Framework for Economic Potential Analysis of Marine Transportation: A Case Study for Route Choice Between the Suez Canal Route and the Northern Sea Route

Abstract

This paper presents a new framework for economic analysis of marine transportation, where uncertainty is given more attention than in the current research. A new quantitative method combined with the importance ranking method is used to access the uncertainty of evidence and for fusion of evidence from multiple sources. The Bayesian network model is chosen as a tool to convey the uncertainty from one variable to another variable. Finally, with the help of information flow method, key factors are selected for sensitivity analysis. This framework is applied to a case study of maritime transportation from Shanghai to Rotterdam, aiming to investigate the economic potential of the Arctic routes and to explore the possibility of Arctic routes as a substitute for the traditional routes. A well-trained Bayesian network shows that the traditional routes will still dominate marine transportation in the near future. Sensitivity analysis reveals the asymmetric impact of key factors on the plan choice.

Arctic weather routing: a review of ship performance models and ice routing algorithms

“…To make full use of expert knowledge and data-driven analysis, Wang et al (2023) proposed a new framework for economic analysis of marine transportation (see Figure 3), where uncertainty is given more attention than the current research (Wang et al, 2023). First, a new quantitative method was used in conjunction with an importance ranking method to capture uncertainty in the evidence and to perform multi-source evidence fusion.…”

Feasibility of the Northern Sea Route: Impact of Sea Ice Thickness Uncertainty on Navigation

“…The total cargo volume along the NSR exhibited a consistent upward trend from 2011 to 2021, reaching 34,034 million tons in 2022, slightly below the 34,850 million tons recorded in 2021. Consequently, the Arctic shipping route holds substantial potential within the realms of shipping and the economy [5]. Nevertheless, in comparison to traditional routes, the formidable navigational challenges of the Arctic shipping route impose constraints on the safe navigation of vessels.…”