# Prediction of Arrival Time of Vessels Considering Future Weather Conditions
## 1 Introduction  
Free trade agreements (FTAs) and economic partnership agreements (EPAs) to eliminate tariffs between countries and regions continue to grow in number with progress in trade liberalization [1]. There has been an annual increase in the scale of cross-border electronic commerce (EC), which includes trading on online shopping sites across national borders. The EC market is projected to grow at an annual rate of 27% by 2027 [2]. The impact of these factors has made international logistics between countries and regions increasingly active. Figure 1 shows annual increases in the number of containers, in terms of twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), handled in harbors around the world, where there was a 1.5-fold increase in the number of containers during the decade from 2008 to 2018 [3]. In particular, marine transportation accounts for approximately 90% of the total volume managed in international logistics and plays a vital role in the supply chains of many companies [4].  
However, the impact of en route factors, such as weather conditions, may delay the scheduled arrival of a vessel at a destination port. Some consequences are delays in deliveries to customers and parts shortages at factories. A margin of error may be incorporated into the vessel transportation time to account for potential delays, and it can be used to develop procurement, production, and shipping plans at sites such as factories and sales companies. However, setting an excessive margin of error for the vessel transportation time results in surplus inventory [5]. An alternative to setting a uniform transportation time for vessels in advance is to sequentially predict the arrival time from future weather conditions. These prediction results are then used as a basis for operations,such as parts procurement, finished product assembly, and product shipment. This strategy can effectively reduce delivery delays and surplus inventory.  
Considering the issues presented above, the objective of this study is the prediction of the arrival time of vessels to improve the efficiency of the supply chain associated with marine transportation. We refer the reader to a representative study by [PERSON] et al. on predicting the arrival times of vessels at a destination port [6]. [PERSON] et al. calculated the arrival time by predicting future routes from historical operation data for the vessel. However, the impact of future weather conditions on the sea route and voyage speed was not considered, which could lower the prediction accuracy for environments with changing weather conditions. In this study, a method is proposed to predict the arrival times of vessels in consideration of future weather conditions.  
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. An overview of previous studies on predicting the arrival times of vessels and corresponding challenges is presented in Section 2. The proposed prediction method is described in Section 3. The prediction accuracy of the proposed method is compared with that of a previous study based on the historical operation data of vessels carrying cargoes for the home appliance and automobile industries in Section 4. The results of the study are summarized in Section 5.