Defining freight rates as a contribution to the successful operation of container shipping companies

Abstract

The globalization of the world market and the flexibility of containerization to adjust to the constant changes in supply and demand of the international goods market, has led to a continuous increase in the portion of the container transport within the international maritime cargo transport. By the increase of the container transport level, the impact and importance of container freight rates have been growing, the variability of which directly reflects on the world economy. The aim of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of actual methods in establishing the container freight rates according to the problems which appear in the container shipping operation and refer to large differences in the weights of the actual transported cargo and the declared cargo in containers. The consequence of is lower freight rates and higher costs of the vessels exploitation, concerning the increase of the bunker oil consumption. The conducted research is based on actual data that have been collected and analyzed from particular container vessel liner services within period of 90 days and casting off from 16 container ports. The proposed measures could increase the level of usability of the transporting ships capacities and enable a more accurate and correct account of sea freight rates. The results of the research have shown that by increasing the control of accuracy of the cargo weight in containers and by improving the model of accounting, the freight rates can increase the incomes of shipping companies maintaining the same level of container traffic, which can have a direct influence on the efficiency of their successful operation.