Comparative analysis of port performance indicators: Independency and interdependency

Abstract

Port performance measurement (PPM) and comparison research, presenting a multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) issue in nature, has been intensively conducted by researchers from both decision science on modelling and port studies from empirical perspectives. Assigning an appropriate weight to each defined port performance indicator (PPI) is essential for rational decision and precise performance measurement. However, PPIs are often presented in a hierarchy, having the interdependency among them ignored. It causes concerns on the accuracy of PPIs’ weight allocation and arguments on the performance measurement results, revealing a significant research gap to be addressed. As far as MCDM modelling is concerned, the importance of criteria has been studied utilising either absolute or relative comparisons, while the calculation of their importance also takes into account both independency and interdependency factors. However, there is lack of empirical studies in the literature to provide supporting evidence to distinguish the different impacts of the two factors. This study aims to compare the analysis of PPIs importance when taking into account their independent relationship using an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and their interdependent relationship using a decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) incorporating an analytic network process (ANP), respectively. The same domain experts are invited to evaluate the importance of the defined PPIs based on both approaches. The results demonstrate that a similar variance of relative importance across the PPIs but a clear difference on their importance scores and ranking. As a result, the results make contributions to fulfil the research gap on consideration of interdependency among PPIs in PPM and on the provision of convincing empirical evidence to highlight the impact of interdependency of criteria on MCDM modelling. Another practical significance draw from this study is that use of DEMATEL can aid port stakeholders to make more rational decision as to whether the interdependency among PPIs should be taken into account in PPM and/or port choice.