4 ms·

> because there is no way to predict from public data what the volume of containers loaded/discharged is at a specific terminal It's doable for a competitor. A

by bkor 6y ago

> because there is no way to predict from public data what the volume of containers loaded/discharged is at a specific terminal It's doable for a competitor. AIS has the vessels depth. If you assume the weight of a container to be similar you can monitor the vessels depth as they discharge and then load containers. You'll have to account for bunkering, empty containers, etc. Still, it's doable. There's also some data (not sure if public, should be easy for any shipping company) for anything going to the US. You can use that data to further improve the previous estimates. See https://www.joc.com/regulation-policy/trade-data/united-states-trade-data https://www.joc.com/regulation-policy/trade-data/united-stat.... Interestingly the JOC is terrible at predicting future trends despite having one of the most detailed data on their trade. Note: the method above will not give you exact numbers. It's not actually needed to know the exact numbers, seeing the trends and the fluctuations/changes is already quite useful.

superice 6y ago
I would be very impressed if that was more accurate than turnaround time, but interesting approach, hadn’t thought of that. But I’m guessing that adjusting for bunkering is tricky since they might fuel up more in ports where fuel is cheaper, so you cannot assume they will be nearly empty close to every port they call. Would love to know if guessing based on this is actually being used though.
tda 6y ago
Vessel depth (draught) is usually (or always) a static number;hard coded in the ais transponder and never again uodated and thus provides zero information. The only somewhat reliable data are position and heading and their derivatives. Next to that you can get something out of the broadcast frequency, and that's about it. Of course the data can and is easily manipulated by some, and the broadcast is lossy so sometimes a few bits get lost or mangled in transit, there is no proper error correction in the protocol

by bkor 6y ago

superice 6y ago

I would be very impressed if that was more accurate than turnaround time, but interesting approach, hadn’t thought of that. But I’m guessing that adjusting for bunkering is tricky since they might fuel up more in ports where fuel is cheaper, so you cannot assume they will be nearly empty close to every port they call. Would love to know if guessing based on this is actually being used though.

tda 6y ago

Vessel depth (draught) is usually (or always) a static number;hard coded in the ais transponder and never again uodated and thus provides zero information. The only somewhat reliable data are position and heading and their derivatives. Next to that you can get something out of the broadcast frequency, and that's about it. Of course the data can and is easily manipulated by some, and the broadcast is lossy so sometimes a few bits get lost or mangled in transit, there is no proper error correction in the protocol