Measuring the impact of an exogenous factor: An exponential smoothing model of the response of shipping to COVID-19

Abstract

Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, various lockdown strategies restrained global economic growth bringing a significant decline in maritime transportation. However, the previous studies have not adequately recognized the specific impacts of COVID-19 on maritime transportation. In this study, a series of analyses of the Baltic Dry Index (BDI), the China Coastal Bulk Freight Index (CCBFI) and of container throughputs with and without the impact of COVID-19 were carried out to assess changing trends in dry bulk and container transportation. The results show that global dry bulk transportation was largely affected by lockdown policies in the second month during COVID-19, and BDI presented a year-on-year decrease of approximately 35.5% from 2019 to 2020. The CCBFI showed an upward trend in the second month during COVID-19, one month ahead of the BDI. The container throughputs at Shanghai Port, the Ports of Hong Kong, the Ports of Singapore and the Ports of Los Angeles from 2019 to 2020 presented the largest year-on-year drops of approximately 19.6%, 7.1%, 10.6% and 30.9%, respectively. In addition, the authors developed exponential smoothing models of BDI, CCBFI, and container transportation, and calculated the percentage prediction error between the observed and predicted values to examine the impact of exogenous effects on the shipping industry due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The results are consistent with the conclusions obtained from the comparison of BDI, CCBFI, and container transportation during the same period in 2020 and 2019. Finally, on the basis of the findings, smart shipping and special support policies are proposed to reduce the negative impacts of COVID-19.

Hybrid approaches for container traffic forecasting in the context of anomalous events: The case of the Yangtze River Delta region in the COVID-19 pandemic

“…In the next few months of 2020, it can be clearly found that the year-on-year growth rate is always negative from January 2020 to June 2020. It was inferred that the lockdown strategy had a negative influence on the economy and maritime trade, which in turn affected the container transportation sector ( Zhao et al, 2022 ). After June 2020, the Chinese government efficiently resumed work and production, the transportation industry gradually recovered in those four ports, and the year-on-year growth rate turned positive for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic; the four ports showed resilience and vitality and the container traffic began to rebound.…”

“…According to Zhao et al (2022) , the prediction error can serve as an indicator to measure the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on maritime transportation. The larger the error, the greater the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on maritime transportation.…”

“…Patients with COVID-19 were first detected in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province of China, in December 2019. The outbreak of COVID-19 has posed unprecedented challenges to human beings and caused far-reaching consequences for a highly globalised world economy ( Narasimha et al, 2021 ; Zhao et al, 2022 ). As container transport is closely linked to the world's economic developments, consumer activity and supply chains, container shipping has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic ( Guerrero et al, 2022b ; UNCTAD, 2020).…”

A topology-based evaluation of resilience on urban road networks against epidemic spread: Implications for COVID-19 responses

“…Furthermore, they also found that lockdown in the behavioral changes was minimal, which suggested isolated differences between policies with and without lockdown. Readers can also refer to further studies about infectious spreading on various transportation systems at different scales, including studies by Muley et al ( 47 ), Kutela et al ( 48 ), Choi ( 49 ), Hu et al ( 50 ), Zhao et al ( 51 ), and Severo et al ( 52 ).…”

Spatiotemporal dynamic network for regional maritime vessel flow prediction amid COVID-19

“…In contrast, other studies have analysed the influence of the pandemic on the vessel flow by treating time as a continuum. The exogenous effects on the shipping industry from the outbreak were studied using an exponential smoothing model ( Zhao et al, 2022 ), but it overlooked the fact that the progress of the pandemic varied with region. Xu et al (2021) analysed the effects of macroeconomy, disease severity, and governmental disease control measures on port operations using a panel regression model.…”