Time at ports in short sea shipping: When timing is crucial
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Time at ports in short sea shipping: When timing is crucial A n c o r S u á r e z - A l e m á n a, L o u r d e s T r u j i l l o a a n d Kevin P.B. Cullinaneb a
Applied Economics Department, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35017, Spain. E-mails: [email protected]; [email protected] b School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, SE-405 30, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
From the perspective of Short Sea Shipping (SSS), as an intermodal competitor in the freight market, the time spent within the whole transport corridor is a major issue, in contrast to deep sea shipping where differences in time may not be as relevant as, for example, the contract of carriage or a ship’s position, among other aspects. Although there exist numerous studies that have estimated port or terminal efficiency, most have focused on quantities as outputs and factors such as labour force or capital as inputs, mainly through the use of techniques such as data envelopment analysis or stochastic frontier analysis. The structure of the time ships spend in ports has generally not been considered. After reviewing the port efficiency literature and by taking into consideration the structure of the time ships spend in SSS ports or terminals, this article develops a theoretical analysis of this concept and proposes the direct utilization of the time in ports as a suitable measure for port efficiency analysis. From an empirical example, we show how the inclusion of time in efficiency analysis can modify the results derived from a more traditional approach based just on quantities.
Maritime Economics & Logistics (2014) 16, 399–417. doi:10.1057/mel.2014.5; published online 3 April 2014
Keywords: port efficiency; port times; short sea shipping; data envelopment analysis
© 2014 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1479-2931 Maritime Economics & Logistics www.palgrave-journals.com/mel/
Vol. 16, 4, 399–417
Suárez-Alemán et al
Introduction As nodes within maritime transport networks, ports are crucial to the success of many of the available intermodal options. Frequently, however, they either actually constitute or are perceived as constituting bottlenecks that reduce the competitiveness of maritime corridors (Wilmsmeier et al, 2006). Within this context, the appropriate analysis of port efficiency, therefore becomes an absolutely necessary prerequisite to identifying the port-centric factors that crucially influence the success or failure of policies to promote more sustainable freight transport and to inform future policy on such matters. Traditionally, port efficiency studies have focused on factors such as size or value of the labour force or the number or value of capital items as inputs into the port production process, with quantities (typically couched in terms of Twentyfoot equivalent units (TEUs)-containers or tons) as the product of the production process. Frequently, in order to analyse the degree of efficiency of a whole port, or a specific terminal, data e
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