Rhode Island may not have its container port, but it soon could be considered a top authority on container shipping.
That’s because University of Rhode Island Professor Thomas Grigalunas and doctoral student Meifeng Lou are developing a “Container Port Demand Simulation Model.”
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The idea is to give those in the container shipping industry the tools necessary to gauge port development and expansion.
And while the concept might hit especially close to home as officials here continue to debate a proposed container port at Quonset Point/Davisville, it is not specific to Rhode Island. In fact, when complete, Grigalunas believes the interactive program could be used for port development anywhere in the world.
“More and more goods are being moved by shipping, and containers are playing a greater role,” said Grigalunas, who teaches environmental and natural resource economics. “Throughout the United States ports are trying to develop a strategy to find out what their role is in this expansion. All these ports face the same issues, including expense, environmental concerns, and competition from other ports. Our eventual goal is to develop a framework for and a set of models on container port development and they portray those results in a way that is user friendly through modern visualization.”
Creating a system that can be used by the general public, from both Rhode Island and outside of the state, is extremely important to Grigalunas.
“I think it’s especially important to portray complicated ideas and issues in a way that is understood,” he said. “Many technical analyses seem to be overwhelming because there is so much to consider. We want to allow different user groups to come in, sit at a computer, ask questions and find out what a difference in size would mean, or what a container port might mean in terms of noise.”
But to look at the impact of a container port, you must first look at the issues surrounding container shipping, Grigalunas said at a recent URI transportation seminar, where he first publicly released the initial findings of his study.
“There is enormous pressure and intense interest in expanding container port shipping,” he said. “But what is the potential demand, and what is the economic feasibility for ports nationally are factors that need to be considered.”
What’s more, he said, is that container shipping isn’t about just ports, but also are heavily dependent on rail.
“Shippers chose the route with the least cost path source,” he said. “For example, if you have a low-valued cargo then you don’t need it there as quickly so you would more likely use shipping, and less land transportation. However, if you have high-valued cargo, then you would want to get it there as quickly as possible and that would mean less shipping and more land travel. The goal is to understand what route a shipper might use.”
What makes this task so difficult, Grigalunas said, is that with container shipping, much of the data is gathered in terms of the number of boxes and not the cargo itself.
“The movement of boxes is not as useful information,” he said. “What you want to have is information on different commodities, such as apparel. You want to know what the goods are and how that will impact the surrounding area. We have made a major attempt to get more of this data.”
Already the two – with funding from the University of Rhode Island Transportation Center – have made major strides in understanding the current container patterns, even creating their own Geographic Information System, a computerized mapping system of today’s container traffic pattern.
At the first public presentation of the data, some concern was voiced that Halifax and Montreal, two of Canada’s premiere container ports, were not part of the study.
“I think that you will lose your credibility in the shipping industry by not including these two ports,” said one audience member. “I don’t think that anyone on the East Coast can think about expanding or building a port without considering these two locations.”
Grigalunas agreed.
“It’s true that these are important ports,” he said. “I think it’s important that we consider them, almost on a level with our other national ports. We are still working on that. One reason that we shared some of our results was to give people an idea of where we were heading and to get feedback.”
While he’s not sure how long the project will continue to receive funding from the URI Transportation Center, Grigalunas said he has no doubt that it could be “life’s work” for someone.
“We view this as a long-term program,” he said. “First we wanted to develop a framework using the right concepts and methods, and then we can expand. This is a very complicated issue.”
Recent economic times and changes in the industry itself have added even more complications.
“There are a lot of parallels between the airlines and the shipping industry,” Grigalunas said. “It’s an extremely competitive industry and there has been a lot of consolidation. It was our opinion that there was no unified analysis being done on all of the issues in the industry, the economic, environmental, and financial issues. We wanted to bring them together.”
The results from the first year of research are expected to be published by the end of the year.
