The economic viability of container mega-ships

In this study, we analyze the container mega-ship viability by considering competitive circumstances. We adopt a non-zero sum two-person game with two specific strategies based on different service network configurations for different ship sizes: hub-and-spoke for mega-ship and multi-port calling for conventional ship size. A shipping characteristic for each route is approximately optimized to set up pay-off (or profit) matrixes for both players. Throughout model applications for Asia–Europe and Asia–North America trades, the mega-ship is competitive in all scenarios for Asia–Europe, while it is viable for Asia–North America only when the freight rate and feeder costs are low.