Mining maritime schedules for analysing global shipping networks

Abstract

Shipping plays a vital role as trade facilitator in providing cost-efficient transportation. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) reports that over 90% of the world trade volume is carried by merchant ships. The analysis of shipping networks therefore can create invaluable insight into global trade. In this paper we study the appropriateness of various graph centrality measures to rate, compare and rank ports from various perspectives of global shipping networks. In particular, we illustrate the potential of such analysis on the example of shipping networks constructed from the schedules, readily available on the World Wide Web, of six shipping companies that transport 35-40% of the total volume traded (in TEUs) worldwide.