• Energy Research

Environmental problems that seriously affect both natural systems and social development of human beings have drawn extensive attention from governing authorities all around the world, and become an urgent issue to be addressed. Ports play a significant role in the international shipping which inevitably influence the global environment. Thus, the concept of green port is developed to mitigate the negative impacts of inappropriate port operations on environment. This paper analyzes the current status of green port development worldwide. An evaluation model for quantitative measurement of green port development is established based on the Drivers, Pressures, States, Impacts and Responses (DPSIR) framework. The weight of each index composing the evaluation model is calculated through an analytical hierarchy process method, and the evaluation results of the investigated ports with respect to each index are aggregated using an evidential reasoning approach. The evaluation model is further demonstrated through a comparative analysis of five major ports in China. The novel model developed along with the methods applied in this paper can provide significant insights for the comparative evaluation on the development of green ports in other countries and/or regions, as well as a powerful tool to conduct self-assessment of green port development. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd.

This paper aims to develop a testing and scoring mechanism, to assess the buyers’ behaviours on purchasing green vehicles. As there are various vehicle types with different emission properties presented in the current market, a Key Green Performance Indicator (KGPI) framework is designed to choose vehicles by comparing all the relevant factors affecting consumer choice on green vehicles, including different emission damages, buyer cost, car performance, and other incentives. The novelty of this paper is to combine all the factors to produce a unique single score to present vehicle cleanliness and guide buyer choices. The findings will provide useful information to guide buyers towards the cleanest available vehicles and promote the manufacturing of new cleaner vehicles to the market. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

Electric vehicles (EVs) are considered a technological innovation that helps reduce not only fuel consumption but also air pollution and greenhouse gases that exacerbate global warming concerns. Despite these benefits, the understanding of factors influencing EV adoption remains obscure, as it varies greatly across countries and perspectives (e.g., the acceptance of EV technology, decisions to purchase and use EVs, and policies that affect user decisions to purchase and use EVs). To better comprehend the dominance of such factors — especially in an emerging market with a huge leap in EV usage, like Thailand — we devise a multi-perspective multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework and apply it to datasets of Thai EV users, including both general EV user and expert groups. Our results reveal that “Attitude Toward Using EVs” and “Subjective Norms” are crucial for the acceptance of EVs, while “Product and Service Attributes” and “Purchasing Incentive Policies” greatly impact the adoption decisions. Besides these factors, we also identify causal-effect relationships among factors in each of these three different perspectives. This research thus allows stakeholders — including EV manufacturers, transport authorities, and governments — to properly devise relevant mechanisms supporting countrywide EV adoption in a more sustainable fashion.

Effective adaptation to climate change impacts is rapidly becoming an important research topic. Hitherto, the perceptions and attitudes of stakeholders on climate adaptation actions are under researched, partly due to the emphasis on physical and engineering aspects during the adaptation planning process. Building on such considerations, the paper explores the perceptions of port decision makers on the effectiveness of climate adaptation actions. The findings suggest that while port decision makers are aware of potential climate change impacts and feel that more adaptation actions should be undertaken, they are skeptical about their effectiveness and value. This is complemented by a regional analysis on the results, suggesting that more tailor-made adaptation measures suited to local circumstances should be developed. The study illustrates the complexity of climate adaptation planning and of involving port decision makers under the current planning paradigm.

In the global effort to reduce Green House Gases and carbon emissions, there is great importance for the shipping industry to decarbonise and move forward into a greener future. However, there is a lack of academic commentary on how attempts at various decarbonisation methods reported in research articles have developed over the 21st century, particularly in line with the relevant policy and regulatory developments. This paper analyses how the shipping industry has decarbonised by utilising 294 papers from 2000 to 2020. By analysing 20 years’ worth of research, this paper delivers a comprehensive review of shipping decarbonisation research and analyses the evolution of its themes as a function of time. It therefore aids to develop a greater understanding and comparison of governmental, economic and academic perspectives (and their potential alignment) for the industry to decarbonise. For 2017–20 the key shipping decarbonisation technologies were summarised and their advantages, disadvantages and current academic literature applications are revealed. Furthermore, the analysis of the evolution of shipping decarbonisation research themes reveals clear research gaps in the current literature and guides the development of a future research agenda with the prediction of future opportunities and potential for shipping decarbonisation research developments for the shipping industry.

In recent years, increasingly strict restrictions on ship emissions and continuously increasing prices of marine fuel oil have made the liquefied natural gas (LNG) using as a marine fuel more attractive, and LNG fuelled ships have therefore become more popular in many countries. However, there is still not much research on the development level of LNG fuelled ships in different countries, and no unified or corresponding evaluation criteria has been established to support relevant policy making, revealing a significant research gap to be fulfilled. In view of this, taking the advantages of the PEST (Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors) and the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, this paper proposes a novel SRETI (Strategy, Regulation, Economics, Technology and Infrastructure) model for evaluating the development level of LNG fuelled ships in a particular region or country for self-assessment or comparative studies. The kernel of the model consists of the combination of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method and the evidential reasoning (ER) approach, thus being able to deal with evaluation data of both quantitative and qualitative features. China, Norway and the United States of America (USA) are selected in a real case study to demonstrate the feasibility of the model on the evaluation of the development of their LNG fuelled ships. The findings show that Norway is better than USA and China in terms of the development level of LNG fuelled ships. It is also revealed that the proposed SRETI model is capable of addressing uncertainties in subjective data provided by domain experts. A sensitive analysis is conducted as well to test the robustness of the SRETI model, and the results are in harmony with the axioms and hypotheses. This work provides policymakers with powerful insights into the development of LNG fuelled ships. It can also be tailored to evaluate the development of emerging technologies in other sectors. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd

Climate change has threatened the infrastructure, operation, policymaking, and other pivotal aspects of transport systems with the accelerating pace of extreme weather events. While a considerable amount of research and best practices have been conducted for transport adaptation to climate change impacts, there is still a wide gap in the systematic assessment of climate risks on all-round transport modes (i.e., road, rail, sea, and air) with a comprehensive review and a quantitative scientific framework. This study aimed to critically review studies on how the transport sector has adapted to the impacts posed by climate change since the dawn of the 21st century. To support climate risk assessment in comprehensive transport systems, we developed a Climate Change Risk Indicator (CCRI) framework and applied it to the case of the British transport network. Focusing on a multi-modal transport system, this offers researchers and practitioners an invaluable overview of climate adaptation research with the latest tendency and empirical insights. Meanwhile, the developed CCRI framework elaborates a referable tool that enables decision-makers to employ objective data to realise quantitative risk analysis for rational transport adaptation planning.

Abstract This paper develops a subjective generic methodology for providing ship owners with a transparent evaluation tool for selecting their preferred NOx and SOx control techniques. We quantitatively analyse the merits of the control methods available in marine air pollution control practice using data collected from shipping companies, shipyards and maritime academies. We also prioritize the applicable control techniques with respect to operational shipping environments.

The concept of genetic algorithm (GA) is used to model the cost of maintenance and repair of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) containment system and its transfer arm, after assessing the total risk of the systems using the probabilistic risk assessment technique. The failure frequency data of the basic events of the fault tree developed to model the LNG containment system and transfer arm, which is implemented and evaluated to estimate the failure frequencies of the systems, are derived from a careful literature search. A total risk formula is developed, which is dependent on hazard severity weight, failure frequencies, and the time and cost of maintenance and repair of the LNG carrier systems. The formula serves as the objective function, while new total cost allocated for the maintenance and repair of the LNG carrier systems as a whole is the constraint with the boundaries of presenting initial/unit cost of maintenance and repair of each containment system and transfer arm. Optimization is carried out on the objective function and its constraint for the identification of new cost of maintaining and repairing the containment system and transfer arm independently with the powerful tool of GA using Matlab version 7.7 software for improvement of the system's safety level.