Transportation time reliability appraisal in maritime context

Transportation time information plays an important role in transportation and logistics. Variability in transportation time is obvious in any mode of transport due to unpredictable system parameters and their dynamic behavior. Significant work has been done in transportation on road and rail modes but the area is still open and hot for maritime being less explored so far. This paper, in maritime perspective, defines the transportation time as time taken for all the activities from loading at source harbor till it’s unloading at the destination and so the return path. As uncertainties can be handled effectively by statistical methods, it is used for transportation time appraisal. The paper presents the methodology for maritime transportation reliability assessment and illustrates the same with an application to a case of Stena Baltica ferry operation in Europe. This paper uniquely combines quality and reliability tools in maritime studies and the obtained results are validated through the simulation. Further a leading link is taken to resolve the problem reducing the uncertainty level in the voyage by bringing process capability study into the investigation. Appropriate investigation and analyses with respect to transportation time variance reduction is also carried out in the paper.