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Frederick Korsten (1772-1839) was the capitalist entrepreneur who, in 1812, launched the commercial development of the area where Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) now stands. He made it the centre of a trading empire that included farming, salt production, tanning, cooperage, milling, whaling, seal-hunting and retailing. By 1821, with his own fleet of ships and a network of agents, he was marketing butter, soap and leather to Cape Town, manufactured goods and flour to the Zuurveld, and salted meat and whale-oil internationally. Yet by 1822 his empire had collapsed and he was penniless. What went wrong? A friend and associate of Korsten's, who was with him in the Eastern Cape from 1818 to 1822, watched it happen--the prolific writer Samuel Eusebius Hudson (1764-1828). This article turns to his unpublished diaries for answers to the question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Railway Signalling & Communication Engineering is the property of Railway Signalling & Communication Engineering and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The ongoing container shortage crisis has presented significant challenges for the freight forwarding industry, requiring companies to implement adaptive measures in order to maintain peak operational efficiency. This article presents a novel mathematical model and artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) with a Pareto-based approach to solve single-container-loading problems. The goal is to fit a set of boxes with strongly heterogeneous boxes into a container with a specific dimension to minimize the broken space and maximize profits. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm incorporates the bottom-left fill method, which is a heuristic strategy for packing containers. We conducted numerical testing to identify optimal parameters using the C ~ metric method. Subsequently, we evaluated the performance of our proposed algorithm by comparing it to other heuristics and meta-heuristic approaches using the relative improvement (RI) value. Our analysis showed that our algorithm outperformed the other approaches and achieved the best results. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in solving real-world single-container-loading problems for freight forwarding companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of this study is the process of goods delivery in international road transport using various types of logistics chains. The problem being solved is due to the need to develop recommendations for exporters of goods to reformat or design new supply chains during wartime. The expediency of organizing foreign trade operations by the cargo owners’ own forces or with the involvement of enterprises providing logistics consulting services is considered. A simulation model of goods delivery in international road traffic was built and implemented in the GPSS World simulation automation package. The model involves the optimization of organizational and technological processes related to the activity of both a separate link and the entire supply chain. The study takes into account the components of the time characteristics of the performance of preparatory work when establishing cooperation with institutions and organizations, as well as the direct service of the exporter. The application of the developed model in practical activities will provide an opportunity for exporters to obtain information about the duration and reliability of the stages of a foreign trade operation and the feasibility of involving consulting enterprises in cooperation. At the same time, the simulation results reflect the performance indicators of the proposed supply chains when delivering goods by road transport along various routes. The proposed simulation model will make it possible to reduce the time spent searching for links in the formation of a supply chain by 8–12 %, and the duration of a foreign trade operation by 10–14 %. Thus, the reliability of cooperation with intermediary organizations will increase by 8–11 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of CULCyT: Cultura Científica y Tecnológica is the property of Cultura Cientifica y Tecnologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: The aim of the research was to assess and analyse the factors that are the sources of competitive advantage of the company in the TFL industry, which stands for Transport, Forwarding, Logistics. Design/methodology/approach: The article analyses the company's own documents. Opinions in the analysed company were collected using a survey questionnaire. A number of analyses were carried out to create data compositions and decompositions. The subject of the analysis was a local logistics centre providing its distribution, storage and transport services both in the region and the whole country. It specializes in providing integrated logistics solutions and designing the best possible methods of distribution, storage and transport of the region's customers. Findings: According to the study, the analysed centre ensures professional and efficient implementation of logistics processes. It provides services in the field of comprehensive handling of the order execution process, starting from the administration of products to the preparation of transport and subsequent distribution. The conducted research, however, indicated several weak points of the company, which are: high costs related to the exchange of information or untimely execution of orders. According to the authors of the study, in order to gain an advantage on the market, the analysed logistics centre should implement solutions that will eliminate the above-mentioned risk factors and improve them enough to become a source of competitiveness for the company. Originality/value: The article presents the results of the composition of source and survey data concerning a company in the region of the TFL industry. The study attempts to indicate the determinants of the competitive advantage of a logistics company. Due to the analyses used, it is a very interesting overview of factors from the point of view of the functioning of a local logistics company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Business environments and global transportation system have become more complex than ever due to complexity drivers of industries which create uncertainty and unpredictability to organizations. Like other industries, the maritime business faces different and difficult problems which threaten organizational survival. The ability to cope with those uncertainties, threats and problems shows the resilience ability of organizations that help to survive and prosper. The organizational resilience concept arises as a requirement to deal with problems and uncertainties of business environments which are swiftly changing. This study aims to suggest an organizational framework to show how maritime business organizations as the sea leg of global transportation system can develop resilient organizations via complex adaptive systems (CAS) approach if adequate design features of CAS could be defined and included in organizational properties. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 15 CAS features were identified as the enablers of organizational resilience throughout the literature. An interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach has been conducted to determine the mutual relation between the CAS features which constitute an organizational framework. These CAS features have been categorized by conducting MICMAC analysis. Findings: This study proposes a framework that identifies CAS features as the enabler of resilient maritime business organizations. The CAS approach offers new managerial toolkit to realize current organizational situations and allows managers to understand that it is difficult to control their system in this dynamic environment where special management practices are required especially in volatile times rather than ordinary times. Also, organizations could not compete as a sole organization but as a web/system of organizations. CAS is more resilient than other systems because resilience is the emergent occurrence of the system formed from nonlinear, dynamic interactions with self-organized agents. Research limitations/implications: The research has some limitations, like organizational resilience studies are in the infant stage and further research into this area should be extended. This study uses the CAS approach to develop organizational resilience. Further studies could use different lenses and contemporary subjects in management field which should also be useful while developing resilience in organizations. This study uses ISM and MICMAC analysis where further studies could use quantitative design and methods like formal concept analysis or the decision making trial and evaluation laboratory to determine the relational weighs of CAS features while developing resilient organizations. Future studies may also focus on different maritime stakeholders like IMO or ILO, maritime agencies, freight forwarders or insurance underwriters regarding developing and enhancing resilience of the maritime system. Practical implications: World trade and transportation systems are getting more uncertain and lean on complex relations where maritime transportation is a "vital backbone" of such operations. But becoming more complex structures leads to vulnerable systems and organizations. Most risk management applications are based on predicting the known risks where many of them are not enough to fight with unknowns. Coping with today's problems are difficult for organizations in any industry. But for maritime business stakeholders who work in such a global web of relations, it is much more challenging. So, stakeholders of the system like forwarders, ports or ship chandlers may easily apply those features to develop resilient organizations too. Legal authorities of the system and rule-makers like local Chambers of Shipping, IMO or Classification societies can benefit from this framework and provide supportive settings to develop system-wide resilient organizations. Social implications: By understanding environmental uncertainty and complexity better than others, organizations become resilient and cope with significant difficulties which make them more competitive as a substantial strategic advantage. Resilient management offers to break down points at the system and shows them ways to restore quickly while transporting goods while traditional risk assessments are not enough. Originality/value: The originality of the study lies in two folds; first of all the key and most used features of CAS is linked to developing resilient maritime organizations and by maritime expert opinions, this study tries to determine which of these CAS features are the most effective to trigger other features to develop organizational resilience in the maritime business. And secondly, the concept of organizational resilience and the CAS approach are not analyzed in depth in the context of maritime business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Nowadays, companies have required new alternatives and strategies to handle environmental sustainability difficulties, primarily as ecological and social awareness has grown. In this context, the aim is to determine the green transportation indicators in companies with corporate identity and logistics activities at the international level in Giresun, Ordu, Gümüshane, Artvin, Rize, and Trabzon in the Eastern Black Sea Region in Turkey. At the same time, the study contributes to providing an effective and applicable solution to decision-making problems involving the assessment of green transportation indicators and smart network strategies in the logistics sector, which is a critical sector for countries. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues. Design/methodology/approach: This study aims to propose a model for the selection of smart network strategy and to determine the criteria weights used in green transportation indicators, and establish an ideal smart network strategy. In achieving the outlined goals of the study, the authors believe that the model proposed in the study will draw the focus to green logistics which will aid the environmental, economic and social efforts of businesses and governments through the provision of efficient use of scarce resources, which will, in turn, ensure that we leave a sustainable environment for future generations and businesses enjoy a competitive advantage. At the same time, different smart network strategies and green transportation indicators in companies show the success rate of social, economic and environmental indicators in green logistics practices. In addition to providing innovative, reliable and sustainable transportation systems, smart network strategies are critical for businesses to create cost advantages. Through the green transportation indicators and smart network strategies selection model outlined in this study, it is clear that the contribution will not only be limited to businesses, as the society and governments will also benefit from the important indicators on sustainability, as well as the protection of the environment and nature. Findings: According to the findings, "economic indicators" is the essential green transportation indicator in logistics companies with a corporate identity and worldwide transportation operations. Besides, the "mixed access model strategy" is the most appropriate smart network strategy in logistics firms with corporate identity and worldwide transportation activities. Currently, it is possible to assume that logistics organizations prefer to profit from all smart network strategies in terms of cost optimization and competitiveness rather than from just one. The study, on the other hand, which is a road map that will help sustainability practices in the logistics sector due to green transportation, also examines the similarities and differences of green transportation practices in companies in the relevant sector and to what extent they can be reflected. As a result, the study provides a practical road map for selecting green transport indicators and a smart network strategy process for the logistics industry. Originality/value: This study examined logistics companies with a corporate identity and international transportation activities in provinces in the Eastern Black Sea Region such as Ordu, Giresun, Trabzon, Rize, Artvin and Gümüshane. Novel picture fuzzy level based weight assessment (PF-LBWA) and picture fuzzy combined compromise solution (PF-CoCoSo) methods are developed to solve the decision-making problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dynamic impacts of skewness on the risk–return relationship among dry bulk spot freight rates and the corresponding forward freight agreements (FFA) markets. We use swift Skewed Generalized T distribution under the GARCH-in-mean (GARCH-M) model to capture the properties of time-varying skewness, pure risk, and volatility spillovers among the dry bulk vessels. Our findings clarify that skewness price, as an endogenous variable, which is opposite to the pure risk price, illustrates the conflicting nexus of risk and return in theory and empirical study. Additionally, the mutual spillover effects among all the examined markets reveal that to what extent the returns represent compensation for risk, and to what extent the interaction of dry bulk spot and its FFAs affects the pricing. Our results provide market participants understanding the real diversity of risk–return relationships of shipping markets regarding risk aversion and investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasingly huge amount of data located in various databases and the need for users to access them, distributed information retrieval (DIR) has been at the core of the preoccupations of a number of researchers. Indeed, numerous DIR systems and architectures have been proposed including the broker-based architecture. Moreover, providing DIR with more flexibility and adaptability has led researchers thinking to build DIR with software agents. Thus, this research proposes a design and an implementation of a novel system based on the broker-based architecture and the peer-to-peer (P2P) network called broker-based P2P network. The proposed architecture is implemented with a multi-agent system (MAS) where the main agent playing the role of the broker, receives query from a peer agent and forwards them to other peer agents each with their index and resources. Upon completing retrieval process at each peer agent, results are directly sent to the peer agent that initiated the query without using the broker agent. Java Agent DEvelopment framework (JADE) is used to implement the agents and, for experiments, TERRIER (TERabyte RetRIEveR) is extended and used as the search engine to retrieve the Text Retrieval Conference (TREC) collections dataset notably TREC-6. The peer agent that originated the query progressively collects results coming from other peer agents, normalises and merges them and then proceeds with re-ranking. For normalisation, MinMax and Sum that are unsupervised normalisation methods are used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information exchange between the forwarder and vessel operating common carrier (VOCC) directly leads to a shortage or surplus of capacity and influences operational efficiency. Meanwhile, the development of information technology has inspired VOCCs to establish online booking platforms, which has changed the traditional booking behavior of shippers. Thus, this paper investigates the equilibriums of platform encroachment and information sharing with two symmetric VOCCs and a forwarder. Using a game-theoretic model, it can be characterized as Stackelberg-Nash game with Bertrand competition to determine whether to encroach existing freight forwarding market and share information or not. We observe whether freight forwarder shared information is affected by the encroachment strategy of VOCCs and the market demand state. Further, the encroachment strategy can prompt freight forwarder to share information with VOCCs if the magnitude of high demand is lower. In addition, for VOCCs, the best chance of establishing online platforms is when the magnitude of high demand is relatively low, not when the demand state has increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, logistics platforms are an effective way to solve vehicle capacity utilization using information sharing. However, most logistics platforms do not possess operational sustainability due to excessive profit-seeking. To address this problem, conflicts of interest among freight transportation participants are discussed using a stakeholder approach. A three-player evolutionary game model (TEGM) is developed to analyze the interactions among freight carriers, freight shippers, and logistics platforms. Then, the asymptotic equilibrium and evolutionary stability strategies of the three-player game are analyzed. The results indicate that a high-level positive network externality is the driving force behind the logistics platform's "high-level service". A fairness payment incentive guarantees a "sharing" strategy for freight carriers and shippers. When the high-level positive network externality is limited and lower than a threshold value, there is no stable equilibrium point in the TEGM. A government tax incentive cannot change the freight carriers' and shippers' strategy to participate in this horizontal collaboration system, except for the logistics platform's probability of providing "high-level service". However, the behavioral strategies of the freight transportation participants can be changed to achieve the sustainability of freight transportation by reducing the value-added tax rate through the logistics platform and increasing the high-level positive network externality of the logistics platform and other participants' perceived fairness through a payment incentive. Finally, suggestions for regulating the behaviors of freight transportation participants and promoting the sustainability of freight transportation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The operation of a city's logistics system is associated with many problematic issues, for example, intense pollution and negative impacts on the environment, uneven intensity of traffic flows, and other problems. This article focuses on heavy transport because it causes disruptions in the supply system and affects timely customer service. Optimization processes are associated with route selection, deployment of logistics centers, and the need for cargo consolidation–de-consolidation, which leads to the possibility of using the PPP (public–private partnership) method in practice. A unique aspect of this research is related to the problems of the first and last mile and the use of elements of the "sharing economy". Therefore, this article aims to analyze the problematic challenges of the first and last mile and the role and significance of heavy transport in urban logistics. For that purpose, in addition to an analysis of scientific sources, an expert survey was conducted and responses related to the questions on optimizing heavy traffic flows in city logistics were analyzed. The study data were processed using Kendall's correlation coefficient, the concordance method, and the consistency coefficient. During analysis, using the average rank transformation to weights (ARTIW) method, the subjective normalized weights of the main factors that have the greatest influence on a city's logistics system were determined. Groups of interested parties are also named separately, for whom the results of the study and the formulated decision may be relevant. Based on the results of the research, a recommendation was formulated for the development of small cargo collection and distribution services through self-service terminals located on the outskirts of cities. Proposals are presented to reorganize the system, provide details of new infrastructure elements and suburban terminals, and encourage for the use of environmentally friendly vehicles with a lower carrying capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important role in the effective functioning and promotion of transport is played not only by transport and forwarding companies, but also by non-governmental organizations, closely cooperating with the industry and representing them in decision-making bodies. The article presents selected organizations representing the transport sector at the global and community forums. The analysis covers the influence of these organizations on establishing international law, unifying technical, organizational, operational and economic solutions, and the preparation of shipping documents. The activities aimed at standardization and unification of land transport for the purposes of intermodal transport were also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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