How to Establish West Japan-ASEAN RORO Ship Route?:Based on Network Analysis

Abstract

This paper aims to studythe possibility of establishing West Japan-ASEANRORO ship routes by network equilibrium analysis. Although a RORO ship is supposed to have an advantage against container ships in term of transportation timeits high shipping cost seems to limit its possibility to launch East Asia routes for Japan. In this paper, we apply network equilibrium analysis of bi-level type model to cargo transportation from West Japan to Ho Chi Minh Port as case study of ASEANtransport market. We carry out thesensitivity analysis on shipper’s time preference parameter and ocean tariff for understanding the potential demand of RORO services. The results suggest that the cargo volume using RORO services can increase when the shipper’s time preference increase: however, it is difficult to establish a weekly service even if the time preference magnification to the current rate is doubling.