Konteyner Taşımacılık Şirketlerinin Rekabet Düzeyini Ölçen Yeni İndeksler

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to propose novel and efficient competitiveness indexes to measure the level of competition among container shipping operators based on a specific region. These indexes should require only basic data, which is full container throughput on the basis of terminal/ hinterland and ship operator. This study takes advantages of two methods to propose novel indexes as alternatives to Herfindahl Hirschman Index (HHI), which is very popular to measure level of competition. Originally named Competition-based Overall Similarity Measurement Index (COSMI) and Entropy Competitiveness Index (ECI) utilize overall similarity measure from clustering analysis and entropy methodologies, respectively. Both indexes have been proposed with two variants for each. COSMI200+ ignores the throughput of each SO having an amount less than 200 Twentyfoot Equivalent Units (TEUs), but COSMITOP5 takes into account only the top 5 SOs in terms of local throughput in a hinterland. ECI-JOINT includes a joint entropy coefficient which is constant for each hinterland, but ECI-VAR takes into account a variable entropy coefficient defined by the number of ship operators in each hinterland. Analyzing a dataset for the terminals located in Turkey, the Entropy Competitiveness Index (by means of ECI-JOINT variant) has been exhibited as a good alternative to HHI with a great correlation coefficient with it: 0.97. Theoretically, Competitionbased Overall Similarity Measurement Index (by means of COSMITOP5 variant) seems a promising method, but it is highly affected by outliers and inconstant numbers of ship operators per route, indicating a moderate correlation coefficient with HHI: 0.45.