¹Institute of Transport and Maritime Management Antwerp (ITMMA), University of Antwerp, Keizerstraat 64, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium. E-mail: theo.notteboom@ua.ac.be

Abstract

Managing the time factor is an important issue in contemporary liner service design. Increased port congestion and infrastructure constraints are some of the reasons impeding shipping lines from delivering impeccable liner services to their customers. Waiting times and delays put pressure on schedule reliability and might incur logistics costs to the customer. This paper assesses the trade-offs linked to the time factor in liner service schedules from the perspective of a shipping line. The paper not only assesses causes of schedule unreliability, it also discusses the wide array of measures and planning tools shipping lines deploy to maximise schedule reliability.