Enhancing port efficiency and competitiveness through digitalisation: an assessment of India's major ports using the digital readiness index

India has about 200 ports along its coastline, which is about 7,500 kilometres long. However, none of these ports feature in the world’s top 20. Several studies on port efficiency indicate the need to benchmark the productivity of ports with global standards. Productivity is measured in terms of cargo (in tonnes, or 20-foot equivalent unit, TEU) handled per hour or so. The outcome of enhanced productivity is quicker turnaround time of ships. The productivity of the major Indian ports does not match the global standards. In order to improve their efficiency, the government-managed ports have initiated privatization of their terminals and outsourcing of cargo handling services since 1991. Yet, the ports are lagging behind major ports across the world. A major reason for the inefficiencies of the Indian ports is because of its pricing mechanism and its ability to take proactive decision, especially with regard to capacity enhancement of the terminals. This is so because in major Indian ports, the ship pays for the number of days it stays in the berth. In inefficient ports, ships stay for long duration and as a result the port earns on account of its inefficiencies. These ports fail to recognize the paradox, and as such take corrective action only after ships divert to other ports. Ports projects have long gestation periods. So far, no study encompassing the dimensions port pricing, productivity and efficiency has been undertaken by researchers. In this article we attempt to explore the causes that affect the performance of Indian ports. We present a cause and effect analysis to explain the dynamics arising out of the interactions of productivity, infrastructure, and pricing mechanism of an Indian port system. A system dynamics framework has been used to develop the causal model. Four feedback loops were identified, which explain the governing rules and the paradoxes impacting the performance of Indian ports.

This study aims to investigate the relative operational efficiency of major Turkish container ports based on the Data Envelopment Analysis - Supply Chain Operations Reference (DEA-SCOR) model. While Turkish export and import figures are growing, the scientifical studies on operational efficiency of Turkish ports are gaining more attention day by day. Of course, one of the important import countries is China for Türkiye and BRI (One Belt and One Road Initiative) tends to support Turkish trade between western and eastern countries. Therefore, Turkish ports’ efficiencies should be identified and suggestions have been presented for further development. The sampling frame was chosen from the members of TURKLIM and therefore, the SCOR and Data Envelopment Methodology examined 23 seaports. Both methodologies are generally used for analyzing the operational efficiency of ship inward-outward and stackings. The findings of the study show that four major ports are the most efficient gateways to handle inward and outward container traffic with their input variables. However, there are some challenges in port investment for BRI. This study should be used for the further analysis in the sector reports and scientific papers.

The southwest coastal port group in China plays an important role in the promotion of the "China-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation" and the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" strategy, and its development is closely related to logistics efficiency. To evaluate the logistics efficiency of the seven major coastal ports in Southwest China, we analyze the input-output data of seven major ports by utilizing the DEA-CCR model, and then we obtain the effectiveness of DEA and returns to scale of each port. The empirical results reveal that: (1) The returns to scale of the port group logistics is increasing in Hainan Province while decreasing in Guangxi Province as a whole. (2) The logistics efficiency of the major ports in Southwest China is obviously different. Haikou Port is weak DEA valid, and the remaining 6 ports are DEA invalid. (3) There are problems such as redundant input, insufficient output and diminishing returns to scale. Overall, these findings offer several targeted recommendations for increasing port logistics efficiency and promoting port industry growth in Southwest China.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on connectivity, operational efficiency, and resilience of major container ports in Southeast Asia

East Asian regional logistics is expected to grow rapidly. It may provide much more business opportunities for many countries within the region, on the other hand, it will create hot competition for market occupancy at the same time. Korea, China, and Japan, the key countries in East Asian region, have undertaken concerted efforts to improve their logistics sector, upgrade their infrastructure and technology to get a bigger slice of the market, especially in the filed of maritime and port. This paper presents the emperical measures of efficiency of 7 major Chinese ports, 3 major Korean ports, and 5 major Japanese ports along with the DEA and the Bootstrap method. In this paper, the container port service process is considered as a production process using five inputs (number of cranes, number of berths, length of berths, depth of berths, total area of container terminal) and generating one outputs (throughput). Through the analysis, we will investigate the efficiency of these major East Asian ports and figure out the trendof the efficiency.

This paper uses the Three-stage DEA (development envelope analysis) model to eliminate the impact of environmental factors on the operation efficiency of China's coastal ports above Designated Size in 2019, and analyzes the operation efficiency of China's major coastal ports above Designated Size in 2019. The results show that: (1) there is a large gap in operation efficiency between major coastal ports above Designated Size in 2019. (2) Qingdao port is always at the forefront of port production. (3) Due to the interference of large random factors, the technology and scale efficiency of the head port have a relatively large decline, but it still maintains strong competitiveness. At the same time, according to the evaluation results of operation efficiency, some suggestions such as accelerating the development of smart port construction are put forward.

Wang, J.X. and Yang, M., 2020. Measurement and comparison of economic efficiency of major coastal ports in China. In: Bai, X. and Zhou, H. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 115, pp. 687-691. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Coastal ports are an important foundation to support a country's open economy. The coastal ports of China have the advantages of low cost, low pollution, and strong sustainability, but there are also inefficiencies such as crowded input, insufficient output, and mismatch between scale and input-output. Increasing efficiency has become an inevitable choice for the sustainable development of coastal ports in China. To this end, based on the DEA model, this article measures the comprehensive technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency of major coastal ports in China, empirically analyzes the influencing factors of the port's comprehensive efficiency, and gives countermeasures and suggestions.

Evaluation of port efficiency is the basic work of optimizing port resource allocation. In order to accurately and effectively evaluate the efficiency of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) port cluster, a three-stage DEA model is used to empirically analyze the efficiency of 31 ports in the YRD port cluster from 2016 to 2020 on the basis of dividing the ports at different hierarchies. The following results can be obtained: first, from an overall perspective, the ports in the YRD have not reached the efficiency frontier, and the efficiency of ports at different hierarchies varies significantly; second, the pure technical efficiency of the port cluster is gradually improving; third, after excluding the influence of environmental and stochastic factors, the comprehensive efficiency of shipping center, main hub and major ports has improved, but the comprehensive efficiency of general ports has decreased. Finally, suggestions for improvement are proposed based on the existing efficiency of the YRD port cluster.

항만이나 공항의 소유구조에 대한 효율성 분석은 지금까지 서로 엇갈리는 결과를 제시하고 있다. 즉, 민영화 또는 공영화로 인한 효율성 효과가 자료 또는 분석 방법에 따라서 일치된 결과를 보여주지 않고 있다. 본 논문은 국내의 항만이 포함된 국제 항만 교역데이터베이스를 기반으로 베이지안 확률적 프런티어 모형을 적용하여 항만의 소유 구조에 따른 효율성 분석을 하였다. 소유 구조는 Tongzon과 Heng (2005)의 방법을 따랐으며 제안된 몇 가지 모형과 그들의 모형을 DIC 통계량을 이용하여 비교하였다. 베이지안 추론에 필요한 MCMC 방법은 Griffin과 Steel (2007)에서 소개된 WinBUGS 프로그램을 이용하여 구현하였다. Few studies have investigated the quantitative relationship between port ownership structure and port efficiency with mixed results. This paper therefore contributes to the empirical literature by investigating the impact of port privatization on port efficiency using sample data drawn from the world's major ports. Moreover, this study applies the Bayesian approach to estimate the impact of port ownership on port efficiency. We fit Bayesian stochastic frontier model which is introduced by Griffin and Steel (2007) by WinBUGS. World's 25 main ports data are used for analysis. Based on MCMC sampling, we estimate parameters of the model and efficiency index of each ports. Moreover, we add estimates from package Frontier 4.1c in order to compare them with Bayesian results.

PurposeIn Tunisia, foreign commercial exchanges are predominantly maintained via ocean freight and accomplished through eight major ports. The latter play a critical role in the Tunisian economy, whereby nearly 30.7 million tons of goods were transited in 2018. Maintaining their efficiency therefore remains a very important objective to achieve. In this context, the present study is designed to investigate the technical efficiency of respective Tunisian ports over the 16-year period (2005–2020).Design/methodology/approachThe stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) method is applied to measure the associated time-invariant and time-varying technical efficiency. Moreover, through technical inefficiency modeling, effects of both rail connectivity and private sector participation in handling activities on technical efficiency have also been accounted for.FindingsThe reached results turn out to reveal well that the Tunisian ports appear to operate below their production frontier, noticeably marked by persistent technical inefficiency. Additionally, the relevant estimates tend to confirm the berth variable associated importance in highlighting production related to Tunisian ports. More particularly, our analysis reveals that the private sector’s participation proves to display a significantly negative association with technical efficiency, while the ports’ rail connectivity turns out to demonstrate a significantly positive correlation with technical efficiency.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study can provide port authorities and policymakers with insights into the technical efficiency of Tunisian ports by identifying best practices, the main factors influencing their efficiency (such as rail connectivity and private sector’s participation) and areas for improvement in these ports.Originality/valueThe present study stands as a pioneering attempt to examine the efficiency dimension through the implementation of panel data estimation modeling frameworks, particularly the random-effects and the Battese and Coelli (1995) approaches, applied to measure the technical efficiency of the Tunisian port sector. Similarly, the present study also represents an effective attempt, whereby the effects of exogenous variables, notably the rail connectivity and private sector participation, are thoroughly considered in exploring the technical efficiency of Tunisian ports.

The present study’s motivation is to identify the determinant factors for port efficiency of major ports in India during 1993 – 2011. For identifying the factors panel data models like pooled ordinary least square method, fixed effect model and random effect model are used. The hypothesis tested here is outside factors also influence port performance. The results of the study indicated that berth throughput, operating expenses and number of employees affect port efficiency in a significant positive manner, whereas cargo equipment’s and idle time shows negative but significant effect on port efficiency. From the study the inference drawn that only inside factors of the ports are the major determining factors of the performance of ports compare with outside factors.

Supply Chain Management is a very convoluted network that transports the material or product to the end users. The products are distributed through different channels. Ports integrate the supply chains with the consumption market and production market globally and regionally. Also port being an intermediary for supply chain network, the efficiency of port operation has a great influence on the movement of cargo. Port operational indices like average turnaround time of the vessel, average pre-berthing detention and average output per ship berth day have an impact on supply chain network design. The author makes an attempt to find out the most efficient port, among the major ports, based on the above indices, while keeping other indices as constant. The most efficient port may have a competitive advantage over other ports and could be a preferred port in the supply chain network.

Planning strategies to achieve higher competitiveness of ports are becoming increasingly important in business environment. Therefore, strategic competitive position and efficiency analysis needs to be performed to increase ports’ effectiveness and competitiveness. This matches with one of targets of new concept e-Navigation to increase the agility and efficiency of ports. The purpose of this study was to apply Boston Consulting Group matrix to analyze competitive positioning of major ports in Korea and China in term of several main cargo types and then use a combination of Data Envelopment Analysis and Principal Component Analysis model to calculate efficiencies. Results show that, at the moment, Chinese ports are still on the top with high position and efficiency score for the representative-Shanghai port. However, result also points out that except container type, Korean ports have chance to compete in other cargo types. Moreover, Gwangyang port is regarded as efficient. It has better position time. It is believed that Gwangyang port together with Busan port can compete with Chinese port in the near future.

The efficiency of ports in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) plays a crucial role in enhancing regional trade corridors and economic integration. However, persistent infrastructural limitations, congestion, and inefficiencies in port operations have hampered their ability to compete globally. This study conducts a comparative efficiency analysis of four major ECOWAS ports—Abidjan, Tema, Lagos, and Lomé—using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure technical and scale efficiency from 2011 to 2024. Additionally, a SWOT analysis is employed to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats affecting these ports. The analysis reveals that the Port of Lomé demonstrates the highest efficiency, consistently achieving Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (CCR) and Banker, Charnes, and Cooper (BCC) efficiency scores of 1.0 by 2024. This superior performance is attributed to its strategic role as a transshipment hub, extensive infrastructure investments, and operational improvements. The Port of Lagos, despite maintaining high technical efficiency (BCC = 1.0), experiences fluctuations in CCR scale efficiency due to congestion and operational constraints. The Port of Abidjan shows steady improvement, benefiting from infrastructure expansion, but remains constrained by its reliance on the Vridi Canal. In contrast, the Port of Tema ranks the lowest in efficiency, facing persistent scale inefficiencies and infrastructure limitations that hinder its operational performance. This study highlights the crucial role of infrastructure investment, digitalization, and trade facilitation reforms in improving port efficiency. Policy recommendations include automation of port operations, expansion of multimodal transport linkages, and stronger public-private partnerships (PPPs) to optimize performance and enhance regional connectivity. By contributing a longitudinal DEA-based efficiency assessment, this research adds to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on efficiency trends in ECOWAS ports and offering strategic insights for policymakers, port authorities, and trade stakeholders.

Maritime transportation has been, historically, a major factor in economic development and prosperity since it enables trade and contacts between nations. The amount of trade through maritime transport has increased drastically; for example, about 90% of the European Union’s external trade and one-third of its internal trade depend on maritime transport. Major ports, typically, incorporate multiple terminals serving containerships, railways, and other forms of hinterland transportation and require interterminal and intraterminal container transport. Many factors influence the productivity and efficiency of ports and hence their economic viability. Moreover, environmental concerns have been leading to stern regulation that requires ports to reduce, for example, greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, port authorities need to balance economic and ecological objectives in order to ensure sustainable growth and to remain competitive. Once a containership moors at a container terminal, several quay cranes are assigned to the ship to load/unload the containers to/from the ship. Loading activities require the containers to have been previously made available at the quayside, while unloading ones require the containers to be removed from the quayside. The containers are transported between the quayside and the storage yard by a set of vehicles. This chapter addresses the intraterminal container transport scheduling problem by simultaneously scheduling the loading/unloading activities of quay cranes and the transport (between the quayside and the storage yard) activities of vehicles. In addition, the problem includes vehicles with adjustable travelling speed, a characteristic never considered in this context. For this problem, we propose bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) models aiming at minimizing the makespan and the total energy consumption simultaneously. Computational experiments are conducted on benchmark instances that we also propose. The computational results show the effectiveness of the MILP models as well as the impact of considering vehicles with adjustable speed, which can reduce the makespan by up to 16.2% and the total energy consumption by up to 2.5%. Finally, we also show that handling unloading and loading activities simultaneously rather than sequentially (the usual practice rule) can improve the makespan by up to 34.5% and the total energy consumption by up to 18.3%.