Assessing the impact of the maritime silk road

The plans for the Maritime Silk Road affect the existing liner services. The purpose of this paper is to quantify using the terms of network theory the impact of these plans and to project the effects on the fleet, utilization, port throughput, and carbon footprint. The analysis is based on publicly available information and reasonable fleet deployment assumptions. It also considers current and alternative routing schedules from Shanghai to Europe. The impact of existing and expected emission control areas (ECAs) along the port chains is also considered.