonaTech, (UPC). Barcelona, Spain. ORCID iD:0000-0002-
9038-3126

Abstract
The main objective of this paper is the presentation of a theoretical and quantitative
study of the power requirements that any port considering to install and develop shore
to ship connection systems must consider. Particularly, the current study focuses these
requirements for cruise ship ports and their terminals.
This paper provides theoretical and quantitative tools and ideas that can be used to
estimate main design parameters such as frequency, voltage and power for high voltage
shore connections. Some models and equations are developed aiming to be able to
estimate, with acceptable quality, cruise ship’s power demand for hoteling services at
port. On the other hand, this article is intended to assess ship's air pollution impact
populated harbour areas to decide whether alternative power supply measures are
feasible. Finally, the assessment model is applied at Barcelona's cruise piers and case
study is discussed. As a result of that, a daily power demand curve and the consequent
air pollution study at the most crowded situation in this port are obtained.
Key words
High Voltage, Shore Connection, Power demand, cruise ships, air pollution;

1. INTRODUCTION
Actually, High voltage shore connection (HVSC) technologies are enough advanced for
apply them to the ships that have the highest power demand at port, cruise ships. This
type of ships, are such as enormous floating cities that use to have a very wide list of
power consumers and services within their hoteling services.
According to their mission, cruise ships must always keep on supplying power to their
services with determined power characteristics and acceptable quality. For that reason,
high voltage shore connection installations, particularly on their shore-side, have to be
designed in the way to supply enough power, good quality and compatible parameters.
The International Standard ISO, in their standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005-1 High Voltage
Shore Connection (HVSC) Systems – General requirements, reference [1], provides
some requirements and recommendations about how to design the installation, but it

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does not provide any idea about how to estimate the maximum power for which the
installation should be designed in function of ships that use to berth at port. In contrast,
Classification Societies do not include complete requirements for the shore-side of any
installation, but they include acceptable ranges for power, in which frequency and
voltage variations are defined. Moreover, to design and develop these technologies,
ships that use to do port calls at the proposed location must be considered because once the
installation will be constructed, it must guarantee compatibility with the widest range of ships.
Then, it is not hard to understand the importance of first steps of high voltage shore
connection installation’s design. The accuracy of the designed installations at any port is
going to determine their occupancy and consequently their economic viability.
In that way, first step in any design procedure should be deciding which are going to be
final product characteristics or specifications. In the present case, to develop the design
of an electric installation, the previous main aspects that must be considered are voltage,
frequency, power demand for hoteling particularly in Barcelona’s harbour, number of
consumers and national grid characteristics.
Cruise ships that use power for hoteling services in Barcelona’s harbor and the ISO
standard shall be the starting point of consideration for deciding voltage, frequency and
power demand. The maritime sector has always been a high closed sector according to
ship’s data privacy in many fields. Because of that, determining the exact value for that
magnitudes it is not as easy as it seems. Aiming to determine all these aspects, some
studies included in references; [2], [3], [4] and [5]; have been used because of their data
collection about cruise ships using high voltage shore connection at berth, especially the
one developed in San Francisco’s port.

2. THEORETICAL DETERMINATION OF POWER’S QUALITY

As has already been mentioned above, determining supplied power’s magnitudes is

always difficult. The difficulty resides in ship’s power own production. Cruise ship’s
power generation on board depends basically on their wide range of power demand.
That range varies between different cruise ships because the noticeable difference
between their mission, small cruise ships are focused on offering lux and exclusive
holidays for example, and enormous ones on being able to hold a huge capacity of
passengers and a large list of entertainment activities such as theatres, casinos or
nightclubs within others.
Their mission also depends on the route they are going to operate on, because of the
difference on national grid’s frequency between countries or continents.
Then, according to their mission, cruise ships are designed with a determined voltage
and frequency. Aiming to estimate the habitual distribution of world’s cruise ships
voltages, voltage data obtained from [5] has been used to develop figure 1.
It can be extracted from it, that ship’s length, which is also related with ship’s size, is an
important variable that use to influence on cruise ship’s nominal voltage for generation
on board. As it can be seen in figure 1, choosing a determinate voltage is not possible
because there are many different nominal voltages in cruise ships and it will restrict the
commercial target just within compatible ships and consequently the economic and
environmental benefits will not be the total possible ones.

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Figure 1 - Voltage percentage graphs depending on cruise ship’s length, based on [5],
on which the 50% of the listed cruise ships are under 200 meters of length

CRUISE SHIPS <200 METERS CRUISE SHIPS >200 METERS

450 V 440 V
9% 400 V
12%
18% 10 kV 11 kV
4% 36%
380 V
14%

440 V 6,6 kV
59% 48%

Because of that, the design determination for voltage is not based on a unique voltage.
The best solution is installing some systems due to allow the global installation supply
energy within the particular voltage range. In that way, all the cruise ships could use
shore side electricity with any problem of compatibility. Voltage ranges obtained as a
result of that study are mainly two, one medium voltage and one low voltage range.
These main voltage ranges are: 6.6kV – 11kV for medium voltage and 380V – 450V for
low voltage.
Frequency is easier to determinate compared with voltage. In that case, only two
standard frequencies are used; the European frequency, 50Hz, and the American
frequency, 60 Hz. Applying it to cruise ships, it seems that for over 200 meter ships
only 60 Hz is used. Then, once again, ship’s length has a determining influence on
ship’s frequency.
Frequency used on board cruise ships is showed by percentages in figure 2. In that case,
60 Hz is the most used frequency on board. But many port are considered strategical
international ports for cruise ships at the sea or ocean they are situated in. So, in the way
to keep that consideration, the installation shall be able to supply energy in both
frequencies. That is why the design solution must consider the inclusion of frequency
converters.

Figure 2 - Frequency percentage graphs depending on cruise ship’s length (left and
center). Frequency global graph (right). All of them based on [5]

CRUISE SHIPS CRUISE SHIPS CRUISE SHIPS

< 200 METERS > 200 METERS
50
60 Hz
50 Hz Hz 60 17%
60 [PORCENTAJE] 100 Hz
Hz %
64%
83%

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Finally, the design must consider national’s grid characteristics because it is probably
going to be the supplier of the shore to ship installation by a central substation located at
the propinquity of port’s installation or inside it. Then it is positive to get knowledge about
how the distribution system is structured and which electrical characteristics it has.

3. ESTIMATING MODELS DEVELOPMENT FOR HOTELING POWER

DEMAND
As well as deciding voltage and frequency, maximum power demand that can be
required by cruise ships berthed at port should be determined aiming to be able to
supply enough power with acceptable quality to all of them. Then, it would be useful to
have a quantitative model to estimate cruise ship’s power demand while they are at
berth. That power demand is commonly known as “Hoteling Power Demand”.
Some experimental models had been developed aiming to estimate the maximum power for
which the installation must be designed. Main steps of the modelling process have been:
1. Data collection; As a result of an extended research, a complete data collection
about hoteling power peak values during the connection in San Francisco’s port
for all type of ships was found. Related studies [2] and [5] were the main data
source.

2. Once, hoteling power demand peak values were found for 40 cruise ships, an
elaborated data chart had been developed completing technical specifications of
each selected cruise that appears in the study. With all these information, some
hoteling power demand models had been done by the relation between how
much power a cruise ship demand for hoteling and one characteristic of that
ship, including, number of passengers, gross tonnage and ship’s length.
As a result of using regression methods, and testing them by studying their correlation
factor, many models have been obtained. The most reliable ones are showed in figures
3, 4 and 5.

Figure 3 - Model 1 - Hoteling/Length ratio by linear regression.

Hoteling kW/ Length

12000
POWER PEAK VALUES (kW)

10000
8000
6000
4000
y = 26,889x + 131,76
2000 R² = 0,6404
0
75 125 175 225 275 325 375
LENGTH (M)

Obtained correlation factor of 0.8

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Figure 4 - Model 2 - Hoteling/Gross tonnage ratio by logarithmic

regression. Obtained correlation factor of 0.82

Hoteling kW/GT
12000

10000
POWER PEAK VALUES (kW)

8000

6000

4000

2000 y = 1767,8ln(x) - 12577

R² = 0,6733
0
0 50000 100000 150000
GROSS TONNAGE (TON)

Figure 5 - Model 3 - Hoteling/Gross tonnage ratio by potential

regression. Obtained correlation factor of 0.808

Hotelling kW/GT
12000
POWER PEAK VALUES (kW)

10000

8000

6000

4000
y = 84,71x0,3964
2000 R² = 0,6538
0
0 50000 100000 150000
GROSS TONNAGE (TON)

Finally, after comparing all the models, the logarithmic regression between hoteling
power demand and gross tonnage seems to be the one who has the higher correlation
factor. Otherwise, looking the situation of each point in all the diagrams, it can be
deduced that the real tendency of hoteling demand is divided in two parts, and the
biggest ships are usually far from the tendency curve such as exceptional consumers.
Aiming to develop a very reliable model some cruise ships with very particular
characteristics have been deleted from model’s data to evaluate their influence in the
obtained models. The most appreciable influence take place in models 2 and 3, on
which these changes modify their accuracy from 0.82 to 0.876 and from 0.808 to 0.849
respectively. These new models are showed next:

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Figure 6 - Model 4 – Improved model from Model 2. Obtained

correlation factor of 0.876

Hoteling kW/GT
9000
8000
POWER PEAK VALUES (kW)

7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
y = 1723,6ln(x) - 12452
1000 R² = 0,7684
0
0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000
GROSS TONNAGE (TON)

Figure 7 - Model 5 - Improved model from Model 3. Obtained

correlation factor of 0.849

Hoteling kW/GT
9000
8000
7000
POWER PEAK VALUES (kW)

6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
y = 69,702x0,4096
1000 R² = 0,7224
0
0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000
GROSS TONNAGE (TON)

Obtaining a perfect regression is difficult because it is not a proportional increase. For

that reason and for practical use all the models had been tested to consider which was
better to calculate the total demand in Barcelona’s cruise piers. Although the
demonstrated accuracy and correlation of the improved last two models, after testing all
of them, the one that provides the highest results for power demand and the widest
range of application is the one based on gross tonnage and potential tendency. Then,
that model can be applied for any cruise ships. Choosing that model, the dimensioning
of the installation may be over dimensioned, but this is better than dimensioning it for

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lower power demand, in which case, it may not be enough for supplying all the
consumers.

4. BARCELONA’S HARBOUR CASE STUDY

Once models had been developed, hoteling power demand can be approached for all
cruise ships and for any existing harbor. Barcelona’s cruise piers have the total capacity
of 9 cruise ships at the same time. According to [23] and due to one of these piers is an
“extra” pier for maneuverability the installation design is going to consider just 8
simultaneous consumers. To demonstrate its application at Barcelona’s cruise harbour,
maritime traffic statistics and previsions from port authorities has been used to approach
the common daily schedule of the biggest cruise ships that usually do port calls in the
city. These cruise ships are listed below:
Table 1 - Biggest cruise ships that use to do port call at Barcelona’s

Ship's name Length (m) Gross tonnage (ton)

OASIS OF THE SEAS 361 225282
LIBERTY OF THE SEAS 339 160000
INDEPENDENCE OF THE SEAS 339 160000
REGAL PRINCESS 330 142000
NORWEIGAN EPIC 330 155000
MSC SPLENDIDA 333 133500
MSC FANTASIA 333 138000
CELEBRITY EQUINOX 315 122000
harbour during 2013 and 2014, elaborated from [9], [10] and [11]

Aiming to obtain a daily power demand curve, gross tonnage of these cruise ships were
used to substitute the variable in the chosen obtained model based on gross tonnage. As
a result of that, power demand for the listed cruise ships had been approached. That
power results are showed in the following table:
Table 2 - Estimated power peak values required by hoteling services
for cruise ships listed in table 1

Ship's name Hoteling (kW/h) by using Model 3

OASIS OF THE SEAS 11213.8
LIBERTY OF THE SEAS 9791.4
INDEPENDENCE OF THE SEAS 9791.4
REGAL PRINCESS 9339
NORWEIGAN EPIC 9669
MSC SPLENDIDA 9113.2
MSC FANTASIA 9233.8
CELEBRITY EQUINOX 8793.6

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The last step was the implementation of a daily curve based on ship’s habitual schedule
to represent that consume during the day. The considered schedule had been
summarized in table 3, showed next:
Table 3 - Estimated habitual schedule for cruise ships at Barcelona’s
harbor for cruise ships listed in table 1. Elaborated from [9], [10],
[11], [12] and [13]

Ship's name Arrival Time Departure Time

OASIS OF THE SEAS 5:00 AM 7:00 PM
LIBERTY OF THE SEAS 5:00 AM 5:00 PM
INDEPENDENCE OF THE SEAS 7:00 AM 7:00 PM
REGAL PRINCESS 5:00 AM 7:00 PM
NORWEIGAN EPIC 5:00 AM 6:00 PM
MSC SPLENDIDA 8:00 AM 6:00 PM
MSC FANTASIA 12:00 AM 6:00 PM
CELEBRITY EQUINOX 5:00 AM 5:00 PM

The following daily power demand curve for hoteling services, showed as figure 8, has
been developed by using the mentioned model and all the exposed data in the current
section:
Figure 8 - Daily power demand curve developed by using model 3

DAILY POWER DEMAND CURVE

MAXIMUM POWER DEMAND (KW)

90000
80000
70000
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
5 : 0 0 6 : 0 0 7 : 0 0 8 : 0 0 9 : 0 0 1 0 : 0 01 1 : 0 01 2 : 0 0 1 : 0 0 2 : 0 0 3 : 0 0 4 : 0 0 5 : 0 0 6 : 0 0 7 : 0 0 8 : 0 0
TIME (H)

5. AIR POLLUTION’S REDUCTION BY USING HVSC

Air pollution is the main contributor to the global warming and the climate change [28].
In the last few years, all international organisations have tried to elaborate rules,
regulations and other type of means aiming to control and reduce emission’s
contribution to global warming. The reality is that sustainability is no longer a choice
[29] and the society must face the problem and choose sustainability such as the main
evolution pattern.

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According to emission’s impact, the last purpose of this paper is to use the obtained
model to estimate air pollution from ships over Barcelona while they are at berth.
According to [8], table 4 and 5 show an emission factor for each type of gas that
contributes on air pollution and to increase global warming, produced due to power’s
generation by to ways. The first way is by generating it with on board auxiliary Engines
using 0.1% Marine Distillate (MD) such as fuel according to the Directive 2005/33/EC,
[22]. The second way is by generating it by European’s generation sources such as
power plants within others. The result of the comparative shows a huge reduction on
pollution.
Table 4 – Pollution averages and pollution emission factors

𝑵𝑵𝑵𝑵𝒙𝒙 𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝟐𝟐 VOC PM

Pollution average
(g/kWh) (g/kWh) (g/kWh) (g/kWh)
(A) Using Auxiliary Engines 11.8 0.46 0.40 0.30
(B) Using Electricity production 0.35 0.46 0.02 0.03
(A-B) Emission reduction using HVSC 11.41 0 0.38 0.27
Emission’s variation (%) -96.7 0 -95 -90

Source: ENVIRON, reference [8]

Table 5 – Pollution averages and pollution emission factors

𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪𝟐𝟐 𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪 𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪𝟒𝟒 𝑵𝑵𝟐𝟐 𝑶𝑶

Pollution average
(g/kWh) (g/kWh) (g/kWh) (g/kWh)
(A) Using Auxiliary Engines 720 1,3 0.01 0.031
(B) Using Electricity production 330 0.0125 0.028 0.014
(A-B) Emission reduction using HVSC 390 1.29 -0.018 0.017
Emission’s variation (%) -54.17 -99.04 80 -54.84
Source: ENVIRON, reference [8]

To calculate emissions per berth, as it can be seen above tables 4 and 5, time and power
demand of electricity are needed to convert the averages in real values. Then, to be able
to calculate them, the daily power demand curve obtained in the previous section,
corresponding to figure 8, is going to be used for obtaining how much power cruise
ships can consume while they are at berth during one day of the most crowded
passengers traffic, August or October. The procedure used for that, was just calculating
the area under the curve. That step, has been implemented by Simpson’s integration
method.
The result of that calculus is 957930.35 kW. Time is not needed for calculating the
emissions because that power value is a result of the integration during time. The
representation of that procedure is showed in the next figure:

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Figure 9 – Area under the obtained daily power demand curve to

integrate for obtaining total kW demanded on one day

Then, once the total power consumption during one day is known, the last step is
multiplying it per all the averages exposed in the last section aiming to obtain estimated
values for each emission type from ships. As a result of that, the following chart was
developed:
Table 6 – Estimated values for emission quantities from cruise ships
divided in each type of pollutant during the most possible polluting
day at Barcelona’s cruise harbour

Type of emission Quantity (kg) Percentage over total (%)

𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝒙𝒙 11303.6 1.607
𝑵𝑵𝑵𝑵𝟐𝟐 440.65 0.063
VOC 383.17 0.054
PM 287.38 0.041
𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪𝟐𝟐 689709.85 98.052
CO 1245.31 0.177
𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪𝟒𝟒 9.58 0.001
𝑵𝑵𝟐𝟐 𝑶𝑶 29.7 0.004

6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The objectives of this paper, as it is mentioned in its introduction and abstract, are
focused into two main facts.
First, an optimized model is developed shaped in equation form, to estimate maximum
power demand that any cruise ship can demand for hoteling services while it is berthed
at port. As it has been commented along all the paper, the chosen one to develop
pollution’s estimation was selected basing the decision on being sure that in case this
model or this method would be applied to any port, in the worst case, the installation
would be oversized but would be able to supply the required power. In addition, to
develop the chosen model any corrections have been done as they were done for models
4 and 5. In the following table, all models are listed with their characteristics:

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Table 7 – Obtained model’s summary, their input and their correlation

factor

Model Equation Variable (x) R

1 𝑦𝑦 = 26.889 · 𝑥𝑥 + 131.76 Length - meters 0.8

2 𝑦𝑦 = 1767.8 · ln(𝑥𝑥) − 12577 Gross tonnage - tonnes 0.82

3 𝑦𝑦 = 84.71 · 𝑥𝑥 0.3964 Gross tonnage - tonnes 0.808

4 𝑦𝑦 = 1723.6 · ln(𝑥𝑥) − 12452 Gross tonnage - tonnes 0.876

5 𝑦𝑦 = 69.702 · 𝑥𝑥 0.4096 Gross tonnage - tonnes 0.849

Then, it is clear to guess that model 2 is the most reliable one within the first three
models developed with the whole cruise ship’s list. That’s why, in consequence, model
4 developed by improving model 2 is the most reliable one from correlation’s factor
point of view because it has the highest one.
In contrast, must be considered that to develop model 4 and 5 some cruise ships have
been removed from the original list used to develop models 1, 2 and 3. Because of that,
these models produce better estimations than the first three models but, their application
cruise ship range is not as wide as the one for models 1,2 and 3.
As regard to the obtained daily power demand curve, it must be considered that it has
been developed with power peak values of the biggest cruise ships. Consequently, the
installation would not probably have to supply that amount of power for one day, even
if that day is the most crowded day in terms of cruise ships occupation at Barcelona’s
harbour. The estimation is done to know the maximum power that could have to be
supplied in the worst case, but in that case, this value will not be maintained more than
two hours.
Then, a service factor must be considered. Aiming to improve the developed method,
power’s estimation value that is going to be considered is the 40% of the obtained as
a result of integrating daily’s power demand curve. This consideration is based on
the fact that cruise ships do not demand the same amount of power simultaneously
during the day. Because of that a service factor of 0.40 have been considered. That
value cannot be constant, but it is a good way to calculate an accurate estimation.
This variation between real daily power demand and the calculated one is
represented in figure 10.
The calculated power demand is going to variate along the year because of the seasons
and the most touristic months demanded by the passengers such it can be seen in figure
11. In that way, if one year’s power consumption or air’s pollution would like to be
developed, the developed models of that paper can be adapted for that aim.

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Figure 10 – Comparative between daily power demand maximum

values, obtained from case study, and real values, elaborated with
aleatory loads aiming to represent service factor effect.

DAILY POWER DEMAND - MAX VS REAL

Maximum Real
90000
80000
POWER DEMAND (KW)

70000
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
5 : 0 0 6 : 0 0 7 : 0 0 8 : 0 0 9 : 0 0 1 0 : 0 01 1 : 0 01 2 : 0 0 1 : 0 0 2 : 0 0 3 : 0 0 4 : 0 0 5 : 0 0 6 : 0 0 7 : 0 0 8 : 0 0
TIME (H)

Figure 11– Annual variation of passenger traffic through Barcelona

cruise terminals during 2014 and 2015

Source: Barcelona cruise traffic statics

Second, quantify and evaluate polluting emissions. Without the consideration about the
service factor, pollution results are too far from real ones because they are obtained
using the developed models. But, it can be truly observed in table 6 that the amount of
𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2 which combustion engines produce has a 98 % over the total emissions. Sulphur
oxides emissions are the other big type of emissions that they can produce with an 1,6
% over the total. Then, 𝐶𝐶𝐶𝐶2 emission’s supremacy is completely confirmed.
Consequently, applying the mentioned service factor results for air pollution emissions
or emission averages at Barcelona’s harbour must be the 40% of the obtained values due
to their dependence from total power’s estimation during one day. Then, the final results
are:

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Table 8 – Final values for emission quantities from cruise ships

divided in each type of pollutant during the most crowded situation at
Barcelona’s cruise harbour

Type of emission Quantity (ton) per day

𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝒙𝒙 4.521
𝑵𝑵𝑵𝑵𝟐𝟐 0.176
VOC 0.153
PM 0.115
𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪𝟐𝟐 275.884
CO 0.498
𝑪𝑪𝑪𝑪𝟒𝟒 0.004
𝑵𝑵𝟐𝟐 𝑶𝑶 0.012

The obtained results seem to be very high but to evaluate them, they must be compared
with reliable values. For that reason, reference [22] has been consulted to determine
pollution contributions on ambient air quality in the city of Barcelona which is based on
the Directive 2005/50/EC about air quality for Europe. That Directive, which is
incorporated in Spanish laws by the “Real Decreto 102/2011” and modified by the
“Real Decreto 678/2014”; [24] and [25]; incorporates an assessment of ambient air
quality just in relation to Sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and oxides of nitrogen,
particulate matter, lead benzene and carbon monoxide. Within it group of gases, just
Sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and carbon
monoxide can be used for the present paper. Limit values for the protection of human
health are showed in the following tables:
Table 9 – Limit values for the protection of human health according
to Directive 2008/50/EC – Sulphur dioxides

Sulphur dioxide
Limit times not to
Averaging Period Limit value Margin of tolerance
exceed
One hour 350 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 24/year 150 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 (43%)
One day 125 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 3/year None

Table 10 – Limit values for the protection of human health according

to Directive 2008/50/EC – Nitrogen dioxide

Nitrogen dioxide
Limit times not to
Averaging Period Limit value Margin of tolerance
exceed
One hour 200 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 18/year None
Calendar year 40 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 0 None

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Table 11 – Limit values for the protection of human health according

to Directive 2008/50/EC – Carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide
Limit times not to
Averaging Period Limit value Margin of tolerance
exceed
Maximum daily eight
10 𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚/𝑚𝑚3 18/year 60%
hours

Table 12 – Limit values for the protection of human health according

to Directive 2008/50/EC – Particulate matter (PM-10)

PM-10
Limit times not to
Averaging Period Limit value Margin of tolerance
exceed
One day 50 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 35/year 50%
Calendar year 40 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 0 20%

As it can be seen in the exposed tables, limit values are expressed by concentration units
(𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 or 𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚/𝑚𝑚3). Aiming to evaluate the obtained results by using the model, volume
units shall be obtained by determining an experimental volume to estimate such as the
sample. The determination of the main emission area which is object of this estimation
must be Barcelona’s port. According to [18], the highest concentration levels for
Nitrogen Oxides and Particulate Matter are situated over port’s whole extension. These
concentrations and they distribution over Barcelona cruise piers are showed in the
following figures:
Figure 12 – Barcelona cruise piers

Source: Google maps

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Figure 13 – Nitrogen oxides (left) and Particulate matter10 (right)

concentration distribution, based on calendar year average and
forecasted at Barcelona’s coast for 2018

Source: Ajuntament de Barcelona

Once the area with the highest concentration is identified, it is going to be considered
such as the main destination of cruise emissions without considering wind effect.
Aiming to estimate a volume to test the obtained results and to simplify calculations the
sample which is going to be supposed for this section is a hemisphere. Its center is
supposed to be located at the same distance from the furthest two berthing points and it
is going to have a radius equal to 2,5 kilometers.

According to the mentioned data, the hemisphere volume would be 3,2724 · 1010 𝑚𝑚3 .
Then using the estimated volume, concentrations can be estimated for the obtained
results expressed by mass units. The used sampled is considered for one day. In the
following table concentration values for the gases limited by the Directive 2008/80/EC
are showed and contrasted with limit values for the protection of human health.
Table 11 – Comparison between limit values for the protection of
human health according to Directive 2008/50/EC and obtained results

Type of emission Concentration Limit value Difference against limit values

𝑺𝑺𝑺𝑺𝒙𝒙 138,15 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 125 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 +10,52%

PM 3,51 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 50 𝜇𝜇𝜇𝜇/𝑚𝑚3 -92,97%

Just Sulphur oxides and Particulate Matter can be contrasted with limit values provided
by the Directive because these values for each gas, as it can be seen in tables 9, 10, 11,
12, are not uniform according to their averaging period.
Sulphur oxides are a 10% over the limit but the estimation has been developed during
the most crowded day in terms of cruise ships. Particulate Matter are within the
acceptable limit so it is not the most worrying emission. The percentage of emissions
from ships that contributes to the total emissions over Barcelona is used to be nearly the

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same, and it is used to be between the 45% and 55%. In figures 14 and 15 these
contribution is represented for Nitrogen oxides and Particulate Mater 10 because no
others were found.
Figure 14 – Contributions of Nitrogen oxides emission in terms of
their origin

Source: Ajuntament de Barcelona

Figure 15 – Contributions of Particulate Matter 10 emission in terms

of their origin

Source: Ajuntament de Barcelona

7. CONCLUSIONS
The shore side of any high voltage shore connection installation is always hard to
design for cruise ship harbours due to the high power demand that this type of ships
uses to need. Specially, it is hard to decide design power parameters such as frequency,
voltage and the maximum amount of power it would be able to supply.
Voltage is strongly hard to decide, because big cruise ships use to have nominal
voltages from 6,6 to 11kV A.C. That two limits are the most standardized nominal
voltages for that systems according to the International Standardization Organisation
(ISO), [1]. Then, as it provides the mentioned Standard, high voltage shore connections
shall be able to supply power with nominal voltages of 6,6 kV A.C. and/ or 11kV A.C.
In that way, if these systems would be able to supply power with both nominal voltages,
distribution systems will be more expensive and hard to design because all connection
points should offer the same versatility in front of different on board power plant’s

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nominal voltages. Otherwise, if some ships use to repeat itinerary at the same ports and
have dedicated berths, other IEC voltage nominal values may be considered.
Frequency is not as hard to decide as voltage because it is narrowly limited to 50Hz or
60Hz. Once again, a versatile installation would be the best option. Including frequency
converters in design’s final solution will provide to the system more flexibility and a
wide range of cruise ships would be able to use the system. In Europe, nominal
frequency is 50Hz and because of that, one frequency converter at least, must be
installed due to 60 Hz is the most used frequency on board for cruise ships.
As regards to power demand for hoteling services, it cannot be estimated with high
accuracy. To do it, power load curves while they are berthed should be provided. But
the developed models are useful to estimate the maximum power they would be able to
demand at full hoteling power load. Then, design’s nominal power can be estimated.
The chosen model for developing daily’s power curve for Barcelona’s cruise piers,
based on gross tonnage and corresponding to model 3, provides the highest results that
will assure an acceptable design due to its oversizing. But, model 2 is the most
standardized obtained model because can be used for all kind of cruise ships and its
correlation factor is the highest one within delete dispersed points.
In contrast, the estimation will have higher accuracy, if model 4 is used to estimate
conventional cruise ships and model 3 is used for estimating not conventional cruise
ships. Not conventional cruise ships are defined in that case for the following types:
- The biggest cruise ships, with lengths over 300 meters and 125000 tonnes of
gross tonnage.
- Very luxurious cruise ships with less passenger’s capacity than other cruise
ships with similar lengths.
In addition, to estimate real power demand and consequently improve the model a
service factor must be considered. A service factor of 0,40 applied over the obtained
result of integrating daily’s power demand curve must be included as the final step of
the model.
Checking tables 4 and 5 emission reductions as a result of using shore to ship
connection instead of auxiliary engines, the conclusion is very clear. Using shore to ship
connection reduces emission levels more than 90% comparing it with using auxiliary
engines. In addition, the European Union is trying to make using shore to ship
connection easier for all the involved parts by its recommendations and directives. In
contrast, CH4 emissions are higher producing it by power plants than by auxiliary
engines.

After analysing the obtained contributions from each gas over the total, CO2 is once
again the most contributing one. It is difficult and hard to regulate, strongly after the
actual situation of Kyoto’s protocol but some means should be developed to reduce CO2
pollution coming from ships moreover MARPOL’s actual means; [6], [26] and [27];
such as the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) and the Ship Energy Efficiency
Management Plan (SEEMP).
It may not be possible in all type of ships because of the amount of business that
depends on the maritime traffic, but it may be controlled in a more restrictive way for
cruise ships. If that means would not be possible, benefits or privileges could be

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awarded for ship owners that will invest and develop new less-polluting systems in their
fleet. Moreover, the concession of these benefits would contribute in their corporative
social responsibility, increasing at the same time their cruise line image for people.
As regard to air quality, the Directive 2008/50/EC would be more complete and easy to
apply if each gas and its limit values were expressed within the same averaging periods.
The consideration of installing a high voltage shore connection system at Barcelona’s
cruise piers is completely evaluated. The current paper provides enough tools and
evidences to recommend its installation and to make a conceptual design and its
previous study.

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] ISO/IEC/IEEE 80005-1 (July 2012); High Voltage Shore Connection (HVSC)
Systems – General requirements
[2] Patrick Ericsson and Ismir Fazlagic’ from Chalmers University (2008); “Shore side
Power supply”
[3] Brown, Watts and Thunem Conference at Los Angeles (2006); “Cruise Ship Shore
Power Projects - Alternative Maritime Power (AMP)”
[4] Olaf Merk; “The Competitiveness of Global Port-Cities: Synthesis Report”
[5] ENVIRON International Corporation Seaworthy Systems, Inc. Han-Padron
Associates and YEI Engineers prepared for Port of San Francisco Pier 1 (2005); “Final
Report Shoreside Power Feasibility Study for Cruise Ships Berthed at Port of San
Francisco “
[6] IMO Virtual Publications (2005); “MARPOL Annex VI “
[7] Official Journal of the European Union (2005); “Directive 2005/33/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2005” Retrieved from http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2005:191:0059:0069:EN:PDF
[8] ENTEC UK (2005); “European Commission Directorate General Environment -
Service Contract on Ship Emissions: Assignment, Abatement and Market-based
Instruments (Shore-side Electricity Task 2a)
[9] Statics Service (2013); “Barcelona port traffic statics”
[10] Barcelona port (2013); “Cruise traffic prediction 2014”
[11] Barcelona port (2014); “Cruise traffic prediction 2015”
[12] Barcelona port (2014);” Cruise traffic statics 2014” Retrieved from
http://arxius.portdebarcelona.cat/flashdss2/ESP/index.html
[13] Barcelona port (2015);” Cruise traffic statics 2015” Retrieved from
http://arxius.portdebarcelona.cat/flashdss2/ESP/index.html

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[14] Official Journal of the European Union (2003); “Council Directive 2003/96/EC of
27 October 2003 restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy
products and electricity”
[15] Official Journal of the European Union (2006); “Recommendation 2006/339/EC”
[16] Green Biz (2013);”Maersk Line cruises to lower shipping emissions levels”
Retrieved from ww.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/04/09/maersk-line-cruises-lower-shipping-
emissions-levels-2013
[17] L.Schrooten, I. De Vlieger, L. Int Panis, C. Chiffi and E. Pastori. “Emissions of
Maritime transport: a reference system”. Journal of Maritime Research 2009;
[18] Ajuntament de Barcelona (2014); “Plan to improve air quality in Barcelona 2015-
2018” Retrieved from: http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/qualitataire/en/barcelona-air-
quality-improvement-plan
[19] Tetra Tech for the American Association of Port Authorities (2007); “Draft use of
shore-side power for ocean-going vessels white paper”
[20] Thad Godish, Wayne T. Davis, Joshua S. Fu (2015). “Air quality fifth edition”
[21] F.Quaranta, M. Fantauzzi, T. Coppola and L. Battistelli. “The Environmental
Impact of Cruise Ships in the Port of Naples: Analysis of the Pollution Level and
Possible Solutions”. Journal of Maritime Research 2012;
[22] Official Journal of the European Union (2005); “Directive 2005/50/EC”
[23] Port de Barcelona (2013); “Barcelona Cruise Facilities”
[24] BOE January 28 (2011); “Real Decreto 102/2011, de 28 de enero, relativo a la
mejora de la calidad del aire “
[25] BOE August 1 (2014); “Real Decreto 678/2014, de 1 de agosto, por el que se
modifica el Real Decreto 102/2011, de 28 de enero, relativo a la mejora de la calidad
del aire”
[26] The International Council for Clean Transportation (2011); “The Energy Efficiency
Design Index (EEDI) for New Ships”
[27] Lloyd’s register (2011); “Implementing a Ship Energy Efficiency Management
Plan (SEEMP)”
[28] Daniel J.Jacob, Darrell A. Winner (2009) “Effect of climate change on air
quality”. Elsevier by Science Direct.

[29] Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever (2016); “Why Sustainability Is No Longer a

Choice”. Live-science webside. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/

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CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION ON WATER TRANSPORTATION,

BETWEEN REGION OF SHKODRA AND MONTENEGRO.

Alkida Hasaj PhD. (I),

Ervis Krymbi PhD. (II),
Prof.Dr. Drita Kruja (III)

(I)Faculty of Economy, Department of Tourism, University "Luigj Gurakuqi", Shkoder.

alkidahasaj@yahoo.com
(II)Faculty of Social Science, Department of Geography, University "Luigj Gurakuqi",
Shkoder. elvis.krymbi@gmail.com
(III) Faculty of Economy, Marketing Department, University "UET",
krujadrita@yahoo.com

Abstract
Both Montenegro and Albania are strategic Adriatic countries with a long tradition of
water transportation and shipping for many centuries. Shkodra is definitely one of the
most attractive regions in Albania for developing cross border water transportation
with Montenegro. An economically developed and integrated city, Shkodra, can act as
the engine of development for most of the Northern region as the only important urban
area in Albania which has fallen far behind the rest of the country. The aim of the paper is to
enhance strategic cross-border co-operation water transport between Shkodra region and
Montenegro, for a more sustainable development, mainly across the maritime border. Shkodra
region and Montenegro share together Shkodra lake, Buna river and are part of Adriatic sea.
Making possible water transportation through the Shkodra lake, Buna River and Adriatic sea,
contributes to the economic development of the area because connection can sustain:

• enhancing competitiveness, the business environment and the development of small and
medium-sized enterprises;
• encouraging tourism and cultural and natural heritage;
• promoting sustainable transport.

The data to conduct this paper were collected from the contemporary literature in this field,
about water transports, ports, economic impact, etc. Primary research is based on
qualitative research through in depths interviews with Shkodra municipality employee,
expert in field of water transportation. The findings of this study show that: Shkodra
region have high potential for cross border cooperation with Montenegro on water transport,
and this has higher economic impact on both countries, because connection of these regions
through maritime transport can sustain tourism, enhancing cooperation and competitiveness of
business.

Key words:
Water transportation, Shkoder, economic impact.

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INTRODUCTION

Both Montenegro and Albania are strategic Adriatic countries with a long water
transportation tradition and their shipping for many centuries. Shkodra is definitely one
of the most attractive regions in Albania for developing cross border with Montenegro
through water transportations. Shkodra, as the only important urban area of the Northern
region can act as the engine of development for Albania which has fallen far behind the
rest of the country. The aim of this paper is to enhance strategic cross-border water
transport co-operation between Shkodra region and Montenegro, for a more sustainable
development, mainly across the maritime border. Shkodra region and Montenegro share
together Shkodra lake, Buna river and are part of Adriatic sea.
Making possible water transportation through Shkodra’s lake, Buna River and
Adriatic sea, contributes to the economic development of the area because this
connection can sustain:

• enhancing competitiveness, the business environment and the development of

small and medium-sized enterprises;

• encouraging tourism and cultural and natural heritage;

• promoting sustainable transport.

While Montenegro is experiencing a relatively swift economic recovery, particularly in

the tourism sector in the post 2000 period, Shkodra is still facing infrastructural,
economic and also security problems which have deepened even more the gap between
the two regions. In such circumstances, cross border cooperation in certain fields
(business, tourism, culture) was relatively unattractive to Montenegrin stakeholders as
the Albanian side practically had little to offer in the way of comparative advantages,
due to the unattractive business environment, security situation, weak infrastructure and
lack of central government support (Vurmo, 2006).
Cross border cooperation between Shkodra and the adjacent Montenegrin region
is certainly advantageous and aimed by both border communities. Shkodra region and
the Montenegrin adjacent border areas share common interests and responsibilities in
several areas - natural water and terrestrial resorts; common cultural, historic and
traditional heritage to be preserved, economies of scale - which have so far only
partially been exploited.
Scholars of border studies have always emphasized the dual and contradictory
functions that borders perform – they separate sovereign states and act as barriers to the
flow of people and goods but also perform the function of meeting points between
people and states. From these contradictory functions stem two different strategies to
make peace. The associative strategy claims that removing borders between hostile
neighbors will help to reconcile them. Whereas the dissociative approach argues that
maintaining borders between unfriendly countries will reduce their antagonism. The
solution, Henrikson (2000) argues, lies in a strategy that recognizes these two
contradictory functions of border that he calls consecutive approaches. How can this
approach be operationalized in the context of relations between Albanians in the region
and their neighbors? And what is the contribution that cross-border cooperation could
make (Bumçi 2001)?

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1. METHODOLOGY

To conduct this research and its objectives, are used secondary and primary data.
Secondary data are the result of a wide and contemporary literature about water
transportation, cross border collaboration, the historical development of water
transportation in Shkodra region and its contribution to the economy, etc. These data are
obtained from reports on maritime transport of Albania and specifically Shkoder Lake
published by the Ministry of Transport and INSTAT; report published from
municipality of Shkoder and NPO that operate in Albania, etc.
Therefore to ensure a more accurate picture of the reality is used the interview. The
interview is focused on the identification of socio-economic situation of residents in
area of Shkoder and Montenegro; the historical development of martin transport, etc.
The qualitative method is a process to understand the social and human problems, based
on building a complex picture (Creswell, 1994: 2). The application of qualitative
research consisted of in-depth interviews with Shkodra municipality employee, expert
in field of water transportation. In addition, a review of their historical material, press
releases, and other materials was examined for content and messages. An in-depth
interview technique was used, which consisted of unstructured, open - ended questions
to solicit an understanding of how possible is water transportation and cross border
cooperation in this region.

2. WATER TRANSPORTATION IN ALBANIA

Albania has inherited from its communist regime an underdeveloped infrastructure,

inappropriate for the standard required for a modern market economy. After the
democratic changes a lot of investmenst were focused on improving the roads, seaports,
and aero ports infrastructure.
Albania has the coast on Adriatic and Ionian sea, and four seaports located as shown
below:

• The seaport of Shengjin, the only one on the northern coast with a limited
capacity;
• The sea port of Durres, the main seaport in the country;
• The seaport of Vlora, the entry port to the VIII corridor;
• The seaport of Saranda, a tourist seaport with limited capacity.

In Albania, the port of Duress is the biggest in the country regarding goods
(currently 78% of total maritime trade at national level) and is the main gateway to Italy
for passenger traffic. The Port of Vlore is the second largest and the secondary terminal
port of “Corridor VIII” project after Duress. Both ports are now undergoing
modernization. The third largest harbor is the port of Shëngjin in the northeast that
serves mostly cargo in bulk and fuel. In the south there is a sea link connection with
Corfu, while the secondary port of Saranda is being transformed into a tourist port.
In Montenegro, the port of Bar is the country’s major commercial port, which
carries out 95% of maritime transport. The port of Kotor services large cruisers and
other commercial boats, while the marina in Tivat has positioned itself as a major
Adriatic gateway for yachts.

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The Maritime transportation in Albania is very important for the transportation

of goods and passengers. Based on INSTAT (2016) the maritime transportation
includes transport by sea of goods and passengers. Maritime passenger traffic reflects
international traffic. The series of published data include the number of passengers
riding or going down to the ports of Albania, as with our ferries and foreign ones. As
showed in table 1, the number of ships in Albania from 2000 to 2009, are diminishing.
But the importance of this kind of transportation is increasing. Table 2 shows that every
year the number of passengers that travel through maritime transportation is greater,
especially for passengers departing from Albania.

Table 1. SHIPS BY YEAR in Albania 2000 - 2009

Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Number 81 63 64 73 52 55 44 33 29 33
Carrying 24,104 14,310 30,424 126,329 97,671 101,673 92,976 79,160 71,36 88,91
capacity 8 3
(tone)
Source: INSTAT, 2016

Table 2. INTERNATIONAL SEA TRANSPORT OF PASSENGERS ( 1994 – 2014)

Year
1994 1997 2001 2007 2011 2012 2013 2014

Passengers
188,625 128,191 357,409 473,288 591,303 559,385 509,555 559,090 departed
of which:
92,299 19,249 71,531 122,766 157,457 145,014 158,671 162,356 – Foreign
96,326 108,852 285,878 350,522 433,846 414,371 350,884 396,734 – Domestic

194,378 143,010 366,433 451,294 574,466 541,640 499,631 535,479 Passengers entered
of which:
91,359 17,439 96,302 127,954 175,470 162,414 137,758 173,380 – Foreign
103,019 125,571 270,131 323,340 398,996 379,226 361,873 362,099 – Domestic
Source: INSTAT, 2016

Succeeding governments continue to leave adrift shipping, this also because of new
ships costing no less in overseas market (Çeliku 2015).

3. SHKODRA REGION – OVERVIEW

Albanian and Montenegro border is about 220 km long, out of which 126 km are land
borders, 22 km sea borders, 38 km lake borders and 8 km stream borders (MPO 2003).
The city of Shkodra is the most important urban and cultural center in northern Albania.
Before the establishment of the communist regime, Shkodra held the status of the
biggest economic and trade center not only for Albania but also for the Montenegrin
part of the region.
The City of Shkoder is identified as an inland port on ancient Greek-Roman
navigation maps and those of modern navy schools. Situated in the North - West

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Albania, bordering with the Montenegrin Republic, the City has been estimated as a
confluent point of quite a number of commercial routes linking Central Europe with the
Mediterranean basis, between the East and the West. Because of the navigable river
Buna and the Lake which matches with Montenegro, ships from the Dalmatian shore,
Italy, North Africa, Aegean Isles, Turkey and several North Atlantic countries used to
moor at the Shkoder river port, thus turning it into a key commercial point for all the
West Balkans (Hoti 1999).
Until the proclamation of the Independence, the City of Shkoder was known as
the “moral and political capital” of Albania and had a population of 50 000 inhabitants,
at a time when Tirana had some 3000, Korce 6000, Vlore 5000, Janina 2800 and
Belgrade 15 000, inhabitants. It is evident though, that in spite of the perennial tide of
foreign invasions, the citizens of Shkoder succeeded, very soon, to take into their hands
the economic self-administration of the city, to provide it with all the functional-
administrative structures that belong to a real metropolis. This metropolis, as one resting
upon its own foundations dating back from the 4 Century B. C., was identified as the
oldest of all Balkan cities and most of those European ones (Hoti 1999).
During the rule of the Bushati’s Dynasty (1779-1832), Shkodra experienced a
trade boom. Besides its market, the Bejisten, built during the period 1801-1807 by the
Albanian vizier Ibrahim Pasha Bushati, ranked second after that of Instanbul. The
shipment through the river of Buna mostly provided supplies for the joint market, which
at that time was known as the “axle” between Vienna, Trieste, Shkodra, Thessaloniki
and Instanbul (Hoti 1999).
The region of Shkodra has a rich tradition of trade through water transportation in the
Buna River and Shkodra Lake. The inherited infrastructure along the Buna river
embankments is not suitable as a sustainable base for the construction for an intra-
territorial port. Anyhow it can be suitable for construction of tourism related facilities.
The development plan for the lake area include the construction of some small ports
where small fishing and tourism boats can be anchored. The plan foresees the
connection of Shkodra city with the Adriatic sea through the Buna river that potentialy
should be deepened. But the restoration of Shkodra’s port should be one of the main
goals. It is important to transform Buna in a fluvial route along all its length. After the
hydro- technical works over Drini River, the river-bed of Buna has undergone
substantial changes. The Drini water that actually flows into Buna River is now clearer
and freer of solid underneath materials, which means it possesses the proper
considerable eroding power. No one has ascertained all these enormous changes. The
most typical phenomena are clearly reflected in the riverbanks that continuously fall-
down. The amplitude of water oscillations is about 6 meters at the vertical axis. This is
clearly observed in the village of Dajç and Obot.
The research studies show that each year the river corrodes 1215 hectares of
fertile agricultural ground. The continuous and highly intensified erosions in the villages
of Dajç and Obot are seriously putting at risk the protective embankments and the
inhabited centers. The corroded banks in many places have approached the
embankments up to 10-15 meters. It is enough to remind that only during the last two
years two foreign companies have presented their requests for the revitalization of the
fluvial route of Buna (25-30 years concessions). Referring to their projects, the
revitalization of the port and the continuous renewal of navigation along the whole
length of Buna River requires a financial capital of 5 million U.S.A dollars, an amount

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less than the value of the damages caused by the river floods which swallow up each
year 12-15 hectares of land.

Figure.1 Sailing vessels in the port of Shkoder

Source (Hoti 1999)

There has been cooperation between Albania and Montenegro also in the maritime
transportation. In the summer of 2000 a ferryboat started to operate between Durres and
Bar and there has been discussion between the two sides for establishing ferryboat
connections between other seaports in Albania and Montenegro. This is also linked to
cooperation in tourism, by making possible movement of tourists from one country to
the other, and offering joint tourist packages. Making possible nautical transportation in
the Shkodra lake and Buna River will help a lot the development of tourism in Shkodra
and the cross-border region (Bumçi 2001).
Because of the illogical isolation of Albania due to the communist regime, Shkodra was
deprived from the status of the intra-territorial port. It would be absurd not plan again
the complete restoration of this port highly evaluated even from the modern naval
academies. It has been proved that the birth of the city and the imposing building of
Rozafat Citadel were because of the inland port of Buna. The port-city of Shkodra is
one of the oldest cities in Europe and, as noted above, is documented in the ancient
Greek and Roman pre-historic maps. Owing to the navigable Buna River and Shkodra
Lake (the biggest in the Balkans), this vital mouth, for 24 consecutive centuries, it was
open and fed from navigating units coming from the Mediterranean countries, the Black
Sea, some Atlantic Ocean regions. For the first time in 1944 (the establishment of the
communist system in Albania), paradoxically for political motives, this port was closed
causing in the region the worst general famine that followed since then up to present
times.
The metropolis of Shkodra, as quoted by Heredotus, managed to become the most
flourishing centre of the 20 most developed centers of South Illyria. The economic
growth of Shkodra cannot be explained without mentioning its connection with the sea
(the world) through Buna River.
In 1502, after Shkodra was proclaimed “a city open to trade”, as a result of the fluvial
route of Buna, the market of Shkodra turned to be a centre for the supply of goods in the
major part of the countries surrounding the Adriatic Sea (Hoti 1999).

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Figure 2 The map of Shkodra region.

Source (Vurmo 2006)

After the opening of Albania in 1992 a new development strategy was expected for the
seaports of the Northern part of Albania, since they met all the geographical conditions
to become “international” ports (such as Durres, Shengjin and Shkodra). It is now the
time to insist on the accomplishment of the unification of our ports with the European
highways and railways and, then, deal with the investments that meet the needs of the
local tourism industry and travel agencies. In order to make more profits most of the
coastal countries have created facilities and services in their ports, the reduction or
removal of taxes in order to attract the clientele of the non-coastal neighboring
countries.
This rationale is enough to understand their distinction from the Northern seaports, in
this case from the ports of Shengjin and Shkoder (free of any geographical obstacle),
which seating next to the only railway leaving Albania towards Montenegro-Europe,
meet all the conditions to become international ports and have all the chances to turn
into unloading centers and confluent points for all roads of Northern Albania, East
Balkan countries, as well as those of Central Europe that do not have access to the sea.

The unification of the inland port of Shkodra and the seaport of Shengjin with the
railway and highway network of Montenegro, as well as the connection of the seaport of
Durres with Istanbul through corridor No.8, are expected with great interest also from
the Nor Italian maritime transportation companies. The transportation of goods between
the countries of Central Europe and Asia through the ports of the Albanian upper half
(Shkodra, Shengjin, Durres) is of great advantage, especially, for Trieste, Venice and
Ancona, since it's the shortest trans-Balkanic routes, implying also fewer expenses. As
noted above, we are less interested in undertaking or promoting investments in the
seaports designed for limited regional services, as it happened the period of the closed
and super-centralized socialist economy, rather than in those which perform a wide
variety of services not only in their areas, but also as far as the heart of Europe.

The proposed alternatives in the case of water transportation in Shkodra Lake, is an

alternative which comes in aid to the residents of the area. To make possible the water
transportation in the lake of Shkodra, is needed;

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• Better utilization of actual inventory,

• Renovation of the water vehicle inventory,
• Construction of port infrastructure lake
• To build a technical repair base

The philosophy of the ferry to operate in fixed schedules without interruption will be a
key element of creating a market in water transport,

• Creating amenities in operation,

• Sailing fast and safe,
• Management with high efficiency.

Conditions that favor the development of cross boarder connection between Albania and
Montenegro:

• Opening to the world economy in the inclusion of contemporary flow of market

economies, the EU and beyond,
• Early connection with both sides of the border,
• Geographical location suitable for a direct connection to both unilateral routes.

Some factors do not favor the developments of cross border between Albania and
Montenegro:

• Limited financial resources

• The existence of a weak infrastructure to support marine transport in Shkodra’s
Lake.

Another idea can be creating routes for movement of small and medium-sized boats
(small ferry), for trade exchanges and tourist movement, along Shkodra’s Lake.
• Construction of infrastructure (miniport) in accordance with the environment of
territory along the Lake of Shkodra such as Shirok, Zogaj, Sterbeq, Skje, Bobosht and
Virpazar. Appropriate infrastructure for:
• Commercial exchanges between the respective areas;
• Light water sports and outdoor activities;
• Integration of rural economy through trade exchanges;
• Integration of rural economy in the tourism product;
• Integration in the regional cross-border supply (as packages for groups of cultural
tourism, as well as with nature tourism packages);
• The flow and movement for tourist purposes would help connect tourism between
Albania and Montenegro.

Objectives And Results

• Strengthening the cross-border cooperation and competitiveness of small

business;
The main expected results are: a) Enhanced business cooperation and competitiveness
through the better interaction among the business and research actors, b) Strengthened
culture of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mind sets, skills and attitudes. c)
Strengthened and empowered innovation clusters and networks, in particular in their

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cross-border dimension, mainly in the field of blue economy, sustainable agriculture,

food processing, green economy and social innovations

• Smart management of natural and cultural heritage for the exploitation of cross
border sustainable tourism and territorial attractiveness. The main expected results are:
a) Better cross-border smart and sustainable tourism management. b) Improved
products and services for cross-border natural and cultural assets. c) Increased
structured cooperation and networking in the cultural and creative sectors.

• Increasing cross border accessibility, promoting sustainable transport service

and facilities and improving public infrastructures.
The main expected results are:
a) Sustainable cross border transport connections inside the area improved.
b) Existing connections, with regular transit times and shared procedures, optimized.
c) Quality of interregional connectivity of the area through an efficient multimodal
transport network improved. d) Consolidated supply logistic chain to bring a door-
to-door integrated transport system introducing new intermodal maritime-based.

4. RECOMANDATIONS

• Local authorities and the central government must put more efforts in the
process of consolidating cross border cooperation, rather than focusing on the
formal institutionalization of a cross border “structure” which lacks a very
important element – the interaction.
• Cooperation between Shkodra and Montenegrin area has so far been guided by
two different “priority agendas” – the Montenegrin one focusing on
environmental issues and to a lesser extent in higher education; and Shkodra’s
agenda emphasizing cooperation in business and tourism, without any prejudice
to the other fields (higher education, local governance, environment, culture or
media). Although joint actions in most fields considered of mutual interest have
been present, experience demonstrates that Montenegro has succeeded to
“impose” its priorities (protection of shared natural reserves – Shkodra Lake,
Buna River) better than Shkodra did (cooperation in tourism sector).
• Cultural interactions between Shkodra and Montenegro have so far implied
mainly intermittent cultural events without paying attention to building
sustainable links and cooperation between cultural institutions in the respective
border areas.
• Cross-border cooperation should be incorporated as an important dimension of
the development strategies that are devised by the central authorities.
• Cross-border cooperation in tourism represents the sector with the greatest
potential and interest for cross-border cooperation between Albania and
Montenegro. Several measures that could be taken in this area do not require a
lot of efforts or capital. Opening the Shkodra Lake to nautical navigation will
contribute to the economic revival of the villages around the lake. Closer
cooperation between tourist agencies in Ulcinj and Shkodra arranging for transit
or one day tourist trips to Shkodra.

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5. REFERENCES:

Bumci, A., 2001. Cross-border cooperation between Albania and Montenegro. research
report available at〈 http://www. policy. hu/∼ bumci/freport. pdf.

Celiku. S., 2015. Historia dhe Dinamika e Transportit ne Shqiperi.

http://www.kohajone.com/2015/03/26/transporti-detar-tradita-e-harruar-shqiptare/

Creswell, J., 1994. Research Design; Qualitative and Quantitative approaches. SAGE
Publications.

Henrikson, A.K., 2000. Facing across borders: the diplomacy of bon

voisinage. International Political Science Review, 21(2), pp.121-147.

Hoti,F.,1999. Shkodra Free Zone. The Basic Strategy of the Development in the region
of Shkodra, Albania. Published Camaj Pipa.

INSTAT., 2016. Transporti., Insituti i Statistikave.

http://www.instat.gov.al/al/themes/transporti.aspx?tab=tabs-4

INSTAT.,2016. Anijet Sipas Vitit te Ndertimit 1993-2009.

http://www.instat.gov.al/al/themes/transporti.aspx?tab=tabs-4

Ministry of Public Order: Strategy on Border Control and its Integrated Management
2003 – 2006. Decision of the Council of Ministers No. 118, date 27.02.2003.

Vurmo, Gj., 2006. Cross border cooperation in Shkodra.

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NORTHERN ADRIATIC PORT SYSTEM - COMPETITION AND

COLLABORATION AMONG CONTAINER TERMINALS

Elen Twrdy
Milan Batista
Marina Zanne
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of maritime studies and transport
Pot pomorščakov 4, SI 6320 – Portorož, Slovenia

Abstract

European port system consists of different types of ports and some of them are grouped into
associations that have specific characteristics. One of such associations is the North Adriatic
Ports (NAP) system, which consists of ports in Koper, Rijeka, Trieste, Venice and Ravenna.
These ports are geographically located close to each other, but in three different countries, with
different transport policies and development plans. In addition, these ports differ in
administrative and ownership structure. The interaction between these ports offers us a very
interesting research topic, because they have to operate in a relatively closed system with the
limited market and the number of customers and therefore the ports are forced to co-operate
while at the same time they need to compete among each other to get a better market position.

In this article we present a detailed analysis on dynamics of container traffic in NAP system for
the past twenty-five years by using portfolio analysis, market share analysis and shift-share
analysis. Furthermore, we used a simple Markov chain method to predict behaviour of the NAP
system with respect to the identified trends in containers traffic. In last section we provide the
analyses of possibilities for further evolution of NAP system.

The purpose of this article is to present some specifics of NAP system, as well as several simple
analytical methods that can be used to detect internal connections between the ports within this
particular port system.

Key words:

North Adriatic Ports (NAP) system, competition, collaboration, container throughput

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1. INTRODUCTION

Globalization of the world is one of the most important drivers of international trade
development. International trade is influencing maritime transport to become even more
important and in such situation ports have a specific role as they the most important
intermodal nodes. Competiveness of port depends on different port’s activities offered
and one of these is their ability to insert themselves into global supply chain.
European region can be divided in several port systems (Notteboom 1997) and one of
these is North Adriatic port system, which consists of five ports with the capacity for
containers handling. These ports are Rijeka (Croatia), Koper (Slovenia) and three Italian
ports, namely Trieste, Venice and Ravenna. They are located at the intersection of
Baltic-Adriatic corridor and Mediterranean corridor. The North Adriatic (NA) ports
share the same hinterland and all of them are currently in the process of infrastructure
and substructure renewal - as for example improvement of container handling capacities
deepening of the seabed as well as construction of new rail and road infrastructure. Each
of these ports is trying to become a leading port in the container throughput for the
countries of Central Europe, like Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and also
Switzerland and Bavaria. But they have to compete for this hinterland with other port
systems in Europe. Their competitors are Liguria port system and Spanish port system
in Mediterranean, as well as Western port system as can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Port systems in the analyzed area

In the first part of the paper we present three selected port systems in Europe that
compete for the same market in the Central Europe, and in the second part we present a
detailed analysis on dynamics of container traffic in NAP system for the past twenty-
five years by using portfolio analysis, market share analysis and shift-share analysis. In
the second part a comparison between NAP and other port systems that tend to be a
competitor for the same hinterland is given.

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2. NORTH ADRIATIC PORT SYSTEM

For the further development of NAP system and its positioning on European ports map
it is important to determine how the container traffic is going to evolve in the hinterland
of NAP in forthcoming years. For this reason, we have explored various forecasting
methods suitable for short term prediction of total container traffic in NAP and then
chosen the optimal one.

2.1.GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION

NA ports have a very good geographical position since they are located on the Adriatic
Baltic Corridor and Mediterranean Corridor. This are two of the most important
European Corridors that connect Europe from North to East and from West to East
(Figure 2).

Figure 2. Geographical position of NA ports and TEN-T Corridors

The common characteristic of all NA ports is that they have throughput that is in the
range for small or medium sized containers port, and only if we put all of them together,
we attain a throughput of large container port. For this reason we do not attempt to
make forecasting for individual port, but for all ports together and we stipulate that they
in short term retain their marked share (Brodie and de Kluyver, 1987). However, since
NA ports share the same current and potential hinterland there must be some relations
between them which are reflected on their market shares.

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2.2.COMPARISON BETWEEN NAP SYSTEM AND OTHER PORT SYSTEMS IN

EUROPE

We have performed a comparison between the NAP system and the potentially
competitive European ports systems. Port systems in Europe can be divided into
different port system but we will analyse only Le Havre - Hamburg and Liguria port
system. Other port systems are not so important for the analysed geographical area
where NAP have some major costumers (Figure 1).
The Le Havre - Hamburg port system is the biggest European ports systems. It consists
of six ports, namely Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Bremen/Bremenhaven, Le Havre
and Zeebruge, and together they handle almost half of the total European container
throughput. In 2015 three of these ports were ranked among top 20 world ports in the
container throughput.
The Liguria port system consists of ports of Genova, La Spezia, Savona and Livorno.
They are located in the Mediterranean Sea in the Liguria bay.
To obtain a clear view of the situation we have normalized a throughput in all port
systems to the year 2000. This means that in the year 2000 the throughput in all ports
was set to 1. Than we have prepared a calculation for all port systems and we found out
that the biggest growth of throughput was recorded in the NAP system, while the lowest
one in Liguria ports (Figure 3).

Normalized troughputt
3.500

3.000

2.500

2.000

1.500

1.000

0.500

0.000
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Le Havre-Hamburg North Adriatic Liguria

Figure 3. Containers throughput normalized to year 2000

Container throughput in NAP system was steadily growing, and even during the global
financial and economic crisis of 2008, the decline in overall container throughput in
these ports was small and insignificant. The reason for this can be seen in the good
geographical location of NA ports as the maritime transport from Far East to the EU is
shorter by around 2,000 n.m. compared to North-European ports. In the recent years the
trade between Europe and the Far East has increased and became even more important
than trade between Europe and the US - trans-Atlantic trade. For this reason, also the
importance of NA ports has increased.

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The growth of container throughput in the analysed ports system for the period 1990-
2015 is shown in Figure 4. In this way we can see a more erratic, fluctuating status of
the container throughput. The growth rate was actually negative in all ports in 2009,
while the highest growth rates for individual port systems can be seen in 2000 in the
Liguria (25%), in 2003 in Le Havre – Hamburg (17%) and in 2007 in North Adriatic
(24%).

AGR %
30.00

25.00

20.00

15.00

10.00

5.00

0.00
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
-5.00

-10.00

-15.00

-20.00

Le Havre-Hamburg North Adriatic Liguria

Figure 4. Relative growth of container throughput

Than we calculated the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HH index) to measure the market
concentration. The HH index is computed by the market share of each port system in
analysed area, and then summing the resulting numbers (Figure 5). The HH index
indicates that the highest competition is between Le Havre - Hamburg ports and the
lowest between Liguria ports. In the NAP the index was 0,3 in the beginning of 90’s but
in the last years in around 0,26-0,27.

HH index
0.45

0.40

0.35

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Le Havre-Hamburg North Adriatic Liguria

Figure 5. HH index

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3. COMPETITION AND COLLABORATION AMONG CONTAINER

TERMINALS IN THE NORTH ADRIATIC

After having determined the position of NA ports within Europe, we can proceed with
the detailed analysis of the NAP system. Container throughput in NAP has grown from
0.53 mio TEU's in 1990 to 2.26 mio TEU's in 2015. The only year when the traffic
dropped was 2009 when a decrease of 10 % in comparison to previous year was
recorded. Since then the container throughput in NAP has continued to grow.

3.1.DATA

Container throughput of all NA ports in 2015 presents 18.5 % of container throughput

of port of Rotterdam alone and only 6.2 % of container throughput of the biggest
container port in the world, that is the port of Shanghai. In figure 6 we present the
container throughput in NAP system and we can see that port of Koper records the
highest growth. Last year the growth of container throughput was 17 % in comparison
to the previous year. The global container throughput grew only by 1.1% in 2015
(Alphaliner, Volume 2016, Issue 08), meaning that the 10.2 % growth in the NAP
systems presents an overwhelming result.

Figure 6. Container throughput in NAP system

We will focus on port competition in NAP area (Notteboom and Yap, 2012) and as
there is no unique method to analyse the dynamics of container traffic and the degree of
port concentration port coopetition/co-operation relationship, we used time evaluation
of their throughput, market share Growth-Share -matrix, shift-share analysis and
evaluation of HH index (Notteboom, 1997, 2010). Only volume of containers
throughput is used so we are limited to short term forecasting.
At the first step we analysed the average annual growth rates in NA ports. For these
ports the most prosperous period was from 2003 to 2006 when all of ports recorded a
positive growth rate (Table 1).

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Table 1. Average annual growth rates in NAP

Year Rijeka Koper Trieste Venice Ravenna Total

1991 1994 5.13 -0.39 0.71 4.89 2.64 2.53
1995 1998 -44.75 4.63 -0.49 8.84 -1.76 2.05
1999 2002 8.63 7.17 0.02 5.49 -1.93 3.01
2003 2006 14.19 9.23 9.97 2.51 0.26 6.61
2007 2010 -1.43 7.97 1.33 3.86 -3.07 3.53
2011 2014 -0.14 3.00 5.16 -0.13 0.80 2.42

Then we have prepared a market share analysis in which we determined the positioning
of individual ports within the NAP systems in regards to container throughput. As can
be seen from Table 2, the port of Ravenna was the most important container port in the
NA area back in the beginning of the 1990s, but until now it was constantly losing its
market share to become the least important container port in NAP system. Completely
the opposite is happening with the port of Koper, which has its importance in the NAP
system continuously growing. In recent year the port of Koper is taking the largest share
of container throughput among NA ports.

Table 2. Average market share in NAP

Year Rijeka Koper Trieste Venice Ravenna

1991 1994 8.56 11.18 28.23 20.86 31.16
1995 1998 5.68 10.41 26.88 27.87 29.17
1999 2002 1.84 13.31 27.74 33.06 24.05
2003 2006 7.44 19.43 20.37 33.84 18.92
2007 2010 10.66 27.13 21.28 26.46 14.47
2011 2014 7.51 32.58 23.63 23.86 12.42

Container traffic annual growth rates (AGR) for the NA ports are shown in Figure 7,
where we can see container throughput drop in during the crises period in 2008-2009.

25,00

20,00

15,00

10,00

5,00

0,00
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
-5,00

-10,00

-15,00

Figure 7. Container traffic annual growth rate (AGR) in %

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3.2.A MARKOV CHAIN MODEL OF CONTAINERS THROUGHPUT

We have prepared a simple model to predict the behaviour of container traffic in NA

ports by using Markov-chain. According to the data presented in the previous section
(Figure 7) we have estimated transition probabilities between the state when the total
throughput is growing and state when the total throughput is falling. We defined
container traffic growth rate index (CTR) where TEUTOTAL ( ti ) is the total containers
throughput in a year ti

TEUTOTAL ( ti +1 ) − TEUTOTAL ( ti )
CTRi = (1)
TEUTOTAL ( ti )

If CTRi −1 < CTRi then the state at time i is the state of traffic growth and when CTRi −1 > CTRi
the state at time i is the state of traffic fall (Twrdy Batista, JTRG 2016).

Figure 8. Two state Markov chain-like models for total NAP throughput annual growth rate (AGR)

For the period 1990-2014 we have obtained a sequence of 24 observations. From these
observations we were able to calculate several probabilities. So, if the port has a trend of
growing throughput the probability that this continues is 42 %, while the probability
that the trend will change, that is, the throughput will fall, is 58 %. On the other hand, if
the throughput is falling, that probability to continue this trend is 20 %, while the
probability to switch this trend is 80 %. We have also calculated the probability that
AGR will increase for at least two consecutive years if in the previous year a decrease
was registered. This probability is 34%. And if in the previous year the AGR increased
then the probability that it will decrease in the next two successive years is about 12%.

4. CONCLUSION

In the last 25 years NA ports achieved a rapid economic and also institutional changes.
All these changes which are influenced by the processes of globalization have a strong
effect on logistics and distribution networks in the hinterland, and on development plans
of the ports, including the competition among these ports. NA ports Koper, Trieste,
Venice, Ravenna and Rijeka are located in three different countries which have different
expansion plans for their container ports, but all these ports must meet the same
demands and criteria as a big container ports in other parts in Europe. The future
changes in the container traffic market could lead to new concentration patterns and in

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such condition NA ports could be important players if they will react as a single port
system.

Even if the total container traffic in the NA ports has increased in recent years it still
represents just a small portion of total container throughput of the European ports. The
data indicates that container throughput share of NA ports shows a slight increase on
European level; in fact, the throughput of all NA ports presented just 15.2 % of the port
of Rotterdam container throughput in 2011, while in 2015 this ratio grew to 19.5 %.
According to presented model we can expect that container throughput in NAP system
will continue to growth in the next years.
Trends in maritime container transport give preference to big container ships due to
positive effects of economy of scale, and the ports in NA will have to join forces to
attract shipping lines in this part of Mediterranean. The collaboration and competition
(between ports) in the same time will persist also in the future. The current problem of
NA ports is that decline in market share of one port is a reason for the increase of
market share of another port.

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REFERENCE:

1. Farris, P., 2009. Key marketing metrics : the 50+ metrics every manager
needs to know, New ed. Financial Times Prentice Hall, Harlow, England ;
New York.
2. Brodie, Roderick J. and C. A. de Kluyver, 1987, A comparison of the short-
term forecasting accuracy of econometric and naive extrapolation models of
market share, International Journal of Forecasting 3, 423-437.
3. UNCTAD, 2015, Review of maritime transport
4. Bichou, K., Gray R., 2005, A critical review of conventional terminology for
classifying seaports, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 39
(1)
5. Yap W.Y., Lam J.S.L., Notteboom T., 2006, Developments in Container
Port Competition in East Asia, Transport Reviews, Vol.26, No.2
6. Yeo G., Roe M.,Dinwoodie J., 2008, Evaluating the competitiveness of
container ports in Korea an China, Transport Research Part A 42
7. Ducruet, C. and Notteboom, T., 2012, The worldwide maritime network of
container shipping: spatial structure and regional dynamics, Global
Networks, 12(3)
8. Notteboom, T., (2010). “Concentration and the formation of multi-port
gateway regions in the European container port system: An update”. Journal
of Transport Geography, vol. 18
9. Branderburger A., Nalebuff B., Co-opetition, 1996, Doubleday, New York
10. Martin, S., 2002., Advanced Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishers
Ltd, Oxford, UK
11. Notteboom T., Concentration and load centre development in the European
container port system, Journal of Transport Geography 5 (1997), 99-115
12. Alphaliner, Volume 2016, Issue 08

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MANAGEMENT STRUCTURES AND OWNERSHIP MODELS OF THE

ADRIATIC, AEGEAN AND BLACK SEA PORTS

Senka Šekularac-Ivošević, D.Sc.

University of Montenegro, Faculty of Maritime Studies Kotor
Dobrota 36, 85 330 Kotor, Montenegro
(E-mails: senkas@ac.me, ssenka@t-com.me)
Abstract
A successful organization of business activities and efficient management is what makes
many sea ports of today key links for the functioning of all the elements in maritime
logistics chains. The efficiency of cargo handling and storage operations, professionally
designed IT support, favourable conditions for attracting investments in port capacity,
extensive range of services comprising various added value contents, different
management structures and ownership models are the dominant characteristics of
modern and complex port systems.
The model of the ownership, and the way and time frame in which it has been
implemented, determines the market position of the ports of the Adriatic, Aegean and
Black Sea basins, which are the objects of research in this article. The article itself aims
at presenting a comprehensive analysis of the public service port, the tool port, the
landlord port, and the fully privatized port or private service port, thus providing a
more objective insight into strategic effects of implementing these models to business
results of the investigated ports gravitating toward the South East and Central
European market. The contribution of this article would be to make a solid base for
comparative benchmarking analysis of the ports in question, with each of them having a
unique economic, political and social environment.
Keywords:
Seaports and container terminals, port management structures, port ownership models,
organizational restructuring

INTRODUCTION
This paper analyses the administrative and ownership structures of the strongly
competitive container ports in the South East and Central European market, taking into
account a number of factors influence the way ports are organized, structured, and
managed, including: historical developments, location of the port, types of cargoes
handled. According to the „Port Reform Toolkit“ [23], as well as „Port function matrix”
([2]; Cullinane et al., 2003), four main categories of ports that have emerged over time
are considered, and they can be classified into four main models: a) the public service
port, b) the tool port, c) the landlord port, and d) the fully privatized port or private
service port.
The above models are based on the following characteristics of ports: a) public, private,
or mixed provision of service, b) local, regional, or global orientation, c) ownership of
infrastructure (including port land), d) ownership of superstructure and equipment
(particularly ship-to-shore handling equipment, sheds, and warehouses), and e) status of
dock labour and management [23]. Service and tool ports are mainly oriented on the

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realization of public interests. Landlord ports have a mixed character, aiming to set a
good pace between balancing public (port authority) and private (port industry)
interests. Fully privatized ports are fully focused on fulfilling private (shareholder)
interests [23].
This paper analyses the ports of Bar, Durres, Constantza, Koper, Ploce, Rijeka and
Thessaloniki that are outstanding competitors striving to meet the needs and
requirements of the unique market. Some of these ports are constantly faced with
problems of decrease rate of container throughputs, low operational efficiency, poor
productivity, unpragmatic management and increased bureaucracy. In the literature,
these problems are often associated with the fact that some ports are controlled and/or
operated by public entities (Cullinane et al., 2003 p. 178).
In order to overcome these problems, the port authorities of a number of countries have
defined strategies for attracting investitors to develop existing or introduce new
elements of port capacity. Along with the implementation of new strategies based on the
conclusion of concession contracts with private operators, a new business environment
is formed with the characteristics of inter-port, and even more, intra-port fierce
competition between Adriatic, Aegean and Black Sea ports.
Many authors have analysed the relationship between the ownership transformation
from public to private and the resulting improvement of the port efficiency
performance, both economic and technical (Vickers and Yarrow, 1991; [23]; Cullinane et
al., 2003). After the organizational restructuring, it was noted that the changes of this
type in some ports were indeed the right business decision, i.e. they were not only
needed, but even more necessary. Some analysis of the relative productive efficiency of
the ports sector pre- and post-privatization seems to suggest that ownership itself does
not seem to be categorically related to efficiency in port operations (Culliane, et al.
2003).
The basic research question in this paper is: Which ownership models prevail in
investigated ports and to what extent the various management structures affect their
competitive positions at the target market? In other words, in this particular marketing
issue, a link between implementation of particular model in the port and its better/worse
economic performances achieved at the market, by measuring the attitudes of experts
and target users, seeks to be found.
So far, in the most available literature, the port performances are considered by
measuring two categories of port performance indicators: macro performance indicators
quantifying aggregate port impacts on economic activity, and micro performance
indicators evaluating input/output ratio measurements of port operations (Bichou and
Gray, 2004).
Traditionally, the performance of ports has been variously evaluated by calculating
cargo-handling productivity at berth, by measuring a single factor productivity or by
comparing actual with optimum throughput over a specific time period, while today
conceptual model of container terminal performance include: throughput measure,
productivity measure, utilization measure and services measure (Krishna et al., 2015).
The purpose of this paper is to, through the analysis of alternative management models
in the investigated ports, present an actual level of development which these business
systems achieved at the market, but also to lay the foundation for their future

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improvement. Such analysis, in light of organizational and ownership alternatives, is the

reflection of the strategic management approach to the functioning of the ports.

1. METODOLOGY
1.1 SAMPLE
In order to define the answer to the basic research question in this paper, two sets of
respondents are defined: a) users of port services, and b) experts (executives in ports
and academic staff from higher maritime education institutions, where all come from
countries which seaports are included in this research, i.e. from the territory of South-
Eastern Europe). A non-random quota sample is used in this paper, which implies a
clear definition of the basic groups of respondents and division of this groups to
subgroups or so-called quotas, according to the following criteria: type of activity, size
of the organization, number of employees and position of particular respondent in the
organization, and they are presented as follows in Table 1 (Yeo et al., 2008 p. 918).
Table 1 - Quota sample

Basic Quotas of Number of sent Number of received Total

groups of respondents questionnaires questionnaires
respondents
Freight 10 9
forwarders
Logisticians 10 8
Users Shipping 10 5 30
companies
Importers / 10 8
Exporters
Top managers of 10 8
Experts port 18
Academic staff 10 10
Total 60 48 48

Source: Šekularac-Ivošević (2015).

From 60 questionnaires sent, 48 are received. Data on the respondents were collected
from marketing information systems of investigated ports, as well as through research
of the ports’ websites. A method of testing was used during the entire research, i.e. its
two manifestations: survey method via e-mail and personal interview method. All
phases of research were carried out according to the action plan and time frame for the
period from 1st June to 1st November 2014.

1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE

The research questionnaire is based on the evaluation scales, whereas it is forwarded to
all users and experts who are asked to assess the importance of each of 4 researched
ownership models in achieving more competitive position of the port at the market.
Evaluation scale from 1-10 was used.
The main reason for using Likert scale 1-10 is to obtain as precise estimations as
possible. Obtained responses of respondents need to be interpreted with caution because

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of the similarities in the way of measuring the respondents' attitudes, i.e. due to the
possibility of action of the so called method variance (common method bias) (Podsakoff
et al., 2003 p. 882). On the other hand, if the scale with smaller range of rates is used,
there would be a possibility that during the evaluation process, the respondent
remembers in a short-term memory previous answers, what potentially affects his/her
evaluations of other items in the questionnaire, so, in this paper, the stated is avoided
(Podsakoff et al., 2003 p. 882).
It should be noted that a statistical t-test is conducted. Namely, since the sample is of
size N= 48 (18 experts and 30 users), and given that the analysis of the histogram of
frequencies shows that the answers to questions are nearly normally distributed, the
results of Levene’s test of homogeneity of variances show that at the level of
significance 95% the homogeneity of variances of answers per all ownership models
can be assumed. Based on the analysis of the t-value for all ownership models it can be
concluded that there is no statistically significant difference in the average scores of
users' and experts' estimations of any of the four considered models.
In the following titles and subtitles, the results of the research are analysed, i.e. a
qualitative analysis of the ports is carried out with regard to alternative management
models, namely: landlord ports (Constantza, Piraeus, Rijeka, Bar, Ploce), tool port
(Durres), service ports (Koper and Thessaloniki). According to research results, a
private port model is not implemented in these ports.

2. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

2.1 ANALYSIS OF RESPONDENTS' ESTIMATIONS

Table 2 shows the values which represent the average scores of experts' and the average
scores of users' estimations of the significance that each of 4 ownership models has in
achieving a better competitive position of the ports at the market, as well as arithmetic
mean values of these scores. According to these values, the ranking of ownership
models of ports is conducted, where the higher ranked model is the one which,
compared to other models, has a higher numerical value of arithmetic mean score.

Table 2 – Ranking of ownership models of portS

Arithmetic mean
Ranks of ownership Average score of Average score of
value of scores
models experts' estimations users' estimations
1. Private port
8,000 8,133 8,067
model
2. Landlord port
7,556 7,467 7,511
model
3. Tool port model 7,278 6,767 7,022
4. Service port
7,333 6,633 6,983
model

Source: Šekularac-Ivošević (2015). The best ranked ownership model is the private port
model, and the worst is the service port model. It is obvious that both the experts and
users perceive that greater participation of private capital in commercial port
functioning as an influential factor of improvement its economic performance.

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It is characteristic that the experts assign greater value to service port than the tool port
model, and that the highest score is 8,133 whereby users consider privatization as a
significant generator of better performances of the port. All consulted respondents were
able to follow the development of ports before and after implementation of
reorganization measures, and with a pretty high scores (all scores are over 6,50), assess
the impact of management models to achieving better business results, in terms of:
higher container throughput, better labour productivity, higher degree of exploitation of
the port capacity, and above all, a better quality of port services and total satisfaction of
users.

2.2 ANALYSIS OF PORTS ACCORDING TO THE LANDLORD PORT MODEL

2.2.1 Piraeus port

In the past period, the factors which have contributed to the extreme development of
Piraeus Port in terms of cargo (container) transport were often analysed, although this
port is traditionally known as one of the largest passenger port in the Mediterranean.
Taking into consideration the negative effects of the global financial crisis, which have
been reflected in the maritime economy in the second half of 2008, as well as the
recession of the Greek economy, during the last years more than the projected increase
in container throughput has been recorded in the Piraeus Port. Since 2009 Cosco’s
subsidiary Piraeus Container Terminal (PCT) manages Piers II and III at Piraeus under a
35-year concession agreement posting impressive results, while Piraeus Port Authority
(PPA) as a national company was running Pier I. A critical and very successful step for
this port has taken place on 21st January 2016 when the offer by Cosco Group (Hong
Kong) Limited was accepted for the acquisition of 67% of Piraeus Port Authority [15].
By comparison, Piraeus Port became one of the fastest growing ports in the world, with
an increase of throughput from 1,7 million TEU in 2011 to 2,7 million TEU in 2012. Its
throughput reached 3,7 million TEU in 2014, a fold of nine times when it handled
433,000 TEU before the Cosco’s involvement in 2008 [14];[15].
Cosco's plan is to develop the Piraeus Port as a gateway port for trades between China
and Europe. From the geostrategic perspective, Piraeus is very close to the Suez Canal
and all the bottlenecks that this port had in terms of connections with the hinterland are
reduced or almost abolished towards the full implementation of this strategic plan.
The lack of railway connections with the hinterland has long been a major disadvantage
of the Piraeus Port. However, the model of cooperation between the Hewlett Packard,
the Greek railway operator Trainose and PCT has been defined by the arrival of the
Cosco operator, whereby the container terminal in the Piraeus Port became a logistic
support to the transport of computers and related products to Central Europe. This has
resulted in the decision of the Greek government to invest in the 17 km long railway
connection of this port with a national network and thus enable to accelerate the
implementation of this important project [6].
At the beginning of May 2014 the Piraeus Port penetrated to the new market and it
proved to be a serious competitor. Namely, with the launch of the first container block
train that took off from Piraeus, passed Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary and

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reached the final destination in the Czech Republic, the regular train and container
service has been established which represents the competition to the Adriatic ports.
In the past few years the Piraeus Port has made a significant business success, and
recently it started to conquer the markets towards Adriatic and Black Sea ports
gravitate, as well. It is strategically focused on the container traffic, but this Port has
also a remarkable capacity of Ro-Ro traffic in terms of transport of cars. Namely, the
Mediterranean is, in a figurative sense, a main European entrance gate of transport of
vehicles from Japan, South Korea and India, and this Port is a potentially remarkable
transit center in this regard.
According to the above, it could be concluded that the landlord port model proved to be
very successful in the case of the Piraeus Port.

2.2.2 Cnstantza port

The Constantza Port represents the center for transport of the cargo originated from or
destinated to the Central Europe, due to the lot of advantages generated from its geo-
strategic location and the existence of connections to all transport modes (road, rail,
inland waterways, pipes, air).
In an earlier past, insufficient use of capacities was connected with the functioning of
uncontrolled external economic factors, but also with internal limitations: a) older
terminals' equipment (in some cases), b) poor transit time, c) very complicated
accompanying bureaucracy in terms of administrative procedures, etc [11].
However, the above situation changed a lot, particularly from the moment of inclusion
of private operators in the functioning of the Constantza Port. Namely, in the context of
container traffic, the most important operator is Constantza South Container Terminal
(CSCT), operating from 2004 in the South part of Constantza Port. It has a handling
capacity of 1,5 mil TEUs per year, having equipment and technology able to operate the
largest container vessels passing through the Suez Canal and Turkish Straights. The
other three smaller container terminals are SOCEP, UMEX and APM Terminals. They
serve the feedering services. By comparison, in 2009 almost 90% of the total container
traffic realized in Constantza was operated by CSCT [4].
CSCT as the largest specialized container terminal at the Black Sea was inaugurated
in Constantza Port at the end of 2003, being operated by Dubai Ports World. The
volume of containers handled at this terminal surpassed the originally planned capacity,
where container throughput in 2003 was 206 449 TEUs, but reached 1 411 387 TEUs in
2007 [3]. This was because the terminal operator provided additional cranes and other
cargo handling equipment, expanding the container yard what was constantly followed
by growth of number of customers.
By providing facilities for accommodating container mother ships, the successful
operating of CSCT made that the Constantza Port has evolved in a container hub port
for the Black Sea linking Europe with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
and Asia.
The positive effects of the CSCT operations are spilling over to the national economy in
the way that Romania has become home to a progressing shipping industry,
international and domestic trade, oil refining industry, and manufacturing industry,

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among others. It can be said that the landlord port model for Constantza Port has
contributed to the overall economic development, while Port's reorganization has
largely achieved its objectives, and effectiveness is at a satisfactory level.

2.2.3 Port of rijeka

The Port of Rijeka is the most important Croatian container port. The reorganization
measures started in 2001 by establishing the company „Adriatic Gate“ JSC as a
daughter company of „Luka Rijeka“ JSC. At the beginning of 2011 there was a change
in the ownership structure of the „Adriatic Gate“ JSC, when, as a strategic partner with
a concession for 30 years, appears Philippine company International Container Terminal
Services Inc., which operates the terminals in the Far East, South America, Poland,
Georgia, Nigeria, Pakistan, China and Madagascar [1]. Since then, the Port of Rijeka's
container terminal is recognized in the business world as the Adriatic Gate Container
Terminal (AGCT).
Thanks to high-quality capital investments in new equipment, such as the recent
installation of new container cranes, the Port of Rijeka intentionally strives to meet the
requirements of modern shipping companies and thus takeover the market share from
the other Adriatic ports, and also container ports of Northern Europe. Comparing the
statistics it can be concluded that the container traffic in the period before and after
privatization was as follows: a) 14 695 TEUs (2002), b) 169 000 TEUs (2008), c) 161
883 TEUs (2015) [1].
The plans of the AGCT management are to achieve more frequent block-train traffic on
the route from Rijeka to Belgrade and Budapest. For that purpose, a start-up of block-
train connection between Rijeka and Belgrade was funded in 2013, which is a
remarkable example of how the freight transportation from road is transferred to the
railway module (Marco Polo II program called Go Rail - Go Green). In the same year
this train had a regular route to the inland terminals in Sremska Mitrovica and Novi Sad,
while towards Hungary individual transport shipments were carried out. During 2014,
this transport was intensified by introduction of line toward Slovakia (results of primary
research).
The attractiveness of the Port of Rijeka and its logistic direction has been recognized
much earlier, and this is confirmed by the realization of the project Rijeka Gateway in
2003. Namely, as a product of cooperation with the World Bank for Reconstruction and
Development the process of introducing private capital in port operations has been
initiated [20]. The goal of this strategic partnership is to develop a dominant container
transport, inter alia by the construction of inland container terminals in the hinterland.
The basic idea is to relocate port activities to the interior of its hinterland, and to
develop the town of Rijeka as a Mediterranean center with commercial and residential
facilities. In this context, as well as in connection with the development of value added
services, the Port of Rijeka is promoted as a free zone with the plan of realization of two
important projects: a) modernization of the inland terminal Škrljevo, and b) construction
of an inland terminal in Zagreb near Dugo Selo (Šekularac-Ivošević, 2015).
This model of reorganization of the Port of Rijeka influenced the realization of many
internal benefits: improving of operational efficiency, quality of standards and tariffs
management system, upgrading system of business intelligence, planning and

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controlling, achieved growth of value-added services, etc. All presented will only be an
incentive to strengthening economic performances of Croatia and region.

2.2.4 Port of bar

The Port of Bar is recognized for its longer than a century tradition, since it was
founded in 1906 [17]. As a unique corporate, technical, technological and logistic-service
system it functioned and fulfilled its mission until 2009, when the shareholders adopted
the decision on the restructuring through the separation of individual segments into
specific business units: a) Port of Bar (joint stock company whose primary business is
the handling and storage of dry bulk, liquid, general cargo and Ro-Ro traffic), and b)
Container terminal and general cargo (joint stock company whose primary business is
the handling and storage of containers, general cargo and timber cargo as specific types
of cargo).
The Government of Montenegro adopted a decision on privatization of the state capital
of the Container terminal and general cargo JSC, and in this regard, in November 2013
a contract with Turkish company Global Ports Holding was signed on the sale of
62,09% of the share capital of the company.
Global Ports Holding is a port group and operator that has significant experience in
improving underperforming ports and upgrading facilities and operational efficiency by
focusing on container traffic, as well as cruise business. Some of the successful
international ports in which this operator appears as the operator are: Lisbon, Barcelona,
Singapore, Malta – Valletta, Dubrovnik – Gruz, Malaga, Port Akdeniz Antalya, Ege
Ports Kuşadası, Bodrum Cruise Port [9].

During the period from the ownership transformation until today, significant
innovations in functioning of the Port have been introduced. In terms of marketing, the
strategy and plan for sales have been defined based on target customers, and the
informatization of databases on the market, customers and competition has been carried
out, i.e. the Customer Relationship Management concept has been implemented.
Former, quite long company's name Container terminal and general cargo JSC is
replaced by a new, very attractive and adapted to the competitive point of time - Port of
Adria JSC. In the context of labour policy, the system of motivation and stimulation of
employees has been introduced, and the bases of modern corporate culture and
organizational behaviour have been set up.
In the context of natural business performances for the 2015, the Port of Adria has
processed 288 ships, or 8% more than in 2014, i.e. 16% more than in 2013, when the
ownership transformation of the Port was carried out. The volume of cargo handled was
665,821 tons, what is compared to 2014 an increase of 21%, or 30% compared to 2013.
Particularly it is significant an increase in transport of general cargo in the amount of
59% compared to 2014, or 65% compared to 2013. The container traffic was 30 050
TEUs, indicating an increase of 14% compared to 2013 (Author adopted to data from
Marketing department of Port of Adria, 2016).
When it comes to implemented investments, the project Main Gate has been carried out,
which means that by putting the security fence and video surveillance system with 24/7
operation, the Port of Adria has a complete control over the concession area, which
certainly increased the safety of the security performance of this Port. A purchase of
mobile terminal equipment has been completed, and purchase of a new gantry crane and

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crane for handling of general cargo is in the procedure, as well as the complete
modernization of information hardware and software.
When it comes to improving the connections with the hinterland it is necessary to
renovate the railway infrastructure, which is not at a satisfactory level for many years,
as well as to increase the speed of transport. The construction of the highway Bar -
Boljare is strategically important for this Port, for a long term. All this will provide an
additional support to the ongoing process of reorganization and modernization of the
functioning of the Port.
By the privatization plan for 2016 the Government of Montenegro adopted a decision
on the preparation and implementation of public tenders for privatization of remain
business unit - Port of Bar JSC, modelled on the privatization of the Port of Adria JSC.
The subject of the tender is the sale of 54,0527% of the share capital of this company,
owned by the State of Montenegro, over which the property rights are exercised by the
Government [10]. This decision has already had a positive reaction by investors from the
Region, and also the interests of the already present operator Global Ports Holding.

2.2.5 Port of ploce

The Port of Ploce has a natural geo-strategic position that allows high-quality maritime
connection, as well as direct railway and road connection with the target markets of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Southeastern Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Hungary (E-
73). In fact, its location represents the beginning of a transport corridor Vc. Also, the
Port of Ploce is located near the Adriatic highway E-65 that spreads from Trieste, via
Rijeka and Split, to the most southern point in this part of Europe.
Ploce Port Authority was established in 1997 as the landlord port authority and owner
of port area and infrastructure. Company Port of Ploce Ltd got in 2005 the primary
concession for carrying out activities in the area of the Port of Ploce and became the
main operator for performing port services. The Port of Ploce Ltd is a joint stock
company, established and still remains primarily state owned. Namely, 42,9 % of the
shares belong to the Croatian Privatization Fund, 40,3 % belong to port employees and
to small shareholders, and 16,8 % to the Croatian Pension Fund [19].
The modernization of the productive capacity of the container terminal started in 2008,
and the terminal was introduced in 2010 with transhipment capacity for 60 000 TEUs.
Terminal is operated by the stevedoring company Port of Ploce Ltd. till 2055 based on
the concession contract with Ploce Port Authority. Total capital investments are 33,6
million euros, what is considered the most important venture in the history of the Port,
but existing container terminal presents the first phase of its complete development
(Šekularac-Ivošević, 2015). Namely, after the third phase of project realization it is
planned to have the handling capacity of 500 000 TEUs.
At this point, the existing equipment and facilities do not have the ability to achieve
competitive advantages in relation to the Northern Adriatic ports. This is confirmed by
the fact that there are no direct mother vessel calls to the Port of Ploce, only feeder
services, which increases the total cost of transport. In order to gain competitiveness of
infrastructure and superstructure further investment plans or strategic partnership with
major shipping companies are needed to be realized in a foreseeable future (Rathman et
al., 2015).

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Since the introduction of the Port of Ploce Ltd. as an operator in 2005, container
throughput has increased, particularly in 2008 when it was achieved 35 124 TEUs.
Despite all the favourable connections with the hinterland, in the period from 2013 to
2014 there was no regular block-trains toward the hinterland, except those with
individual shipments. Container traffic has declined 10% in 2014 (16 859 TEUs)
compared to 2013 (18 713 TEUs) [19]. The reasons for decline in container traffic can be
found in the weak economic strength of the hinterland, and also in weak dynamics of
corridor Vc construction.
This port has great potential, and the decision-makers should work on the strengthening
of communications with business partners modelled on directly competing ports, which
cooperate with strategic partners, like shipping companies or global corporations. It is
noticeable that efforts are being made in this regard, although it still needs a lot of work
on the development of the modern marketing concepts.

2.3 ANALYSIS OF PORTS ACCORDING TO THE SERVICE PORT MODEL

2.3.1 Port of koper
The Port of Koper has a tradition of almost 60 years since it was established in 1957. By
comparison, the cargo handling volumes in the 1970s were nearly 2 million tons, and in
2015 almost 19 million tons [18]. The Port of Koper possesses all the specialized
terminals for transport of various types of cargoes. As regards the container transport,
the Port mostly via road connections serves the Slovenian and Croatian market, while
the railways is a dominant connection module with the markets of Austria, Slovakia, the
Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, South Germany and Romania.
The first containers appeared in the 1970s. The economic and political changes in
Slovenia in the first half of the 1990s reflected on the Port of Koper entry into a new life
cycle. Namely, in this period the demand for port services from the area of Yugoslav
republics experienced a sharp decline based on economic recession and interrupted
economic development [19]. The Port of Koper then focused on new target market, i.e.
on the customers from Central European markets.
In 1996 the company completed the transformation process, whereby the Port of Koper
became a public limited company and the company's shares were listed on the Ljubljana
Stock Exchange (Port of Koper, 2016). From that time until today, the majority
shareholder of the Port of Koper Ltd is the Republic of Slovenia [19].
The Port of Koper confirms that there is no absolute correlation between the port
management model and its competitive performances. Namely, according to the results
of operations in the previous period, it is concluded that this Port is leading (benchmark)
as compared to other Adriatic ports (Šekularac-Ivošević, 2015).
The Port of Koper is a free zone which meets the environmental standards of the
European Union. It has certificates on the quality of performed services. The European
Commission declared it the Port of A category, which points out its really successful
business results [8].
There have been constant investments in the infrastructure. Namely, thanks to extended
container quay, enlarged warehousing area and new postpanamax cranes and other
equipment, the container terminal is able to service ships with capacity up to 8 000

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TEU. A new container service now provides a direct link between Koper and the Far
East. Container terminal has 14,5 m of max allowed draft, and there are orders for new
handling equipment. As a consequence, the Port of Koper will reach an annual
throughput of 1,3 million TEUs by 2020. In 2014 there were 674 033 TEUs handled in
the Port [19].
Management of the Port of Koper adopted a business strategy based on the development
of transport logistics centers in the hinterland, i.e. operating of inland terminals in
Sežana (Trupac and Twrdy, 2010), which will improve already high-quality developed
concept of value added logistics services. Since 2014, this Port is located at the head of
North Adriatic Ports Association [12].
What would be important for the future development of the Port of Koper, and what is
popularized among the scientific and professional public, is that (after the dredging of
seabed was performed) the private investors should be found to invest in the railway
line Koper - Divača, to enable the only Slovenian commercial seaport to maintain its
primacy over the competition also in the future [22].
As a result of efficient management, the Port of Koper takes over significant freight
flows from Italian and Adriatic ports in the area of North Adriatic, and as a service port
organized leads according to the level of development and business performances.

2.3.2 Port of thessaloniki

The Port of Thessaloniki was built and evolved along with the city of Thessaloniki,
through the Ancient, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and contemporary historical periods.
Bearing in mind the position of the Port on the map of trans-European corridors IV and
X, as well as its direct connection with the national highway, it can be said the Port of
Thessaloniki has a high competitive potential.
The contemporary reorganization of the Port started in 1999 when public entity
Thessaloniki Port Authority (THPA S.A.) was established with the aim to manage and
exploit the Port. In 2001, concession of rights is granted for a period of 40 years by the
Greek State to THPA S.A., with the exclusive right to use and exploit resources and
potentials of the Port. In 2009 the concession period is extended for 10 years more and
it expires on the corresponding date of the year 2051. The major shareholder is the
Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (74,27%) [24].
The Port of Thessaloniki is traditionally known as an important factor in the logistic
chains of dry bulk and general cargo transportation. It has infrastructure and
superstructure that support the transport of all other types of cargo, as well as the
passenger transport. The Port was well positioned at the Serbian market in the past, but
today it competes for this market with the Port of Constantza (mainly in the transport of
cereals) and the Port of Koper (in terms of container transport flows from the East).
The Port of Thessaloniki Container Terminal is connected to the national railway
network and has a management information system that enables the provision of
services in real time. In 2015, the port container traffic was 351 407 TEUs, and the
larger decline was noticeable in 2008 (-45%), and since then, the growth in container
throughput was recorded, though below 10% on an annual basis [24]. Plan of the THPA
S.A. is to execute the extension of container terminal, achieve the berth depth of 16 m,

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obtain additional equipment and increase the handling capacity to 1,2 million TEUs.
Total planned investments are 245 million € [25].
The Port is a free zone, and the THPA S.A., as the public and the exclusive operator,
applies strict safety and quality standards. Future development of the Port is based on
extension of the container and dry bulk terminal, railway connection of the newly
expanded Free Zone area and construction of a marina for 218 yachts [24].
Nowadays, there are plans and interests in the privatization of the Port by the well-
known maritime brands such as: AP Moeller-Maersk’s APM Terminals, China Cosco
Holding Co and Philippine port operator International Container Terminal Services Inc.
Representatives of the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund which is the major
shareholder of the THPA S.A. have announced that the binding offers for Greek rail-
services operator Trainose SA and train maintenance company Rosco SA will be made
in January 2016, and for the Port of Thessaloniki in March, with both sales to be
completed by mid-2016 [7].

2.4 ANALYSIS OF PORT ACCORDING TO THE TOOL PORT MODEL (PORT OF

DURRES)
Today's infrastructure and superstructure of the Port of Durres was built in 1936. This is
the country's major port which caters for about 85% of all export and import trade of
Albania [5]. It links with the European Corridor VIII, connecting the Adriatic-Ionian
regions with the Balkan and Black Sea countries by both road and rail. It also serves its
neighbouring countries, including Kosovo and Macedonia. This Port is managed by the
Durres Port Authority (DPA) which is a tool port organized as a Joint Stock Company
with 100% of shares belonging to the state.
Reorganization of the Port of Durres has brought a lot of plans for the modernization
and informatization of business. The privatization of the Port of Durres' container
terminal has been going on for several years, and in February 2013 the company Durres
Container Terminal (DCT) took over the management of its future functioning. The
Durres Port Authority awarded the 35-year concession for DCT that is a joint-venture
between Turkey’s steel maker Kurum, and Malta’s Mariner operator of sea terminals [5].
The plans were to invest more than US$ 30 million in the terminal during the
concession period [5].
The results of organizational changes were immediately visible, so that, for example,
the Port of Durres container terminal in the period from 2012-2013 achieved progress in
the following: a) the container throughput has increased by 30% and reached 108 670
TEUs, b) transit time have been reduced from 2-3 days to 1 day, what represents an
increase of 60%, and c) number of reefer plugs has increased from 80 to 200, i.e. 150%
[22]
. As the main competitive advantage of this terminal was the characteristic transit
time reduction, which is very stimulating for shipping companies because it reduces
their overall costs.
However, from May 2014 the project with joint venture company was seen as a „missed
opportunity”, while experts argue that it is the best to grant the concession to companies
that have been already proved as successful terminal operators, but not to those who are
not capable of functioning within the maritime and/or port industry sectors (Šekularac-
Ivošević, 2015). Malta's Mariner, who acquired a 48% shareholding in Durres Container

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Terminal soon broke the relationship with Turkey’s Kurum, leaving the Turkish
operator to face alone its new maritime business. On the other hand, relations between
the Durres Port Authority and the Durres Container Terminal company are getting
complicated regarding the renting the one of two gantry cranes, so today with just one
working crane terminal operations are slowing down [13].
What is evident is that, despite favourable geostrategic position, the Port of Durres is an
example of how a lack of high-quality management decisions and communication
between operators and port authority may influence the weakening of the competitive
position of certain port at the market. Some future challenges could be the privatization
of the Port/terminals, obtaining of the status of free zone, as well as dredging of the
seabed for provision of services to modern ships.

3. CONCLUSIONS
The issue of the management structures and ownership models, as well as the process of
privatization of ports, is extremely important area of scientific researches. Based on the
knowledge and attitudes of experts and target port users, this paper concludes that there
is a tendency of growing importance of port's management models based more on
private, rather than public ownership structure. However, the case studies analyses of
ports of the Adriatic, Aegean and Black Sea basin (partly based on subjective
assessment) lead to the conclusion that greater degree of port privatization does not
seem to be closely associated with more competitive market position of the port at the
market. Moreover, it can be concluded that the better market position is based on the
efficient management of business processes in the port, whether the operator is mainly
private and public company. This involves a long-term business strategy based on high-
quality port service product (efficiency of logistics processes in the port, competitive
tariffs, developed distribution network of agents and freight forwarders, permanent
international promotion) and loyalty in relationships with target customers and other
stakeholders.

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[6] Šekularac-Ivošević S. Strategic effects of market positioning on the seaport
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Catalunya; 2014, pp. 15-26.
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2026-2-2013.pdf [accessed on 17 th January, 2016].

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MARITIME TRANSPORT VII

PORT WORKERS’ SAFETY MONITORING BY RFID TECHNOLOGY:

A REVIEW OF SOME SOLUTIONS

Prof. Dr Sanja Bauk (I)

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Anke Schmeink (II)
M.Sc. Radoje Dzankic (I)
(I) University of Montenegro, Maritime Faculty, Montenegro
(II) RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Abstract

The paper reviews a number of working safety scenarios in harsh environments based
on RFID (radio frequency identification) technology. Some of them are used at
seaports, some in construction, and some in oil and gas industry. The advantages and
disadvantages of these systems are analyzed in the context of their possible
implementation in a developing seaport which operates in the transitional economy, i.e.,
the Port of Bar (Montenegro). It is also given a proposal for an RFID technology based
port workers safety model which should at a satisfying level meet the individual needs of
the Port of Bar, and which is at the same time cost-effective, reliable, and scalable. The
directions for the future research work in this field are given, as well.

Key words:
RFID sensors, seaport, PPE, working safety

INTRODUCTION

Work at seaports takes place through the day and night (24/7) in all types of weather
conditions [1]. It usually involves a number of different employers and/or contractors
carrying out different activities: harbor authorities, stevedoring firms, haulers, ship’s
masters, and crews. This requires sound co-operation, co-ordination and communication
between all involved parties. Besides, there are usually pressures to load or unload a
ship’s cargo quickly to catch a tide or to free up a wharf for another ship; or, visiting
drivers want to pick up or drop off their cargo as quickly as possible and get back on the
road. Therefore, seaports are dangerous places for on port workers in terms of
operational risks connected to (un)loading operations, managing on port traffic and
transportation, handling manipulative equipment, warehousing, etc [2]. In parallel,
seaports tend to be associated with emerging environmental problems [3]: water and air
pollution, and soil contamination, problems related to dust and noise, generation of
waste, dredging operations, warehouse storage of hazardous substances, etc. All these
make work at seaport challenging, but also potentially high-risk one.

Under the regulations, employers in seaports, people in control of premises, the self-
employed and employees must ensure the health and safety of others and themselves.
However, employers have duties concerning the provision and use of PPE (personal
protective equipment) to their employees who may be exposed to risks to their health or
safety at work [4]. PPE can include items such as safety helmets, gloves, eye protection,
high-visibility clothing, safety footwear, safety harnesses etc. In the paper, PPE of
workers on port will be limited to so-called 3 Point one: helmet, safety vest, and

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protective shoes. The PPE equipped with passive or active RFID devices can help
identifying each garment and examining its functionality. By the corresponding alarm
system workers on port can be alerted, when they are in range of a reader, if some PPE
garment is missing, or if some of RFID tags embedded/attached to the PPE don’t
function properly, that usually means that related PPE piece(s) is(are) damaged. In such
cases workers are required to go to the central to wear or change the clothes [5]. Also, in
the case of emergency, workers can be alerted to come to the appointment zone, which
is well covered with the so-called anchor readers, where workers can be automatically
identified, located, and the inspection of using and correctness of their PPE garments
can be carried out.

It is worth to mention here that the idea to use RFID for controlling PPE items is
registered as a patent in the USA in 2002 [6]. Since RFID technology has been more
and more adapted in many sectors and identified as one of the ten greatest contributory
technologies of the 21st century [7], there are a lot of literature recourses which concern
it. We shall refer to a few of them [8-13], in order to avoid repeating some well-known
facts about this emerging technology. Instead, we shall give an overview of existing
RFID solutions for locating and tracking workers and monitoring their PPE at harsh
environments, e.g., at seaports, construction sites, and oil and gas industry. This
overview is done with the aim to give an insight to the managers of the developing Port
of Bar (Montenegro) into available safety solutions of such kind, and to encourage them
to provide correct justification to the senior management and stakeholders to secure
buy-in and implementation of the same or similar safety measures.

1. SCENARIO 1: OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY

A cost effective RFID technology solution for locating and tracking personnel in case of
emergency situations was deployed at oil and gas rigs in North Sea in the beginning of
2000s. This system is defined as an offshore emergency preparedness system, rather
than personnel surveillance one. Its two key components are RFID interrogators
(readers) and transponders (tags). In the event of an emergency, the system should be
able to determine the current and past locations, and the identities of all personnel
wearing an active RFID tag for the purpose of tracking. Of course, in addition to this
emergency safety system, using PPE on oil and gas rigs is obligatory. Extended version
of the personnel tracking system may also include employment of the environmental
sensors, e.g., temperature, humidity, gas detection, etc.

Platforms operating in an offshore environment typically employ hundreds of people.

Some of them are connected via bridges which create a center that can hold up to 1000
persons. Each person on the rig has an ID badge (active RFID tag) which can be worn
around the neck, attached to the clothing or placed in the pocket. The badge has a
battery powered UHF (ultra high frequency) tag (868 [MHz] – EU standard) that
transmits ID number at preset intervals. The tags can be read up to 500 [m] away. Back-
end software stores each worker’s name, shift, job, education, etc., which is linked to
the unique ID number on the badge. When a reader captures a tag’s ID number, it
forwards that information via a wire(less) connection to a computer, which could then
pass on that data, either to the company’s back-end server or to a server on-site, as well
as, off-site one via a Wi-Fi or Internet connection [14].

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If there are several readers on the platform, the system can determine each employee’s
location, while the accuracy of position being determined depends on the number of
readers used. The system typically tracks which zone an employee is in, rather than the
person’s specific location. The system also provides an alerting function, in the case that
certain personnel are not allowed to enter specific zone. Basic scheme of this UHF
RFID safety scenario is given in Figure 1.

The system can be used in normal, emergency, and drill conditions. During normal
conditions, it allocates a tag to a person, while the person is picked from the POB
(personnel on board) application; it is regularly tested to verify that system and POB
application are synchronized; it de allocates personnel from the tag, etc. During an
emergency/drill situation, the demand from the authorities is to ensure full control over
the personnel within about 25 minutes after an emergency/drill situation has occurred.
The system shall be in that case use to: automatic muster personnel at muster stations or
in muster zones (e.g. lifeboats, bridges, indoor and outdoor muster places, and
emergency personnel meeting spots); manual muster of personnel; etc. Some more
detail on these procedures and following measures can be found in [15].

Figure 1 - Worker’s RFID localization and emerging system

(Sources: Adapted from [14] and [15])

This RFID locating, tracking, and alerting system in normal and emergency/drill
occasions has been presented here on the basis of secondary literature resources, since it
is cost-effective and efficient for employing in harsh industry environment. It might be,
in the same or similar form, adapted to the Port of Bar. However, the following two
RFID safety solutions, that will be presented, can be used, as well, like models for
improving health, safety and environment management in the considered developing
seaport.

2. SCENARIO 2: CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Access control is one of the main objectives of the personnel logistics at construction
sites [16]. On large construction sites, there are usually a lot of workers and visitors
accessing them. Unauthorized entry should be denied for safety reasons, theft, and
illegal working protection. To ensure this, some construction companies (e.g.,
ThyssenKrupp, Essen, Germany) install smart entrance gates or containers at the
construction sites [17].

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The entering person is prompted to log into the system by holding the site ID card near
the RFID card terminal and perform an authentication by placing his/her finger on a
fingerprint reader. At the same time, his/her profile is controlled by comparing the
required PPE (helmet, safety vest and shoes) in profile and the actually identified PPE
using RFID reader. By a positive controlling of the ID, the fingerprint, and the PPE
pieces, the hub is released and the access to the site is allowed. The time of entering the
site can be automatically registered. The process of leaving the site works similarly, but
usually without PPE control (Figures 2).

At the container terminal of the Port of Bar recently has been implemented an RFID
system for identifying workers at the entrance/exit of the terminal, and for determining
the length of their working time (CHRONO ID) [18]. The back-end software is capable
to calculate the workers’ earnings automatically, as well. This system could be upgraded
by the system for scanning PPE garments at the entrance, and allowed or prohibited the
access accordingly.

Figure 2 - Entrance turnstile with card, fingerprint and PPE reader at working site

(Sources: Taken/adopted from [16] and [17])

3. SCENARIO 3: SEAPORT ENVIRONMENT

A smart workplace safety solution employed in the Port of Cagliari (Italy) is presented
here in brief. Each on port worker has wearable sensor network composed of RFID
tags/sensors embedded into PPE. The safety helmet is provided with a WISP (wireless
identification and sensing platform) chip which combines RFID and sensor technology
[19]. Sensors can be temperature or light one, or an accelerometer by which
upright/proper position of the worker’s helmet can be inspected. The WISP chip can
communicate directly to an UHF RFID reader located at the strategic points at the port
perimeter (gates, bus stops, etc). Workers’ safety jacket and shoes are equipped with
passive RFID tags which also directly communicate with fixed readers within the range
of about 10-14 [m].

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The UHF RFID readers work at 868 [MHz] and they can be connected via Wi-Fi or
fiber Ethernet to the back-end smart software system. This system includes CCTV
(closed circuit television) as vision-based technology and it is used by the supervisors. It
is also connected with the Port of Cagliari Web GIS (geographic information system)
and anchor readers for calculation of each worker’s position by the location-based
measurements via triangulation [20]. The pinpoint position of the worker is signed by
the marker and presented on the screen in the central control room. Each worker’s
marker is associated with the signals of the sensors embedded into the PPE. The control
system have the information about the status of each sensor and passive RFID tag
attached to the PPE, i.e., if they: work correctly (green), don’t work correctly (yellow),
or don’t work at all (red). In Figure 3 is shown an example of the worker who does not
have helmet on site, and whose shoe is damaged. In such situation worker has to be
alerted via HRD (handheld radio device) by audio or flashing signal, or text message to
go to the central for wearing/changing PPE.

Figure 3 – A worker’s PEE monitoring architecture

(Sources: Adapted from [5] and [19])

This scenario of worker’s on port PPE monitoring is adapted to the IoT (internet of
things) concept. Besides ID, RF (radio frequency) functionality and gauged data (e.g.,
temperature, light, plantar pressure, worker’s pose, and/or helmet position), each RFID
tag/sensor embedded into worker’s protective clothe has specific IP address which
allows its RTL (real time locating) and other M2M (machine to machine) or P2M
(person to machine) activities. It’s important to mention that M2M and P2M include
intelligent sensors and microprocessors embedded in the assets/devices (here PPE
garments), and a wireless communications modules that transmit and receive data to and
from information management systems, here smart centralized workers’ safety
monitoring system [18,19,21].

4. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PRESENTED SCENARIOS

In Table 1 are given some of the key features of the previously presented RFID based
workers’ safety monitoring systems in oil and gas industry, construction sites, and at the
seaport environment. The first system (S1) being used in the oil and gas industry allows

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tracking workers along the rig zones (including arrivals and departures), and in
emergency/drill situations. The system of visual and audio alarms is available, as well.
It provides good coverage and communication to the off- and on-shore back-end ICT
systems. The second presented system (S2) is employed at the construction sites and it
provides workers identification double check by ID cards and fingerprints scanners at
the entrance/exit, as well as PPE garments visual inspection by RFID smart readers at
the entrance. The system is connected with the intelligent software which allows or
prohibits turnstile activation. It also provides a visual alarm system. The third system
(S3) is implemented in the Port of Cagliari and it is the most sophisticated. It includes
real time tracking and monitoring on port workers and their PPE pieces presence,
functionality, and proper using (i.e., helmet’s position by means of an accelerometer).
The system provides audio and text message alarms and interoperability at the IoT level.
Some basic technical specifications of these systems are given below (Table 1). It is
obvious that all considered systems use RFID technology, while the third one uses the
supporting advanced systems like CCTV, Web GIS, and IoT.

Table 1 - Features of three different RFID safety systems (S1, S2, and S3) in harsh
environments
Features / Systems S1 S2 S3
F1 Tracking workers in real time / / x
Registering workers at the entrance
F2 gate/periodically
x x /
Tracking/checking IDs and status of PPE in
F3 real time
/ / x
Checking IDs and status of PPE at the
F4 entrance gate/periodically on site
/ x /
F5 Alarm system availability x x x
F6 Access control to restrictive zones x / /
F7 Emergency/drill control x / /
F8 IoT concept deployment / / x
UHF RFID
868 [MHz], UHF RFID
UHF RFID or MW 868 [MHz];
868 [MHz]; RFID 2.4 WISP
active ID [GHz]; chipped
badge; passive smart helmet;
Basic technical specifications PPE tags; turnstile- passive PPE
supported by site tags;
smart back- entrance supported
end software gate (ID by CCTV;
system card, finger Web GIS;
print, and and IoT
PEE check)
Legend: S1 – Oil and gas industry; S2 – Construction industry; S3 – Seaport area;
x – it possesses; and / - it does not possess

In the next section, some objective requirements of the Port of Bar in terms of
improving environmental management system and workers’ safety, as its key segment,
shall be pointed. Also the previously presented safety scenarios shall be assessed in
terms - how well they fit into the Port of Bar individual needs and its capabilities for
adapting new safety solution. In the first line, we have to bear in mind financial and

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human capacity barriers, since the port, as a transitional one, suffers during the years,
from the rigid administrative structures and lack of investments.

5. SATISFYING SOLUTION FOR THE PORT OF BAR

With favorable geographical position, the railway line Belgrade-Bar, and the road
network in its hinterland, along with the intermodal transportation and traffic links with
Italian ports Bari and Taranto, the Port of Bar could provide good connections within
the wide gravitational area. It might be developed into the distribution center for the
whole region. More about the Port of Bar can be found on its official web site 1 and in
the documentation of numerous regional and EU projects in which realization it has
been involved [22].

The projects Ten Ecoport [23] and Ecoport 8 [24] are of particular importance in the
context of enhancing workers’ on port safety and health conditions. During the
realization of these projects and in the final reports, some recommendations for further
actions towards improving occupational safety are provided. The most harmful
environmental and workers’ health and safety impacts are identified, too. The working
processes in the Port are analyzed in detail and the points with the highest level of risk
to the workers employed directly on port are specified. For the purposes of the project
Ten Ecoport realization, several in depth interviews with the managers in the Port of
Bar were conducted [25], and the highlights in terms of the most common risks are
identified. These risks are: working outdoors at various (unfavorable) weather
conditions (extremely high or low temperatures, rain, wind, etc.); exposure to the dust
during the transshipment of bulk cargos (grains, all types of ores and concentrates,
alumina, etc.); maneuvering with obsolete transshipment equipment and transportation
devices; manipulating with damaged cargo (bags, pallets, packages, containers, etc.);
exposure to the risk of fire (especially during the summer months), etc. In addition,
workers on port are realizing mostly monotonous and repetitive operations what results
in fatigue which increases the risk of accidents.

Nevertheless the range of negative working and environmental impacts in the Port of
Bar is quite large, prospective employing PPE equipped with RFID tags, inspired by the
previously presented solutions will strengthen port workers’ safety and increase the
level of their corporate safety culture. In that direction we made here a qualitative
assessment of the features of the previously presented scenarios (see Table 1). In Figure
4 is given a scheme of the methodological approach in identifying features which are
cost-effective, reliable, flexible, scalable, and at the same time affordable from the
perspective of the Port of Bar.

According to the qualitative assessment, schematically presented in Figure 4, it is

obvious that the previously described workers’ safety scenario S1 is the most suitable to
be implemented in the Port of Bar. It implies providing the following features: F2 -
registering workers at the entrance gate, or periodically; F5 - alarm system availability;
F6 - access control to restrictive zones; and F7 – emergency, or drill control. Also,
feature F4 – checking IDs and status of PPE at the entrance gate, or periodically on site
(or, on port), which belongs to the previously presented scenario S2 is desirable in terms
to be implemented in the Port of Bar. Feature F5 – alarm system availability, is common

1
Port of Bar, URL: http://www.lukabar.me/eng/Port_of_Bar.htm (last access 20th May 2015)

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for all proposed scenarios, and within this analysis, it is the only one from the scenario
S3 features set that can be objectively, at the present moment, adapted to the analyzed
seaport.

Figure 4 - Assessing features of the scenarios: S1, S2, and S3 in accordance to the Port of Bar
individual needs (Source: Authors’ creation)

Certainly, the final decision according to conceiving, developing and employing

workers’ safety model is to be done by the Port of Bar managers. They should once
again, from their stand point, assess the reviewed solutions including the consultations
with stakeholders and ICT experts who will be in charge of deploying an optimal -
satisfying solution.

At this point it is important to emphasize once again that at the Container Terminal and
General Cargo department of the Port of Bar has been recently implemented CHRONO
ID solution [15]. This is a system for access control and determining working time
duration. It provides recording entrances and exits of employees, visitors, and vehicles
in fixed, flexible, and multi-shift working schedules. Application software CHRONO
ID works in Windows (MS Windows NT, XP, 2000, Server) and it uses centralized
related data base (SQL Server) [26,27]. The central part of the system is responsible for
workers’ access control and measuring working time. It uses software applications for
access control (Guard ID) and for recording working time (Web Chrono). These
applications are supported by MS SQL database and real-time data about working time
start/end, and workers’ entries/exits. The system is scalable in terms of both employees
number and access points and it operates within the port’s LAN/WLAN infrastructure.

The access control device SD100 GEB is based on MIFARE (MF7) RFID output/input
readers (Figure 5) that are installed close to the entry/exit in the server room in the
administration building. If the worker approved his/her passing by inserting ID card in
the field of reader, the SD100 GEB device sends a command to the electromagnetic
lock to open the door. If the worker is not granted the right of access, the device holds
the electromagnetic lock in the locked state. At the moment of worker’s entry in the
server room, the video sub-system for entrance verification (IP dome camera, SNC-
DH110T) takes the worker’s photo record and passes it to the server. On the basis of
this photo record which is permanently linked to each passage, it is possible to check the
entrances later by Guard ID software application. The SD100 GEB devices are powered
by own batteries, which allow them autonomy to work a minimum four hours in the
case of power supply failure.

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Figure 5 - CHRONO ID block scheme (Source: Adapted from [27])

Surely, it would be significant to consider the possibilities of upgrading this CHRONO

ID system with the on port workers smart PPE (PPE equipped by RFID passive/active
tags/chips) facilities. In this regard, it is of particular importance to inform managers of
the Port of Bar about the existing solutions in this field which will strengthen them to
improve environmental management system in general, and particularly in the domain
of on port workers’ safety.

6. CONCLUSIONS

The paper emphasizes the importance of securing measures of workers’ safety in the
seaports. Three scenarios, already applied with the aim of increasing workplace safety
in harsh conditions (oil and gas rigs, construction sites, and seaport) are described. They
can be used as certain benchmarks to the seaport managers in the developing
environments. The Port of Bar is taken as an example of developing seaport which
functions in transitional economy and which indeed needs conceiving and implementing
new measures for improving workers’ safety, and environmental management system in
general.

Throughout the qualitative analysis of the three presented working safety solutions,
some recommendations for planning and implementing a low-cost and in the same time
reliable system are given. Namely, a safety system tailored to the individual needs of the
Port of Bar should include at least the following possibilities: registering workers at the
entrance/exit gate; alarm system availability; access control to restrictive zones;
emergency/drill control; checking IDs and status of PPE at the entrance gate and/or
periodically on site.

The future research work in the field should be oriented toward assessing managers and
workers willingness to adapt such system, and readiness for providing funds and
engaging ICT professionals for implementing the proposed scenario. Then, the
preliminary safety model should be redesigned due to the expectations and needs of the
port’s personnel.

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The possibilities of the system upgrading by providing real time monitoring of the
workers and their PPE garments equipped with RFID tags and sensors have to be
examined. Besides, deploying hierarchical networked RFID systems [28], RTL (real
time locating), and Web GIS are to be considered in the future within the wider context
of IoT [29,30]. Providing scalability of the proposed scenario along with its semantic
interoperability at the level of smart ports is to be taken into the consideration in the
forthcoming research work. In addition, at the more profound level, performances of the
proposed conceptual safety network solution are to be examined in the simulation
environment (e.g., OPNET or OMNeT++) over the layout of the Port of Bar. This is
necessary for establishing an optimal configuration of the network formed of the set of
moving workers’ wearable RFID tags/sensor sub-networks and fixed RFID readers
located at the strategic points at the port perimeter. Different types of network protocols
should be examined, like: UHF RFID, combination of HF RFID and ZigBee, Wi-Fi,
White-Fi, etc. These simulation experiments should include primarily some physical
and link layers analysis at the level of the channel between the transceivers over the
analyzed seaport operational area including the obstacles and other noise and interfering
factors commonly present at the highly dynamic and rough industrial and commercial
seaport environment.

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