Emissions from container vessels in the port of Singapore

Abstract

Emissions from ships have negative effects on both humans and the environment, particularly in port areas. This paper develops a bottom-up activity-based model to compute emissions from container vessels within the boundaries of the port of Singapore. The input data is nearly 2 million Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals recording ship calls and various ship specifications. The paper analyses the container vessel segment by compiling a comprehensive emission profile by vessel size, port call time and carriers. This generates new insights in the dynamics and sources of ship emissions. The results show that the majority of emissions were produced by ship calls of shorter than 2 days, and 46% of the total emissions were produced by container feeder vessels as a result of Singapore port being a major international transhipment hub and the more frequent visits from such vessels. Our study also indicates stable distribution of emissions over the year, suggesting seasonality does not play a major role in container shipping operations.