From transocean routes to global networks: a framework for liner companies to build service networks

During the previous two decades liner carriers within maritime shipping have broken the barriers from being pure transportation providers towards being logistics service providers. Most of the top 20 liner carriers worldwide hale set up spin-offs providing services from local booking up to 3rd party logistics services, combining the business advantages of tight linkages with liners together with the negotiation freedom with demanding customers by providing an extension of service coverage. Economical evaluations of transocean routes and global networks are of interest for decision makers responsible for business strategies as well as for operations. It is crucial to achieve appropriate judgements about which liner routes are profitable and how to build better service networks so that the companies' brand could be attractive to, e.g., ship- pers, including exporters, importers and forwarding agents. In this paper we discuss the corresponding trade-offs as well as related decision support systems of relevant service providers and companies.