Assessment Of Port Congestion Risks Under The Situation Of COVID-19 Pandemic

Port is an important logistics node of maritime transportation and international trade,a powerful engine of developing marine economy,a barometer of regional economy and an accelerator of high-quality development.At the beginning of 2020,however,the unexpected arrival and rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global shipping and the operations of major international ports.Stimulated by the pandemic,the occurrence and severity of port congestion are increasing,challenging the stability of international supply chain and the continuity of shipping business.With the unpredictable trends and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic,factors or events that threaten port functions constantly changing,which continually have an uncertain impact of congestion on ports.It implies that the future operation and development of ports need to be adjusted according to risk exposure,and the management of port congestion risks waiting for further enhancement.Therefore,it is necessary to carry out in-depth analysis and research on the risks of port congestion under the situation of epidemic,so as to provide reference for port managers to manage congestion risks and decision-making,thereby ensuring the sustainable development of port and shipping.Firstly,this paper defined the connotation of port congestion risk based on the existing definitions of port congestion and risk concepts,thereby determining the research boundary of port congestion risk identification.Based on the analyses of typical port congestion events and congestion risk scenarios during the pandemic,port congestion risks were systematically identified from both external and internal perspectives,thus a list of risk factors of port congestion under the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic was obtained.Secondly,in view of the uncertainties brought by the epidemic to assessment of port congestion risk,this paper proposed a methodology which has incorporated FMEA,fuzzy belief rules,AHP-variation coefficient method and Bayesian network.According to the characteristics of port congestion phenomenon during the pandemic,the method expands the second-level parameters of consequences based on the existing parameter structure of FMEA,obtaining a novel quantitative analysis framework of port congestion risk.By establishing a port congestion risk assessment model based on fuzzy belief rules and Bayesian network,this paper built a bridge between congestion risk parameters and risk status,thereby achieving port congestion risk ranking based on uncertain information.Finally,a real case study of Los Angeles-Long Beach ports(LA-LB ports)was carried out for the shake of illustrating and validating the proposed method.In LA-LB ports,the top five risk factors are “Skilled labor shortage in port”,“Shortage of truck-drivers/drayage truck”,“Inadequate loading and unloading facilities or equipment”,“Undeveloped ground access system” and “Industrial action or strikes”.Consistent with the case in LA-LB ports,the results imply that the bottleneck in LA-LB ports leads to congestion.Besides,such a prioritization results indicate that the proposed method in this paper is considered feasible and functional.The research findings of this paper have important theoretical value and practical reference significance for port managers to insight into the current port congestion crisis and make congestion mitigation or prevention decisions.