Benchmarking the operating efficiency of Asia container ports

Numerous conventional container ports in East Asia are evolving from intercontinental into regional hub ports. This study adopted the Port of Kaohsiung as an example of competition with neighboring ports. The results of this study demonstrated that the Port of Kaohsiung is still a competitive docking port on trans-Pacific trunk routes for North America, despite facing external threats (e.g., upsizing of ships, lack of new deep-water terminals, and new strategic alliances affecting terminal operations), overall shipping cost considerations (e.g., container volume, different ship sizes, and port selection), and increasingly intense competition with neighboring ports. Under such circumstances, the Port of Kaohsiung must keep pace with container ship upsizing, sufficiently increase deep-water terminal capacity, and improve its existing container terminals’ operating efficiency to attract route deployment and larger container ships and thereby maintain its current advantages and position as a regional hub port.

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THE EVALUATION OF COMPETITIVENESS ON COST ADVANTAGE OF REGIONAL HUB PORT: THE CASE STUDY OF TRANS-PACIFIC ROUTE AGAINST KAOHSIUNG PORT

The International Journal of Maritime Engineering ◽

10.5750/ijme.v161ia4.1107 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 161 (A4) ◽

Author(s):

T Y Tsai ◽

H H Tai

Keyword(s):

Deep Water ◽

Strategic Alliances ◽

Container Terminals ◽

Operating Efficiency ◽

External Threats ◽

Shipping Cost ◽

Container Ports ◽

Terminal Operations ◽

Trunk Routes ◽

Port Of Kaohsiung

Numerous conventional container ports in East Asia are evolving from intercontinental into regional hub ports. This study adopted the Port of Kaohsiung as an example of competition with neighboring ports. The results of this study demonstrated that the Port of Kaohsiung is still a competitive docking port on trans-Pacific trunk routes for North America, despite facing external threats (e.g., upsizing of ships, lack of new deep-water terminals, and new strategic alliances affecting terminal operations), overall shipping cost considerations (e.g., container volume, different ship sizes, and port selection), and increasingly intense competition with neighboring ports. Under such circumstances, the Port of Kaohsiung must keep pace with container ship upsizing, sufficiently increase deep-water terminal capacity, and improve its existing container terminals’ operating efficiency to attract route deployment and larger container ships and thereby maintain its current advantages and position as a regional hub port.

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Bootstrapped operating efficiency in container ports: a case study in Spain and Portugal

Industrial Management & Data Systems ◽

10.1108/imds-03-2018-0132 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 119 (4) ◽

pp. 924-948 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Antonio Gil Ropero ◽

Ignacio Turias Dominguez ◽

Maria del Mar Cerbán Jiménez

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Bootstrap Method ◽

Operating Efficiency ◽

Scale Efficiency ◽

Content Type ◽

Port Efficiency ◽

Dea Efficiency ◽

Container Ports ◽

Confidence Interval Estimates ◽

Port Infrastructure

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the functioning of the main Spanish and Portuguese containers ports to observe if they are operating below their production capabilities. Design/methodology/approach To achieve the above-mentioned objective, one possible method is to calculate the data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency, and the scale efficiency (SE) of targets, and in order to consider the variability across different samples, a bootstrap scheme has been applied. Findings The results showed that the DEA bootstrap-based approach can not only select a suitable unit which accords with a port’s actual input capabilities, but also provides a more accurate result. The bootstrapped results indicate that all ports do not need to develop future investments to expand port infrastructure. Practical implications The proposed DEA bootstrap-based approach provides useful implications in the robust measurement of port efficiency considering different samples. The study proves the usefulness of this approach as a decision-making tool in port efficiency. Originality/value This study is one of the first studies to apply bootstrap to measure port efficiency under the background of the Spain and Portugal case. In the first stage, two models of DEA have been used to obtain the pure technical, and the technical and SE, and both the input-oriented options: constant return scale and variable return scale. In the second stage, the bootstrap method has been applied in order to determine efficiency rankings of Iberian Peninsula container ports taking into consideration different samples. Confidence interval estimates of efficiency for each port are reported. This paper provides useful insights into the application of a DEA bootstrap-based approach as a modeling tool to aid decision making in measuring port efficiency.

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