Vulnerability Assessment and Recovery Strategies for Container Shipping Networks from a Resilience Perspective

The existing vulnerability evaluation of shipping networks and recovery strategies are suffering from two limitations. One is using a single assessment method, simplifying the complexity of the shipping network; the other is neglecting actual operational capabilities and spatial distance in recovery strategies, resulting in poor effectiveness in emergencies. To fill the gaps, a comprehensive evaluation of the vulnerability of the shipping network is proposed, considering the topology of the network and its actual operational capacity; multi-dimensional vulnerability evaluation indices are found based on the coefficient of variation method; recovery strategy is designed based on the backup-port rank that incorporates the spatial distance, the capacity of ports, and the number of berths. Several innovations to the model and algorithm are introduced, including a dynamic evaluation framework, adaptive weights for vulnerability indicators, and optimizations for backup port selection and traffic diversion in emergencies. To validate the proposed method, container shipping networks of China-Europe, China-Mediterranean, China-US (East Coast), and China-US (West Coast) in 2020 are introduced, topology maps of these networks are developed, and the vulnerability and dynamic capacity of these networks are analyzed. The findings show that the resilience of the shipping network is improved by 11.6% when a single port backup recovery strategy is implemented, and by 31.5% when a dual port backup recovery strategy is adopted. In summary, the proposed vulnerability assessment method and the recovery strategy based on backup-port ranking provide a novel way to improve the resilience of the shipping networks, highlighting the importance of vulnerability assessment and backup recovery strategies in shipping networks.