Abstract
The transportation and logistics services have been severely disrupted starting from February 2020 due to precautionary measures of partial and complete lockdown taken by a number of countries to control the spread of COVID-19. The study aims to investigate the changes in the shipping and transportation traffic of medical and non-medical goods during and before the start of COVID-19 pandemic in Oman. The research question that will be addressed here is “Is there any significant difference in the volume of shipping and transportation traffic of medical and non-medical goods before and during COVID-19 in Oman?” The study applies the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and Friedman’s two way ANOVA on the data collected from 61 companies operating in Oman. The study found that the shipping and transportation traffic of both medical and non-medical goods decreased by 6.5% and 25.6% respectively during COVID-19. The higher percentage of decrease is noticeable in non-medical goods than the medical.
Keywords: medical goods, non-medical goods, goods supply, goods demand, supply chain, transportation, shipping, COVID-19
References
- 1.International Road Transport Union (IRU). Global Recovery on the Line as Road Transport Losses Escalate. 2020 [cited 2020 5 Dec]; Available from: https://www.iru.org/resources/newsroom/global-recovery-line-road-transport-losses-escalate.
- 2.Singh, Sube, Ramesh Kumar, Rohit Panchal, and Manoj Kumar Tiwari, Impact of COVID-19 on logistics systems and disruptions in food supply chain. International Journal of Production Research, 2021. 59(7): p. 1993-2008.
- 3.Cai Min, Luo Jianwen. Influence of COVID-19 on Manufacturing Industry and Corresponding Countermeasures from Supply Chain Perspective. Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University (Science) 2020;25(4):409–416. doi: 10.1007/s12204-020-2206-z. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 4.Cantore, Nicola, Frank Hartwich, Alejandro Lavopa, Keno Haverkamp, Andrea Laplane, and Niki Rodousakis. Coronavirus: the economic impact – 10 July 2020 | UNIDO. 2020 [cited 2020 25 Oct]; Available from: https://www.unido.org/stories/coronavirus-economic-impact-10-july-2020.
- 5.Yaffe-Bellany, David and Michael Corkery, Dumped milk, smashed eggs, plowed vegetables: Food waste of the pandemic. The New York Times, 2020. 11.
- 6.Oremus, Will, What everyone’s getting wrong about the toilet paper shortage. Medium (2 April 2020), 2020.
- 7.Nižetić Sandro. Impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on air transport mobility, energy, and environment: A case study. International Journal of Energy Research. 2020;44(2020):10953–10961. [Google Scholar]
- 8.Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Trade interdependencies in COVID-19 goods. 2020 [cited 2021 7 Dec]; Available from: https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/trade-interdependencies-in-covid-19-goods-79aaa1d6/.
- 9.Al Makhmari, Taleb, Dave Pender, Sajda Al Ghaithy, Nadia Al Lamki, Lubna Al Harthy, and Walyam Al Said. Briefings from Oman Logistics. 2016 [cited 2021 2 Jan]; Available from: https://ithraa.om/portals/0/IthraaPDF/Brochures/PDF/ithraa_briefings_logistics_eng_AW.pdf.
- 10.Zhang Yunchang, Fricker Jon D. Quantifying the impact of COVID-19 on non-motorized transportation: A Bayesian structural time series model. Transport policy. 2021;103(2021):11–20. [Google Scholar]
- 11.Gereffi Gary. What does the COVID-19 pandemic teach us about global value chains? The case of medical supplies. Journal of International Business Policy. 2020;3(3):287–301. [Google Scholar]
- 12.Horner, Rory and Matthew Alford, The roles of the state in global value chains, in Handbook on global value chains. 2019, Edward Elgar Publishing.
- 13.Taglioni, Daria and Deborah Winkler, Making global value chains work for development. 2016: World Bank Publications.
- 14.Arellana, Julian, Luis Márquez, and Victor Cantillo, COVID-19 Outbreak in Colombia: An Analysis of Its Impacts on Transport Systems. Journal of Advanced Transportation, 2020. 2020: p. 1-16.
- 15.Loske Dominic. The impact of COVID-19 on transport volume and freight capacity dynamics: An empirical analysis in German food retail logistics. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. 2020;6(2020):1–6. doi: 10.1016/j.trip.2020.100165. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 16.Pahl Stefan, Brandi Clara, Schwab Jakob, Stender Frederik. Cling Together, Swing Together: The Contagious Effects of COVID-19 on Developing Countries Through Global Value Chains. The World Economy. 2020;2021(00):1–22. [Google Scholar]
- 17.FDA USA. Medical Device Shortages During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. 2021 [cited 2021 7 Dec]; Available from: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/medicaldevice-shortages-during-covid-19-public-health-emergency#shortage
- 18.Xu Zhitao, Elomri Adel, Kerbache Laoucine, El Omri Abdelfatteh. Impacts of COVID-19 on Global Supply Chains: Facts and Perspectives. IEEE Engineering Management Review. 2020;48(3):153–166. [Google Scholar]
- 19.Garlick, Camille, Mitchell McMillan, Roxanne Peterson, Timothy Scheuermann, Kyle Smith, and Mohamed Awwad. Case study review of the effects of covid-19 on the supply chain of manufacturing companies in california. in 5th North American International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management. 2020. Michigan, USA: IEOM Society.
- 20.Castañeda Navarrete, Jennifer, Jostein Hauge, and Carlos López Gómez, COVID-19 impacts on global value chains, as seen in the apparel industry. Development Policy Review, 2020. In Press(In Press): p. 1-18.
- 21.Yoo Jeong-Ho, Park Seul-Ki, Cheong In-Kyo. The Impact of COVID-19 and Korea’s New Southern Policy on Its Global Value Chain. Journal of Korea Trade. 2020;24(8):19–38. [Google Scholar]
- 22.Sen Shuvro, Antara Neel, Sen Shusmita, Chowdhury Sunny. The unprecedented pandemic “COVID-19” effect on the apparel workers by shivering the apparel supply chain. Journal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and Management. 2020;11(3):1–20. [Google Scholar]
- 23.Biswas T.K., Das M.C. Selection of the barriers of supply chain management in Indian manufacturing sectors due to Covid-19 impacts. Operational Research in Engineering Sciences: Theory and Applications. 2020;3(3):1–12. [Google Scholar]
- 24.International Transport Forum. Covid-19 and Transport: A Compendium. 2021 [cited 2022 1 Feb]; Available from: https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/covid-19-transport-compendium.pdf.
- 25.UNCTAD. The Review of Maritime Transport 2020. 2020 [cited 2022 1 Feb].
- 26.Twinn, Ian, Navaid Qureshi, Maria Conde, Carlos Guinea, Daniel Rojas, and Harsh Gupta. The Impact of COVID-19’S on Logistics. 2021 [cited 2021 1 Feb]; Available from: https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/2d6ec419-41df-46c9-8b7b-96384cd36ab3/IFC-Covid19-Logistics-final_web.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=naqOED5.
- 27.Woolson, Robert F, Wilcoxon signed‐rank test. Wiley encyclopedia of clinical trials, 2007: p. 1-3.
- 28.Sharma, A., A. Adhikary, and S.B. Borah, Covid-19′s impact on supply chain decisions: Strategic insights from NASDAQ 100 firms using Twitter data. Journal of Business Research, 2020. 117: p. 443-449. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed]
- 29.Ranney Megan L, Griffeth Valerie, Jha Ashish K. Critical supply shortages—the need for ventilators and personal protective equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic. New England Journal of Medicine. 2020;382(18):e41. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2006141. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 30.Buckley Peter J, Strange Roger. The governance of the global factory: Location and control of world economic activity. Academy of Management Perspectives. 2015;29(2):237–249. [Google Scholar]
- 31.Sturgeon Timothy, Van Biesebroeck Johannes, Gereffi Gary. Value chains, networks and clusters: reframing the global automotive industry. Journal of economic geography. 2008;8(3):297–321. [Google Scholar]
- 32.Sathyanarayana, Abhishek, Nagesh Shukla, and Firouzeh Taghikhah. Modelling the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on a Hardware Retail Supply Chain. in 2020 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEM). 2020. Singapore: IEEE Computer Society.
- 33.Schleper Martin C, Gold Stefan, Trautrims Alexander, Baldock Duncan. Pandemic-induced knowledge gaps in operations and supply chain management: COVID-19’s impacts on retailing. International Journal of Operations and Production Management. 2021;41(3):193–205. [Google Scholar]
- 34.Agility. Coronavirus COVID-19 Air Freight Operational Updates | Agility. Agility Insights 2020 [cited 2020 10 Oct]; Available from: https://logisticsinsights.agility.com/COVID19/air-freight/.
- 35.Bollore Logistcs. COVID-19 Impact Update. 2020 [cited 2020 10 Oct]; Available from: https://www.bollore-logistics.com/en/Pages/COVID-19.aspx.
- 36.Sharma Anu, Gupta Pankaj, Jha Rishabh. COVID-19: Impact on Health Supply Chain and Lessons to Be Learnt. Journal of Health Management. 2020;22(2):248–261. [Google Scholar]