Journal of Earth Sciences and Geotechnical Engineering

An Investigation for the Fuel Price Escalations on Optimum Speed in Maritime Transportation

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  • Abstract

    Most of the cargoes are shipped by maritime transportation in the World since it enables moving of more commodities at the same time. Transportation costs and environmental effects as air pollution, noise are also less compared to other modes of transportation such as highway, railway and airway. Cost is a significant determinant for the decision-making of consigners during mode choice. In this study, an economic analysis approach for a unimodal transportation cost calculation has been presented and applied to a case study for maritime cargo transportation. Unit transportation costs for 10000 DWT cargo vessel have been calculated considering technical and economic parameters of the vehicle. Effect of service speed, fullness ratio and escalation rate for future fuel cost on unit transportation cost have also been investigated and shown with graphs. It is found out that unit transportation cost increases with the increase in service speed and escalation rate for future fuel cost and the decrease in the fullness ratio of the vessel. The model has also been run to illustrate how the optimum speed can vary with respect to escalation rate for future fuel costs and clearly seen that optimal speed becomes lower at high fuel escalation rates.

    Keywords: Costs, Transportation, Maritime, Speed Optimization, Fuel Consumption