What Data for This Category Looks Like
Shipping and port research report data sources include industry association monthly statistical bulletins, port administration operation monthly reports, weekly freight rate reports from shipping brokerage firms, and special research reports from securities firms focused on transportation sectors. Update frequencies vary. Operational data such as port throughput and berth utilization updates monthly. International route freight rates update weekly. Special research reports release concentratedly during industry conferences and earnings seasons. Documents include macro shipping supply and demand analysis, single-port operational data tables, route schedule distribution charts, and unit freight rate calculation texts. Fields use specialized units such as twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), ten thousand tons, and USD per FEU. Some documents also include structured identifiers like port codes and route names.
Constraints Imposed by These Characteristics on the Document Parsing and Chunking Process
The data characteristics of shipping and port research reports impose multiple constraints on the parsing and chunking process. First, documents contain structured tables, long analytical texts, and visual charts. Different content types must be mapped to appropriate parsing rules, to avoid losing cell associations in tables or text within charts. Second, data update frequencies vary. Chunking must split content by topic instead of fixed length, to avoid splitting core operational data from a single monthly report into multiple incomplete segments. Third, many specialized fields and units exist. The parsing process must retain the correspondence between fields and units, to prevent semantic confusion after vectorization. Fourth, some special research reports are lengthy. Chunking must retain chapter hierarchies, to avoid breaking cross-chapter logical connections.
How to Configure Settings
| Configuration Item | Recommended Setting | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
PARSE_FILE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS | 300 seconds | Shipping research reports often contain complex tables and long text passages. 300 seconds covers parsing requirements for most reports under 100 pages. |
chunk_size | 800–1200 characters | Core analytical passages and data blocks in shipping research reports fall within this range. Splitting here preserves complete logical integrity for individual content items. |
chunk_overlap | 150–200 characters | Analyses of port routes and throughput often span pages. Overlapping sections preserve semantic connections between contexts. |
ENABLE_TABLE_PARSE | Enabled | Structured operational tables make up a large share of research reports. Enabling this setting fully extracts the row-column structure and cell content of tables. |
PARSE_IMAGE_ENABLE | Enabled | Research reports include visual content such as route heatmaps and port berth layout diagrams. Enabling this setting extracts text information from images. |
MAX_CHUNK_TOKEN | 1500 tokens | Balances semantic completeness and vectorization accuracy, and adapts to the 800–1200 character Chinese chunking length. |
The parameter values provided on this page are common recommended starting points for configuration. Actual values are affected by material format, data volume, and business rules. Specific issues require individual analysis. It is recommended to test on your own samples before finalizing settings.
Three Common Mistakes
- Symptom: Empty content is returned after calling the parsing API with an image URL. Cause: The
PARSE_IMAGE_ENABLEconfiguration item is not enabled, or the passed URL does not have public access permissions, so the parsing service cannot pull the image. - Symptom: Table fields and units are misaligned in parsed chunk results. Cause: The
ENABLE_TABLE_PARSEconfiguration is not enabled, or the chunk length is set too small, splitting rows that link fields and units in tables. - Symptom: A 504 timeout error is returned when calling the FastGPT parsing API after locally deploying MinerU. Cause: The
PARSE_MINERU_ENDPOINTconfiguration is not set to the actual container port address of the local MinerU, or network policies restrict communication between FastGPT and MinerU.
How to Confirm the Configuration Is Correct
- Upload a shipping and port research report sample that includes operational tables and route charts, and check if the parsed text retains the row-column structure of tables and unit annotations.
- Call the document parsing API, pass a test public image URL, and verify if the returned results include text extracted from the image.
- Check the FastGPT parsing service logs to confirm no timeout errors related to
PARSE_FILE_TIMEOUT_SECONDSare triggered, and that chunk result lengths match the preset configuration. - Compare two adjacent chunk contents to confirm overlapping text fragments matching the
chunk_overlapconfiguration length are present.
Question material comes from public community discussions. Configuration values are common starting points and should be measured against your own samples. Verified on 2026-09-14.