Forecasting Container Throughput of Qingdao Port with a Hybrid Model

This paper proposes a hybrid forecasting method to forecast container throughput of Qingdao Port.To eliminate the influence of outliers,local outlier factor(lof) is extended to detect outliers in time series,and then different dummy variables are constructed to capture the effect of outliers based on domain knowledge.Next,a hybrid forecasting model combining projection pursuit regression(PPR) and genetic programming(GP) algorithm is proposed.Finally,the hybrid model is applied to forecasting container throughput of Qingdao Port and the results show that the proposed method significantly outperforms ANN,SARIMA,and PPR models.

A TRANSFER FORECASTING MODEL FOR CONTAINER THROUGHPUT GUIDED BY DISCRETE PSO

Abstract Accurate forecast of future container throughput of a port is very important for its con struction, upgrading, and operation management. This study proposes a transfer forecasting model guided by discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm （TF-DPSO）. It firstly transfers some related time series in source domain to assist in modeling the target time series by transfer learning technique, and then constructs the forecasting model by a pattern matching method called analog complexing. Finally, the discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm is introduced to find the optimal match between the two important parameters in TF-DPSO. The container throughput time series of two im portant ports in China, Shanghai Port and Ningbo Port are used for empirical analysis, and the results show the effectiveness of the proposed model.

TRANSPORT COSTS AND CHINA'S EXPORTS:SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCES

Based on a new panel data set covering exports of four Chinese port cities to 32 countries and Hong Kong over the period of 1997-2008, this paper extends the conventional gravity model to assess the impacts of transport costs and port efficiency on China＇s exports. The results can be summarized as three main findings： （1） The improvements of port efficiency and reduction of road transport costs play a vital role in China＇s export competitiveness in the global market. The coefficient estimates on them are relatively large, around 0.72 and -0.89, respectively; （2） The effect of transport costs and port efficiency on China-to-Asia exports significantly exceeds that on China-to-Europe and China-to-America exports; （3） The overall estimated elasticity of road, railroad and port measure is 1.66, which is almost three times that of the average wage of port cities. The empirical results provide strong evidences that upgrading China＇s transport service networks should offer greater scope for maintaining and increasing its competitive edge in low cost productions. The findings offer some insights and priorities for government policy making.