The Study On The Container Fleet Size Of Of Container Lines

Container is one of the basic equipment to carry cargoes for liner operators. Their container fleet size will impact the operating cost of container directly. The financial turmoil triggered by US subprime crisis in 2008 had seen a clear-cut slump of worldwide container cargo, and the operating slots of most liners shrinks dramatically, while the recover of world economy in early 2010 has brought a strong demand for all industry to catering the increasing shipping requirement. How many boxes on earth are needed for liners to match the variation of their slots capacity as well as the cargo volume? And how can they manage their container fleet in a better and economical way?This article, supposing that all containers are kept for shipping service and run to maximize its operator's profit, focuses on what's the main factors that may impact the total volume that the operator should possessed and how they do, what's the target of container volume controlling and how can liners make it. By presenting a scenograph of how container moved in the shipping service network, the article divided the status of any specified container into five different sets and deduced a formula to calculate the container fleet size and the methods to control it. Also, the article argues that a reservation of low-cost equipment is very import for line operators to keep its business cost at a competitive low level.In this article, firstly the author gives a brief introduction on the status quo of container shipping industry, the advantage of container shipment and the outlook of this industry, the relative market status of manufacturing and leasing, the main job and target of container management and the components of container managing cost, and the shared hard nut for container controller's to crack. In chapter 3, the author analyzed the main factors that may impact the total volume that the operator should hold. In chapter 4, the author draw a perspective for the container moving traces in service network and divided the status of container into five different sets. Based on the logical and isometric relationship between the total TEU·Day the operator possessed and the total cargo volume which carried by these containers, the author deduced a formula (the Cargo Volume—TEU·Day model) to calculate the container fleet size. In chapter 5, the author presented three examples to show how the formula can be applied. In Chapter 6, the author highlights some issues which need to be focused during the container fleet size management and some methods to fulfill the management target. Before the end, the author pointed out the main conclusion and some outstanding issues as well.