Title: The threat of piracy on maritime transportation

Authors: Matt Elbeck, Ercan Tirtiroglu

Addresses: College of Business, Troy University, Dothan, Alabama, 36303, USA. ' The University of Adelaide Business School, 10 Pulteney Street, SA 5005, Australia; University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA 02747, USA

Abstract: Recent acts of piracy in and about the Gulf of Aden undermine the safe passage of crude oil critical to global economies, serving as a force majeure for logistics service providers and supply chain managers to address this menace. In contrast to the raft of diplomatic and military responses to date, this note considers hitherto unexplored approaches to bypass threats of maritime piracy by considering a transportation triumvirate of cost efficiency, intact delivery of cargo and human safety. A review of the literature is followed with an outline of the costs associated with maritime piracy on vessel and crew and concludes with methods to approach the maritime piracy problem based on risk and game theory to consider alternative routes, offering vessel, crew and cargo safety and delivery security guarantees as a result of balancing financial returns against least adverse effects by focusing on delivery assurance in lieu of delivery costs.

Keywords: maritime piracy; transport safety; transportation problems; logistics; supply chain threats; supply chain management; SCM; supply chain risks; cost efficiency; intact delivery; cargo delivery; human safety; game theory; risk assessment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSS.2010.032571

International Journal of Society Systems Science, 2010 Vol.2 No.2, pp.125 - 133

Published online: 07 Apr 2010 *

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