# Comparative Studies of Major Sea Routes
## 2 Analysis of the Main Sea Routes Situation and Review of the Literature
The sea route between Shanghai and Rotterdam via the Panama Canal is also used to transport cargo between Southeast Asia and Western Europe. The total distance between Shanghai and Rotterdam is about 14,000 nautical miles, and at an average speed of about 18 knots, the average sailing time for such ships is about 790 h, taking into account the reduced speed of the ship through the Panama Canal itself. The sea route through the Panama Canal has restrictions on the parameters of the ship because the maximum length of the ship when sailing through the Panama Canal is up to 365 m, the width is up to 50 m, and the draft is up to 16 m. Due to limitations in ship length and width, the maximum capacity of such a container ship is up to 15,000 TEU, limiting the use of large container ships in this seaway [10; 11]. Currently, attempts are being made to promote the Northern Sea route as an alternative to other sea routes [16; 26]. The total distance on the Northern Sea route from Shanghai to Rotterdam is about 900 nautical miles. For about 2500 nautical miles, ships navigate the Arctic Ocean, where ships must be accompanied by icebreakers. It is theoretically possible for ships to use this sea route, but in practice, it is quite difficult, especially for large ships; the ships must have an A1 or A1 Super ice class and their container capacity can only reach up to 4000 TEU [27]. Observations of ships sailing on the Northern Sea route using the AIS system showed that the average sailing speed of vessels up to 180 m in length and up to 27 m in beam (excluding purpose-built LNG tankers with Arctic 5 and Arctic 7 ice classes corresponding to the A1 Super ice class) is between 5 and 14 nodes [28]. An analysis of vessel navigation in the Northern Sea route over the past few years using the \"Marine traffic\" website [18] allowed us to obtain the average number of ships sailing with and without icebreakers (without icebreakers, the sailings of LNG tankers with Arctic 5 or Arctic 7 ice classes were analyzed in summer and autumn months) and their speeds, which were between 4 and 12 knots on average (in the wintertime, they mainly did not use this sea route). The sailing of two ships \"Pugnax\" and \"Audax\" (ship length 206 m, width 43 m) on the Northern Sea route in 2024 in January and February (sailing from the Bering Strait  
Figure 3: Suez Canal single and dual ports [7]. to the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya took 35 days) using the most powerful available icebreakers \"50 Let Pobedy\" (power plant about 57 MW) and \"Arktika\" (power plant about 62 MW) clearly proved that larger ships using this sea route are very expensive during the winter period and economically and technically complex. It took about 35 days for these ships to sail with the escort of icebreakers on the Northern Sea route [18]. For example, in 2024, after the sailing of the mentioned vessels in January-February, until the middle of June, the Northern Sea route was not used at all for more than 4 months [18]. In this way, the main sea routes connecting Southeast Asia and Europe are very important and are in fact the \"arteries\" that transport most of the goods between the aforementioned regions.