Mason Leon , Rithika Lakshminarayanan , David Saffo , Sara Di Bartolomeo , Cody Dunne
Supply chain disruption and the complexity of maritime and
hinterland freight networks remain key issues around the world.
SeaCONEX is not just a portmanteau of the humble container's
origin, but a visualization tool that enables users to see the
marine terminal connections for ocean carrier service rotations,
investigate the historical trajectories of vessels assigned to
ocean carrier services, and assess deviations from a
shortest-path optimal route. In this paper, we present an
approach to integrating ocean carrier service network
information with continuous movement data for container and
roll-on/roll-off cargo vessels with reproducibility in mind and
utilizing new open-source industry data standards. We developed
a multiple-view visualization that presents commercial maritime
freight carrier service connections between marine terminals and
links the spatial temporal movements of vessels assigned to each
service over a 90 day period which can be filtered by carrier.
A copy of the IEEE Vis 2021 Short Paper submission along with
supplemental material may be found at
https://osf.io/k9nvc/
SeaCONEX combines vessel movement data along with network
connectivity data to present users with a dashboard for
investigating carrier routes and possible anomalies or
discrepancies between services and vessel operations.
The visualization below applies the concept to a case study
crafted for the project's partner: The Volpe National
Transportation Systems Center (Volpe). Volpe is a United States
Department of Transportation (USDOT) Research Center for
advanced logistics and transportation technical expertise based
in Cambridge, MA. Volpe is a fee-for-service organization that
supports a variety of national strategic transportation projects
across the entire transportation spectrum. Specifically, we
partnered with
Volpe’s Situational Awareness and Logistics Division
under the Infrastructure Systems and Technology Technical
Center. A key client of the division is the
United Kingdom Ministry of Defense
(UKMOD).
In the case study, UKMOD needs to evaluate transport options for
containerized and/or roll-on/roll-off cargo between the UK and
the UK Overseas Territory of Bermuda. This must be done using a
limited selection of "in-network" commerical ocean carrier
partners and corresponding service offerings. The following
table provides an overview of the six ocean carriers and
services chosen for the case study.
Carrier | Trade | Service | Vessel Deployment | Num. Ports | Num. Marine Terminals |
Bermuda Container Lines (BCL) | Bermuda | Oleander (O) | 1 ConRo vessel | 2 | 2 |
Bermuda International Shipping Ltd. (BISL) | Bermuda | Bermuda Islander (BI) | 1 LoLo vessel | 2 | 2 |
Somers Isles Shipping Ltd. (SISL) | Bermuda | Somers Isles (SI) | 1 LoLo vessel | 2 | 2 |
Independent Container Line (ICL) | Trans-Atlantic | Trans-Atlantic (TAC1) | 4 LoLo vessels | 5 | 5 |
Atlantic Container Line (ACL) | Trans-Atlantic | Atlantic (A) | 5 ConRo vessels | 8 | 10 |
Hapag-Lloyd USA, LLC (HLUS) | Trans-Atlantic | US Flag Priority 1/Atlantic 3 (P1/AL3) | 6 LoLo vessels | 8 | 8 |
Interact with the visualization dashboard to investigate maritime connections between marine terminals, ocean carrier service rotations, and historical vessel movements for the Trans-Atlantic and US-Bermuda trade lanes. Click the information icon in each dashboard element for help.
Select a carrier or carriers to visualize the
corresponding vessels and marine terminal networks.
The carrier filters pane encodes the logos for ocean
carrier companies. On hover, a user is presented with
additional information about the carrier company and its
service. Brushing links to the other views to filter the
corresponding marine terminals and vessels by the
selected carrier(s).
Select a vessel or vessels to visualize the
trajectories.
The vessel table pane displays vessels in a tabular
format with each column corresponding to a ship’s
attribute. Brushing allows users to view data in the
geographic map for the vessel(s) corresponding historic
geographic movements over the 90 day period.
Each record in the vessel table represents an individual
ship.
A vessel entity has:
"IMO" : a unique IMO (International Maritime
Organization) number,
"Name" : the ship name,
"MMSI" : a MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity)
number,
"Call Sign" : a radio call sign,
"Build Yr." : the year vessel was constructed,
"Gross Tonnage (GT)" : gross tonnage,
"Type" : vessel type (i.e. container, Container or
ConRo),
"Flag" : flag country,
"Cargo Capacity (TEU)" : container carrying capacity in
twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) (only applicable for
Container (LoLo) or ConRo vessels, 0 if N/A),
"Cargo Capacity (CEU)" : vehicle unit carrying capacity
in vehicle equivalent units (CEU) (only applicable for
RoRo or ConRo vessels, 0 if N/A),
"Stern Ramp Capacity (Tons)" : the capacity of the stern
ramp (only applicable for RoRo or ConRo vessels, 0 if
N/A),
"Carrier Operator" : operating carrier id,
"Carrier Service" : ocean carrier service id
Explore the marine terminal connectivity of publicly
posted carrier master service schedules.
The node-link diagram pane represents a directed network
graph with marine terminals (nodes) as circles and
carrier service connections (edges) as lines with
arrows. By default, a user may see terminals represented
by a white color and all network connections, albeit in
a faded out manner. Hovering over a marine terminal
displays details such as the terminal’s identifying
code, facility name, address, and the port it belongs
to. The hover interaction also brings attention to the
terminal of interest by changing the terminal’s color to
deep red and taking advantage of the pop-out effect. The
terminal encoding returns to default when the user
interaction focus changes. A selection in the carrier
filters pane changes color of the associated terminal
nodes to a red outline with a pink fill and brings the
connections into focus using color highlighting. When in
view, the connections are encoded with a blue or orange
color rep- resenting a respective East or West trade
lane. This is important to highlight because a carrier
may not visit a facility in both directions. The
force-directed node-link diagram is advantageous for
showing network data because it removes geographic
distance and allows the user to focus clearly on
specific nodes and edges connections.
Explore the shortest navigable maritime paths between
marine terminals of publicly posted carrier master
service schedules.
For a selected vessel, view the actual trajectory
(historical path) over a set time period.
*Note: the shortest paths paths may not reflect the
ideal route.
The geographic map pane displays marine terminals, an
optimal maritime route (shortest distance) between
terminals, and the trajectory (historical path) for
vessels over a set time period. By default, a user may
see terminals represented by a white circle. Hovering
over a marine terminal displays details such as the
terminal’s identifying code, facility name, address, and
the port it belongs to. The hover interaction also
brings attention to the terminal of interest by changing
the terminal’s color to deep red and taking advantage of
the pop-out effect. The terminal encoding returns to
default when the user interaction focus changes. A
selection in the carrier filters pane changes color of
the associated terminal nodes to a red outline with a
pink fill and brings optimal maritime routes of the
carrier network into focus using color highlighting. The
optimal maritime route is calculated using the SeaRoute
model from the European Union’s statistical office.
These elements are not visible by default and ap pear
red for a carrier selection. Although these connections
may not be accurate for navigation, they show the
shortest distance between terminal pairings and provide
a base comparison against actual vessel movements
(trajectories). A vessel table selection links to this
map view and displays the corresponding vessel(s)
trajectory for the dataset time period. The trajectory
for each vessel is encoded with a different color
allowing users can visually compare the actual paths for
vessels assigned to the same service as well as the
optimal route.
See below for a quick demo of the above visualization.