Sensitivity Analysis for Identifying the Critical Productivity Factors of Container Terminals

Abstract

536 INTRODUCTIONA distinctive feature of the contemporary container port industry is that competition has become fiercer than ever [1]. Improving productivity sufficiently to accommodate a large portion of the anticipated increase in container traffic presents a particular challenge to terminal operators and port authorities.As the demand for international trade and global logistic services continues to increase, to remain competitive [2], in [3] the authors claimed that container terminals have to invest heavily in sophisticated equipment or in dredging channels to accommodate the most advanced and largest container ships. It is necessary to note that pure physical expansion is constrained by a limited supply of available land, especially for urban-centric ports, and escalating environmental concerns [4]. In addition, excessive and inappropriate investment also can induce inefficiency and the wasting of resources. In this context, expanding port capacity by improving the productivity of terminal facilities and exploring the critical factors affecting the productivity appears to be a viable solution [5].For a container terminal, productivity performance makes a significant contribution to the terminal's survival prospects and competitive advantage [6]. Traditionally, the performance of a container terminal has been evaluated with numerous attempts at calculating and seeking to improve or optimize the operational productivity of cargo handling at the berth and container yard [7]. A conceptual framework for analysing the outcomes of potential competitive strategies and their expected payoffs for container terminal operators in the container handling industry is presented in [8]. It is based on the integration of Bowley's linear model of aggregate demand of product differentiation with Porter's "Diamond" model. The authors developed ten competitive strategies for container terminal operators in order to present a theoretical scenario of two competing container terminal operators to exemplify the effectiveness of these strategies in terms of the number of TEUs handled, prices charged, and profits earned.The data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology has been applied to the evaluation of container terminal performance in the literature. For example, in [9] the first work to advocate the application of the DEA technique to the terminals' context is presented; it remains a purely theoretical exposition, rather than a genuine application. DEA window analysis using panel data relating to the eight container ports in Japan is conducted in [10]. In [1], DEA-CCR (Charnes Cooper and Rhodes model) and DEA-Additive models are used to analyse the efficiency of four Australian and 12 other international container ports. Applying DEA to estimate the relative efficiency of a sample of Portuguese and Greek seaports is given in [11]. DEA and stochastic frontier analysis have been used to study the efficiency of the world's largest container ports and compare the results obtained in [3]. In [12], the relevance of DEA was analysed to...

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