| As a focal part of global trade,maritime container shipping network(MCSN)involve multiple stakeholders from different segments and play an irreplaceable role in guaranteeing the cargo movement worldwide and facilitating the development of the world economy.However,the container shipping industry is exposed to various risks arising from both internal operations and the external environment,and the increasing complexity of the modern container supply chain system makes the situation even worse,thus causing a significant challenge to the effective risk management of MCSNs.Systematic studies on this topic are relatively few.In view of this,this study aims to explore and analyse various MCSN risks,develop an advanced risk assessment methodology with novel and flexible modelling techniques,and evaluate the overall safety of MCSNs from a systematic perspective,so as to ensure the safety,efficiency,and resilience of the MCSN.This study starts with the identification and classification of all possible risk factors that may be involved in the MCSN based on a comprehensive literature review,and the research results are further validated through a Delphi expert survey.The identified risk factors are then analysed,screened,and assessed in detail.The novelty of this study lies not only on the risk assessment of MCSNs under an uncertain environment from a supply chain level,but also on the consideration of the resilience impact of each individual container shipping route on the safety performance of the entire container supply network.Various uncertainty treatment theories and methods have been applied,which offer the chance of the birth of some novel and effective risk modelling techniques and assessment tools.A number of significant findings have been obtained.Firstly,altogether 64 risk factors from five major sources(i.e.society,natural environment,management,infrastructure and technology,and operations)are identified,and from a general industry perspective,the top five risk factors are recognised as “fierce competition”,“fluctuation of fuel price”,“change of exchange rates”,“unattractive markets”,and “transportation of dangerous goods”,which all belong to the high-moderate level.They are further analysed with respect to the risk parameters including likelihood,visibility,and consequence in terms of time delay/disruption,additional cost,and quality damage.The results indicate that the ranking of risk factors may vary according to the specific situation of different container shipping companies.Secondly,by investigating the topological structure of the container supply network which is constructed based on the service information from a world-leading container shipping company,it is revealed that the Port of Shanghai,Port of Singapore,and Port of Shenzhen always hold a relatively important position(among the top ten)no matter what,judging from the port centralities(which are degree,closeness and between-ness),annual container throughputs,or overall importance.Thirdly,the research results indicate that,in addition to the local risk condition,the topological structure of maritime container shipping networks also show a great influence on the overall safety performance of the entire container supply network,which deserves the attention of managers and stakeholders in the risk management.The research results will provide useful insights and valuable information for both researchers and practitioners on the risk analysis and control of MCSNs,which is beneficial to different types of stakeholders involved in the maritime shipping industry.The work is also able to provide a theoretical foundation for the risk-based decisionmaking and shipping route optimisation in further work.Although the risk assessment methods are presented on the basis of the specific context in MCSNs,it is believed that,with domain-specific knowledge and data,they can also be tailored for a wide range of applications to evaluate the safety of other transportation systems,especially those where a high level of uncertainty is involved. |
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