Exploring supply chain and regional resilience through the analysis of the transport dimension

Abstract

Despite the key role that global supply chains (GSC), and more specifically, the transport and logistics function, might play in the performance of regions, there is a lack of analytical tools that turn the data generated by supply chain operations into quantitative metrics allowing policymakers to identify early signals of potential vulnerabilities and assess how resilient the GSC are at regional level. In an effort to fill this gap, we present a Transportation Resilience Index (TRI) that permits evaluating how transport chains affect supply chain resilience and, consequently, regional resilience. Our index, based on publicly available data –statistics on foreign trade flows provided by the Spanish Customs, the World Bank’ Logistics Performance Index and the UNCTAD’ Bilateral Liner Shipping Connectivity Index − differentiates between the determinants over which the company has direct decision-making control, and those linked to the selection of the supply market (market and macro dimensions). The TRI is applied to the Spanish regions (NUTS2) by using the Benefit-of-the-Doubt (BoD) approach to Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and applying a Common Set of Weights (CSW) for the selection of the weights to the index components. In our specific analysis, the market and macroeconomic components account for 84% of the total weight of the TRI. Despite the lower relative weight of the company dimension, the high degree of homogeneity in the market and macroeconomic scores means the company dimension plays a key role in the relative resilience of the Spanish regions.