Research Of Container Shipping Network Design Considering Environment Cost

The rapid development of global economic integration has promoted the international trade dramatically, and brought the prosperity and development of the shipping industry. With the characteristics of efficiency, convenience, safety and cheap, container transportation has become the main transportation mode. The Hub-and Spoke shipping network has become popular with shipping company and liner corporations with the development of the mega-containerships and the deep water container ports. The Hub-and-Spoke shipping network can maximize the economies of scale and reduce the transportation cost of shipping network significantly.At the same time, the environmental pollution of marine transportation become serious and attracts widespread attention. Maritime transport has been regarded as the cleanest way of transportation for a long time. However, statistic data in recent years implys ship emissions can’t be ignored, carbon dioxide alone accounts for 6% of global carbon dioxide emissions and ship emissions have been growing with the growth of the maritime trade, marine transportation has been the world’s main source of emissions. Maritime transport environment issue has caused the world’s attention. Under the background of green shipping, the European Union has proposed a tax on Marine carbon emissions; when it comes to sulfur emissions, the "SECAs" have been setted to limit the sailing sulfur emissions. Environmental protection organizations have also promulgated environmental policy successively to control maritime transport environment pollution.Under such conditions, for considerations on clean shipping and environmental cost, a Hub-and-Spoke container network based on traditional Hub-and-Spoke network is established. The objective is to minimize the total transportation costsincluding environmental cost.This paper concludes that:Environmental costs affect the structure of Hub-and-Spoke shipping network; The increasing number of hub ports can reduce the total transportation costs of shipping network; Environmental costs possess higher proportion in the total transportation cost and shipping companies should give high priority to it for the increasingly stringent requirements of shipping environmental protection policies and the promulgation of the marine carbon tax.