Shipping lines seek gains in market share with capacity usually added as additional loops (in large segments) to existing services, which incur high fixed costs.
Fleet capacity management is complex given the inflexible nature of vessel capacity in the short run due to fixed timetables, the seasonality effects in the shipping business, and cargo imbalances on trade routes. Vessel lifecycle management includes the procurement, acquisition, deployment, and disposal of container vessels. Common asset management decisions for shipping lines include equipment management to reduce downtime and operating costs, increase the useful service life and the residual value of vessels, increase equipment safety, reduce potential liabilities, and reduce costs through better capacity management.Ĭontainer shipping lines are particularly challenged to develop an effective asset management program for the fleet they own or operate: Asset management is a key component of the operational and commercial success of container shipping lines since they are primarily asset-based. While it only contributes to about 16% of the volumes carried by maritime shipping, it accounts for more than half of the value carried. The diversity in unit loads in the container shipping industry is low due to uniformity when stacking containers below and on the deck of specialized container vessels (cellular containerships where each cell is designed to store a container).Ī liner service is a fleet of ships, with common ownership or management, which provide a fixed service, at regular intervals, between designated ports, and offer transport to any goods in the hinterland served by those ports and ready for transit by their sailing dates (Stopford, 1997).Ĭontainer shipping is a highly capital-intensive industry where some assets are owned, others are leased, and where there exists a wide variability in cost bases. Occasionally, slightly diverging container units are also loaded on container vessels such as tank containers, open-top containers, and flat rack containers. In contrast to standard containers with a maximum height of 8’6″, high-cube containers are 9’6″ tall. For the most part, high-cube containers are 40 feet long but are sometimes made as 45-foot containers. 
High-cube containers are similar in structure to standard containers but one foot taller. Container liner services are focused explicitly on transporting a limited range of standardized load units, mainly the twenty-foot dry cargo container or TEU of 20-feet long and the 40-foot dry cargo container or FEU (40′ long). The container shipping industry consists of shipping companies transporting containerized goods overseas via regular liner services as their core activity. In liner shipping, individual maritime services are combined to form extensive shipping networks in which seaports play a pivotal role as high connectivity hubs. Maritime services vary with the commodities carried.
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