Port Effectiveness

Abstract

A survey of the perspectives of port users in North America identified and evaluated a key, yet underresearched, component of port performance, that is, effectiveness in delivering port services to port users. This research responds to recent calls by port scholars for studies measuring port performance for more analytical emphasis on users' perspectives. The survey, conducted with the help of 13 professional associations in the United States and Canada, resulted in an understanding of (a) how port users evaluated the ports that they use, (b) what was most important to users in terms of the attributes of services, and (c) how users evaluated the performance of ports that they used on the U.S. East Coast and in Canada. Participants were asked to rate the importance of various performance criteria and then to apply them by evaluating the performance of the ports they used on those dimensions. To analyze the findings, the survey used a gap analysis and normalized pairwise estimations to measure the actual influence of a criterion on port performance. With performance being more than just satisfaction, this process generated knowledge on what contributed to better performance in the eyes of users in two different regions of North America. The results of this type of study will enable stakeholders to compare performance from specific ports as input to decision making and enable ports to focus their resources on improvements that matter to their customers and supply chain partners.