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    <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
    <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
    <image>
      <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
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      <title>Detecting Fraudulent Registrations of Ships in China’s Inland Waterway Transport Based on Automatic Identification System Data</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2633008</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In China’s inland waterway transport, some private cargo ships are illegally and nominally registered under the names of large shipping companies for benefit, as a result of the hidden agreements between these companies and private shipowners. These are known as “guakao” ships. To reduce costs, private shipowners often employ insufficient and underqualified crew members, making the fraudulently registered guakao ships substandard in safety management and leading to numerous accidents. To address the challenge of identifying guakao ships, this paper presents a data-driven identification approach based on background knowledge of ship operations. Firstly, the automatic identification system (AIS) data are collected and analyzed to derive ship behavior characteristics by data mining and community detection algorithms. Subsequently, machine learning models are formulated and trained to predict ships’ authentic owner types from the input behavior features, thereby identifying the potential guakao ships with fraudulent owner information. Finally, the effectiveness of our identification approach is validated via a case study on a typical bulk shipping company in China. Furthermore, the optimal trade-off between identification accuracy and timeliness is identified by examining the impacts of the length of the AIS dataset on identification results. The proposed approach can help authorities better detect fraudulent registrations of ships and improve the allocation of inspection resources.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 10 Dec 2025 11:10:05 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2633008</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Crashes and Injuries on Rural Roads in Alaska - Toward a Better Understanding of Rural Safety Issues through Linked Data</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2587055</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In this study, motor-vehicle crash records (MVCD) are linked with hospital-based trauma data from the Alaska Trauma Registry (AKTR) using a probabilistic method using open-source record linkage software (FRIL) with the aim of developing a more comprehensive and accurate depiction of transportation-related injuries across the state. The study achieved a successful match for 66% of AKTR cases using demographic, temporal, and geographic identifiers. Injury classifications from both datasets were harmonized through a reclassification scheme to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of MVCD reporting relative to trauma data. Key findings reveal that while most records were either adequately classified or slightly overclassified, approximately 17% of MVCD records underestimated injury severity. Discrepancies were particularly evident in rural and remote communities. In addition, over 10% of linked records involving alcohol-related trauma were either not suspected of impairment or categorized as “Unknown” in MVCD, despite confirmation of intoxication in AKTR. This research demonstrates the viability and utility of data linkage to identify and address critical gaps in transportation safety records as well as support more effective injury prevention strategies, particularly in underserved and remote communities.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2025 13:39:57 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2587055</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>The Question of Fraudulent Registration of Ships and Fraudulent Ship Registries; the Response of the International Community</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2379787</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The aim of this paper is to address the issue of fraudulent registration and fraudulent Ship Registries, mainly as a means of concealing illicit activities, such as piracy, slavery, maritime migration, IUU fishing, and the evasion of UN sanctions. The method that has been followed includes the presentation of all types of fraudulent flagging as reported by the interested Flag States, Port States, and the associated international organisations of IMO  and  FAO.  The  analysis  compares  the  findings  that  have  been  collected  by  the  various  sources  and  the drawing  of  strong  conclusions.  The results  of  this  essay  extend  to  cover  the  various  forms  of  fraudulent registration, the legal framework that governs the registration of ships, and the proposed measures to deal with this phenomenon. The novelty lies in the multi-level approach of fraudulent registration, covering all of its forms, and  the  solutions  proposed, either  already  applied  or  innovative. In  conclusion, insufficiency  to  deal  with  this phenomenon  so  far  leaves  room  for  the  application  of  new strategies,  like  the  ones  proposed  in  the  current essay]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 May 2024 16:53:17 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2379787</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Impact of anti-tax avoidance rules on factors influencing the choice of registry for the self-owned vessels of the shipping lines</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2344538</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Shipping lines avoid tax burdens and policy requirements by registering their self-owned vessels in flag of convenience (FOC) countries and establishing subsidiaries in those countries. However, since the international tax system has been increasingly focused on substance, coherence, and transparency, the anti-tax avoidance rules may have affected the choice of registry for shipping lines. Based on the 900-ship registry data of the top 25 liners across 26 flag states over the period 2008 to 2019, this paper uses conditional logit and mixed logit models to examine the effect of anti-tax avoidance rules on the choice of registry for shipping lines. In this regard, the results indicate that introducing country-by-country reporting requirements and a common reporting standard will reduce the probability of shipping lines registering to flag in those countries. On the other hand, after imposing anti-tax avoidance rules, liners are more willing to register flags in countries with higher tax rates. The results of a regional analysis show that better tax performance exerts an adverse effect on flag choice of European shipping lines; however, it has the opposite effect on Asian shipping lines.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 01 Mar 2024 13:38:23 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2344538</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Freight rate volatility and flag-switching decisions</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1982955</link>
      <description><![CDATA[An important decision facing shipping firms is the choice between an open- or national ship registry. We empirically test the predictions of Kavussanos and Tsekrekos (in: Cullinane (ed) The international handbook of maritime economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, pp 47–62, 2011), who formulate the decision to change a vessel’s flag as an optimal switching problem, and predict that shipping companies register vessels in open registries in periods of high volatility in freight rates, and return to national registers in periods of low volatility. We use a random sample of 560 bulk carriers built between 1999 and 2017 and, following Luo et al. (Maritime Policy and Management 44:603–622, 2017), we employ a duration model (Cox proportional hazards model). In it, the hazard rate of time until a flag change is a function of vessel type, taxation, inspection rates, and a proxy of volatility in freight rates. Our empirical findings suggest that increased freight rate volatility has a positive effect on the hazard of flag change from a national flag to an open registry, and increased freight rate volatility is associated with a short time interval to (and a high probability of) a flag change. These findings should be of interest to shipowners and flag administrators, since they imply that in times of high volatility in freight rates, frequent flag changes from national flags to open registries are observed.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 29 Aug 2022 09:27:33 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1982955</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vessel identification based on automatic hull inscriptions recognition</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1997437</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The identification of ships plays a crucial role in security and managing vessel traffic for ports and onshore facilities. Existing video monitoring systems help visually identify a vessel where other systems are not present or sufficient. Readable vessel plates and hull inscriptions of detected ships in the video stream allow using text location and recognition methods to obtain ships’ identification names or numbers. The obtained information can be then matched with available ship registers. The automation of the process has met many challenges related to the often-low quality of available video streams, heterogeneous regulations on the marking of ships, and the specifics of natural scene text recognition, such as quickly alternating imaging conditions or the interference of the background. The main contribution of this research is a method that can identify any type of vessel in an image that has visible inscriptions (name, registration number) placed on the hull and must be registered in a public registry. The proposed method works with low-quality images with inscriptions placed under different angles and different, readable sizes. The authors method recognised 91% of vessels from the test dataset. Obtained identification times have not exceeded 1s. The quality and efficiency of the proposed solution indicate that it is suitable for practical implementation in onshore monitoring systems.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 17 Aug 2022 09:33:42 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1997437</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Interpretation of the Provisions on Re-Entry of Officially Deleted Boats in the Register</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1991557</link>
      <description><![CDATA[When in 2019 the Act on Amendments to the Maritime Code came into force, the Register of ships was established as a single registration point for all maritime craft of Croatian nationality. Therefore, all ships, which previously had been entered in the boat ledger, were transferred to the Register of ships. At the beginning of 2020, when such a single Register of ships came into use, the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure issued a special Ordinance regulating the entry of ships into register, maximum permitted age and technical specifications for entry of ships into the Croatian Register of ships. At the end of 2020, the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, in compliance with the Maritime Code, officially deleted from the Register of ships about 20,000 boats whose owners did not have harmonized data or did not have a correct or non-existent personal identification number (PIN). The Ordinance prescribes the procedure for re-entry of boats in the Register of ships, with special provisions relating to such cases. At the beginning of 2021, and after the official deletion of such boats from the Register of ships, the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure sent the Instructions on the procedure after the decision on the official deletion of maritime crafts to all Harbour Master Offices. The Instruction, inter alia, requires from the Harbour Master Offices to perform an occasional inspection of boats on the basis of their request for re-entry. The author considers such an Instruction disputable and considers that it does not correctly interpret the provisions on re-entry of ships in the Register after the official deletion of such boats from the Register of ships, more precisely that it does not properly interpret the provisions of a special Ordinance prescribing the mentioned procedure. Therefore, this paper gives an overview of the contested provisions as well as the corresponding interpretations in accordance with the Maritime Code and by-laws adopted on its basis.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 21 Jul 2022 11:42:51 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1991557</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Profiling Malaysian ship registration and seafarers for streamlining future Malaysian shipping governance</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1889229</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In the globalised maritime transport sector, Malaysian ships and local seafarers play a crucial role in the development of the country’s economy. Therefore, this paper examines Malaysia’s ratification of international maritime conventions, its authorisation of classification societies and its maritime education training centres that have become key elements in influencing local ship registration and the production of seafarers. This paper analyses the current Malaysian ship registration and seafarers, including the existing number of seafarers that are engaged on board Malaysian and foreign ships. In this paper, the authors present the JALIN (ship registration data) and SDPx (seafarers’ data) systems application, which are developed by the Marine Department Malaysia as data sources, and a descriptive analysis of data using MS-Excel 2010 and Minitab 19. As a result, this paper analysed the Malaysian ship registration and seafarers for streamlining future Malaysian shipping governance in order to identify current potentials and barriers. In addition, this paper provides vital information for Malaysian government strategies concerning seafarers’ management in streamlining future national shipping governance. In addition, this result can serve as big data information to develop effective measures catering to the needs of the Malaysian shipping industry and assist policymakers to make decisions.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 28 Feb 2022 09:53:03 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1889229</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Association rule mining for identification of port state control patterns in Malaysian ports</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1899971</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Port State Control (PSC) inspection data is used for determining the inspection pattern of PSC in Malaysia and identifying the relationship between the inspection place, flag state, number of deficiency, detention result, and ship risk profile. Based on 8,089 inspection reports from 2015 to 2019, the mining association rule is proposed as a learning approach due to its determination pattern in the information bank. The learning of association rules of PSC inspections is performed primarily on the Apriori Algorithm, in order to produce alluring rules. Inspection patterns of Malaysian ports revealed that flag state, ship risk profile, and inspection place generally lead to no detention result, as well as zero deficiency recorded on-board. The reported quantity of detention was significantly related to the high number of deficiencies raised for ships registered under blacklisted countries. Furthermore, the analysis of deficiency discovered the pattern of inspection at Malaysian ports is frequently related to zero and a low number of deficiencies raised by inspectors. Lastly, five major ports were selected for providing a useful rule to help PSC officers in organising an effective inspection plan. A similar approach can also be used for other ports beyond Malaysia for comparative analysis.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Jan 2022 13:52:57 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1899971</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>From The Flag State Duty For Inspections To The Remote Port State Control. The Necessity For Distant Controls</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1877474</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Inspections are aiming at maritime safety. This paper describes the central role of flag states in controlling the vessels that are registered at their national register. However, the effectiveness of the inspections is mainly based on the Port State Control (PSC) inspections that are following the needs of the digital era introducing the remote controls.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Dec 2021 14:43:17 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1877474</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Importance of Parallel - Bareboat Charter Registration and Its Connection with Marine Insurance</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1877473</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The impact of the Parallel Registration is pretty apparent in modern shipping. Traces of Parallel Registration, Dual Registration, Demise Charter Registration and Bareboat Charter Registration can be found in both the Open Ship Registries system and the traditional Closed Ship Registries. The stance of both the new maritime nations and the traditional Flag States towards Parallel Registration are analyzed. The reasons for the acceptance of the Parallel Registration include the positive impact to the maritime companies, the benefits to the Ship Registries involved and the satisfaction of particular ambitions on behalf of the States that embrace this institution. There is further specialization in the implications of Parallel Registration in the Marine Insurance practices especially in the case of bareboat chartering. The status of the ship owner, the ship charterer and the mortgage lender are further examined under the auspices of Parallel Registration in the event of a Marine Insurance incident.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Dec 2021 14:43:17 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1877473</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>FMCSA Has Not Fully Met Oversight Requirements as It Rebuilds the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1766936</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In the last 5 years, fatalities in crashes involving large trucks or buses increased by 10.6 percent. As part of its mission, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) oversees its medical certification program and promotes safety through regulations, policies, and monitoring of certified medical examiners and driver examinations. In May 2014, FMCSA initiated the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners (National Registry) to assist in verifying that medical examiners can effectively determine if interstate commercial drivers meet FMCSA’s physical qualification standards. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) initiated this audit given the significant safety risk posed by drivers who do not meet physical qualification requirements. The audit objectives were to evaluate FMCSA’s procedures for overseeing its medical certificate program. Specifically, OIG analyzed FMCSA’s procedures for (1) validating and maintaining data quality in the National Registry and (2) monitoring medical examiner eligibility and performance and reviewing driver examinations. OIG found that FMCSA’s ability to oversee whether drivers meet physical qualification standards to safely operate a commercial vehicle is limited because of a lengthy outage of the National Registry and a resulting backlog of driver examination reports that were not entered into the Registry. In addition, weaknesses associated with the accuracy and completeness of data in the National Registry limit the effectiveness of FMCSA’s oversight. Furthermore, FMCSA has not fully implemented requirements for random periodic monitoring of medical examiners’ eligibility and performance. While FMCSA has conducted initial certification reviews of medical examiners’ eligibility qualifications, the Agency is not yet conducting annual eligibility audits after initial certification. Without these oversight reviews, FMCSA may be missing fraud indicators or other risks that may require mitigation and has less assurance that drivers are physically qualified to safely operate a commercial vehicle. OIG conducted this audit of FMCSA’s medical certification program during a transition period while the Agency is working to design and deploy a new National Registry. OIG made four recommendations  to improve FMCSA’s oversight of its medical certificate program once the Agency deploys its new National Registry. FMCSA concurred with OIG's recommendations.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Feb 2021 15:30:50 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1766936</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Coast Guard: Actions Needed to Improve National Vessel Documentation Center Operations</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1758043</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In fiscal year 2019, the Coast Guard's National Vessel Documentation Center (NVDC) documented about 230,000 vessels for commercial and recreational purposes in U.S. waters. The Coast Guard requires owners of certain-sized commercial vessels to obtain vessel documentation—a form of vessel registration—through the NVDC. Vessel documentation is optional for owners of recreational vessels of 5 or more net tons (generally longer than 26 feet), and many do so to secure a mortgage for financing. In 2017, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the NVDC faced backlogs in processing recreational vessel documentation. The Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018 includes a provision for GAO to review NVDC’s operations. This report examines, among other objectives, the extent that the Coast Guard (1) met its NVDC workload demands and (2) measured NVDC’s effectiveness in processing vessel documentation. GAO analyzed Coast Guard vessel documentation processing data for fiscal years 2015 through 2019 and information on its system used to process vessel documentation. GAO also interviewed cognizant Coast Guard officials. GAO is making seven recommendations to the Coast Guard, including that it develop and implement policies and procedures for conducting operational analyses for its vessel documentation system, and establish formal organizational performance targets for NVDC’s vessel documentation activities. The Coast Guard concurred with GAO’s recommendations.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:50:53 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1758043</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Association rule learning to improve deficiency inspection in port state control</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1695777</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The inspection of foreign ships in national ports is a critical measure in port state control (PSC), preventing substandard ships from entering national ports. Multifarious inspection items, limited inspection time and inspector manpower are challenging PSC inspection. This research applies data mining to analyze historical PSC inspection records in Taiwan’s major ports to extract potential valuable information for PSC onboard inspections. Using the Apriori Algorithm, the analysis identifies many useful association rules among PSC deficiencies in terms of specific ship characteristics, such as ship types, societies, and flags. The general rules identified show that the items ‘Water/Weathertight conditions’ and ‘Fire safety’ are significantly related. Besides, in the analysis of the various ship types, several different rules are found. After comparing the analysis of ship types and ship societies, it can be observed that the association rules for specific ship types, such as oil tankers, have a better effect than those for individual ship societies do. These identified rules can not only help inspectors effectively spot the associated deficiencies, but also improve the efficiency of PSC inspection. The ports other than Taiwan’s ports can apply a similar analysis method to identify corresponding association rules suitable for their own inspections.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2020 09:10:42 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1695777</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A Process-Based Management System for Maritime Governance</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1674274</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Maritime governance encompasses the institutional framework of rules, processes, and systems involving jurisdictions at the local, regional, national, and international levels and their relationships with maritime industry and stakeholders. At the local and regional level, maritime governance is administered by relevant authorities. At the national level, governance is overseen by maritime authorities and flag administrations. On the global stage, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) administers maritime governance through its member states. In 2005, IMO adopted resolutions that provide the framework to establish the Voluntary Member State Audit Scheme. This served as the catalyst for the Coast Guard’s establishment of the Mission Management System (MMS), an ISO 9001:2015 process-based management system to ensure effective implementation of the III (Triple I) Code. The III Code provides for the assessment of member states’ implementation of international requirements. Through investments in MMS, and continual improvement, the Coast Guard has significantly enhanced its ability to effectively manage and oversee the extremely complex and large-scale implementation of IMO instruments in the United States.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 20 Dec 2019 16:26:22 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1674274</guid>
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