The efficiency of port logistics - benchmarking container terminals

Historically, seaports served as a location where merchant goods could be discharged, stored and sold at the local market. Neither further value added services in the port area nor prompt hinterland transportation where in the main focus of port operators and local authorities. Accompanied by changes in technology development, international production networks and the growing importance of just in time delivery demands on goods handling in ports and on distribution to the hinterland the concept of logistics gained importance. Today, maritime logistics comprises planning, design, execution and management of material and information flows alongside the maritime supply chain from ship to port to the hinterland and vice versa. Accompanying, competition increasingly takes place between maritime supply chains including hinterland connections instead of between single ports. In order to determine a port's individual performance in an international network and to identify future improvement opportunities the concept of benchmarking has been applied frequently. The ability to collect relevant data quickly and to apply basic calculations led to a dominance of key performance indicators (KPI) and causal Input-Output (I-O) models as main methods to compare ports. Nevertheless, due to their simplicity KPI and I-O models are not able to display complex relationships which do not necessarily have a direct impact on each other. In recent years Date Envelopment Analysis (DEA) received growing attention in the area of maritime logistics research as a popular method to measure performance and efficiency of container ports and container terminals respectively. Next to different input and output factors such as number of gantry cranes or container throughput the most important differentiation criteria are the number and location of ports. Especially, attention of past DEA research projects has been drawn to the main container ports worldwide in regard to total throughput. Moreover, single countries such as Spain, Italy and Korea have been analysed in detail as well. Thus, one potential gap of DEA utilization at present exists in analysing import flows of containers to the hinterland and hinterland connectivity of port terminals in general keeping the whole supply chain in mind. Therefore, in a next step input and output criteria and potential Decision Making Units (DMU) of the port-hinterland link have to be determined before calculation runs start and conclusions about the efficiency of port hinterland connections can be made.

Historically, seaports served as a location where merchant goods could be discharged, stored and sold at the local market. Neither further value added services in the port area nor prompt hinterland transportation where in the main focus of port operators and local authorities. Accompanied by changes in technology development, international production networks and the growing importance of just in time delivery demands on goods handling in ports and on distribution to the hinterland the concept of logistics gained importance. Today, maritime logistics comprises planning, design, execution and management of material and information flows alongside the maritime supply chain from ship to port to the hinterland and vice versa. Accompanying, competition increasingly takes place between maritime supply chains including hinterland connections instead of between single ports. In order to determine a port's individual performance in an international network and to identify future improvement opportunities the concept of benchmarking has been applied frequently. The ability to collect relevant data quickly and to apply basic calculations led to a dominance of key performance indicators (KPI) and causal Input-Output (I-O) models as main methods to compare ports. Nevertheless, due to their simplicity KPI and I-O models are not able to display complex relationships which do not necessarily have a direct impact on each other. In recent years Date Envelopment Analysis (DEA) received growing attention in the area of maritime logistics research as a popular method to measure performance and efficiency of container ports and container terminals respectively. Next to different input and output factors such as number of gantry cranes or container throughput the most important differentiation criteria are the number and location of ports. Especially, attention of past DEA research projects has been drawn to the main container ports worldwide in regard to total throughput. Moreover, single countries such as Spain, Italy and Korea have been analysed in detail as well. Thus, one potential gap of DEA utilization at present exists in analysing import flows of containers to the hinterland and hinterland connectivity of port terminals in general keeping the whole supply chain in mind. Therefore, in a next step input and output criteria and potential Decision Making Units (DMU) of the port-hinterland link have to be determined before calculation runs start and conclusions about the efficiency of port hinterland connections can be made.