The impact of vessel speed reduction on port accidents.

Reduced-speed zones (RSZs) have been designated across the world to control emissions from ships and prevent mammal strikes. While some studies have examined the effectiveness of speed reduction on emissions and mammal preservation, few have analyzed the effects of reduced ship speed on vessel safety. Those few studies have not yet measured the relationship between vessel speed and accidents by using real accident data. To fill this gap in the literature, this study estimates the impact of vessel speed reduction on vessel damages, casualties and frequency of vessel accidents. Accidents in RSZ ports were compared to non-RSZ ports by using U.S. Coast Guard data to capture the speed reduction effects. The results show that speed reduction influenced accident frequency as a result of two factors, the fuel price and the RSZ designation. Every $10 increase in the fuel price led to a 10.3% decrease in the number of accidents, and the RSZ designation reduced vessel accidents by 47.9%. However, the results do not clarify the exact impact of speed reduction on accident casualty.

Efficiency analysis of major cruise lines.

Three major cruise lines account for 82% of the total market share. Their financial statements show different results between the operating incomes and net incomes over time. To examine the major causes of the differences, this study measured the efficiency of the top three cruise lines to develop a network DEA model to analyze the cruise operations at two stages, namely operating and non-operating stages. In addition, the determinants of the efficiencies were examined using a bootstrapped-truncated regression model. Overall, cruise lines were efficient at the operating stage, but varied widely in the efficiency of the non-operating stage. Cruise lines attempting high capacity expansion were relatively inefficient because of the heavy interest payments arising from the high debt-to-capital ratio. Moreover, the neglected hedging policy regarding the financial risks also contributed to the inefficiency.