Slow ships, clean fuels and the port queue
Port operations, maritime logistics, container shipping and port congestion appear on dozens of recent papers in the operations research journals, while ship emissions and maritime decarbonization appear on 9 and 8. Shipping now pays for carbon in Europe and faces a global fuel standard. Do slower ships and new fuels cut emissions, or shift them to ports and queues?
What prompted this#
Since October 2025, "port operations" appears on 19 papers, "maritime logistics" on 11, "container shipping" on 10, "container terminals" on 10 and "port congestion" on 10, mostly in operations research journals. "Ship emissions" appears on 9 papers, "maritime decarbonization" on 8, "emission control areas" on 5 and "port decarbonization" on 4. The operations and the emissions literatures mostly sit in different papers.
Questions#
- Since shipping entered the EU emissions trading system in 2024, did ships slow down, reroute to transshipment ports just outside the covered area, or pay?
- Does slow steaming reduce total emissions once the extra ships needed for the same cargo are counted?
- Where will ammonia and methanol bunkering be available first, and how do routing models change when fuel is available at only a few ports?
Data that could help#
Ship position and speed data (AIS), port call records, emissions trading data for maritime, and bunkering infrastructure announcements.
Next step#
Compare average speeds and port calls of container ships on Europe-Asia routes before and after January 2024 using AIS data.