Port Efficiency III - The most recent studies

Continuing the work started a few months in the area of port efficiency, we must now
examine the most recent literature, in chronological order on the subject, before
extending this type of analysis in new concrete case.

Estache, Gonzalez and Trujillo in 2001, there efficiency gains to the port reforms in
Mexico using the methodology of the production frontier and demonstrated the
occurrence of gains 6 to 8% in the efficient use of port infrastructure with grant
operation of terminals.

In 2002, Tongzon, studied the determinants of port performance and the choice of ports
and found that the efficiency of ports is the most important factor in choosing a port,
and also addressed other factors such as the equipment, the frequency of ships,
infrastructure, location, rates, information systems and productivity indicators, such as
transit time and waiting time for ships in port. In the same year he studied the
accessibility of the port as a determinant, as well as the requirements to be a hub port.

In 2002, Sanchez Millan and examined the relationship between increased government
regulation in the ports and increased port costs, with the Spanish example and
Haralambides, 2002, states that the excess capacity of ports is a very important factor
for competition and the lowering of prices, it is not usually of interest to the

2003. Veldmen Buckmann and sought to explain the market shares of the ports of
northern Europe, using factors such as frequency, time of transit of vessels and freight
rates, terminal and ground transportation.

In 2003, Barros, Wingmans, Turner, Windle and Dresner studied the relative efficiency
of sampling ports and terminals, the first chosen to study the Portuguese port
authorities, the second looked at the container terminals, including the analysis of issues
such as location prices and accessibility. Note that Barros concluded that the
governance of ports with transparency, control and incentives for efficiency usually lead
to more efficiency in operational activities.

Since the last three studied the productivity of container terminals in North America,
and has used a methodology that is to try to assess the determinants of port efficiency of
the ports as the DEA method. We evaluated the size of the port and terminal
accessibility land and sea, the vessels, the strike days, the type of shipping services and
port facilities.

In 2003, Marlow and Paixão reviewed the literature on the topic of port performance,
addressing the importance of factors such as the time at ports, investments, conditions
of the pier and the cost of the labor force and as agility and supply chain, among other
variables.

In 2003, Sanchez et al. Studied the determinants of the cost of shipping, with emphasis
on port efficiency in a sample of ports in Latin America. That same year, Diaz Tovar
and use a multivariate model in Spain to support the regulation of tariffs in the ports.

In 2004, Barros and Athanassiou applied the model DEA (data envelopment analysis) to
measure comparative performance ports Portugal and Greece, based on the performance
of a given port and Rios et al. applied the DEA model as the performance of container
terminals in Brazil. In 2004, Park and study the application of DEA to ports in 4 phases:
productivity, profitability, market and ultimately efficiency. They note that the
efficiency of ports is now a critical factor for the efficiency of their own countries.

In the same year, Song and Yeo studied the competitiveness of Chinese ports, using the
methodology AHP Analytic Hierarchy Process, using a wide range of factors. Also
found that the volume of cargo from ports is strongly associated with the location,
which can not be changed regularly, but the variables that infrastructure and services
already are subject to change, it is also important.

In 2004, Langen studied the effect of governance cluster of ports in your performance
and Cullinane, Song, Ji and Wang studied and compared the different methods DEA
ports, and concluded that the BCC is better, but the methodology is inadequate to
capture the long-term trend in the ports.

In 2005, the DEA model continued to be tested in the comparative efficiency of ports
and their terminals, as was the case in Herrera and Pang, noting that larger ports are
more efficient than smaller ones and that the size may be a variable instrumental in
increasing the effectiveness and state that the proximity of the production is important
for efficiency and that although many of the ports could gain efficiency by increasing
the scale, some would reduce it to achieve the same effect, as was the case of Lee et al.,
which analyzed the relative efficiency of a set of ports in Asia / Pacific.

Dias, Tovar and Trujillo, 2005, found the multivariable nature of the activity of ports
and their effects on pricing of port companies. It was in 2005 that Estache et al.
conducted an extensive review of the literature on how to measure the productivity of
infrastructure and public services, including ports.

Tongzon and Heng, in 2005, analyzed the effect of privatization from the high
efficiency of ports and used principal components analysis to reduce and to determine
the main factors affecting the performance of port, having studied the efficiency, price,
reliability, the customer preferences, bringing the port to customer needs, accessibility
sea and land and product differentiation, and concluded that the customization is the
most important factors for the performance of the port or terminal and the complete
privatization of the port is not ensures increased efficiency, it is preferable to partial.

Cullinane, Song and Wang in 2005, examined the methods of calculating the relative
efficiency, concluding that more than having a lot of information cross, it is essential
that availability of a good sample to get results with interest. In 2005, Rodrigue
Notteboom and identify a new phase in the life of the ports in general, they call this
regionalization, stressing the importance of the relationship between the development of
the port and development of the region where it occurs and Guthed discussed the
importance of the hinterlands of ports as their own extensions. Laxe, 2005, identified a
set of variables used to construct an indicator Multicriteria comparison of the
performance of Spanish ports.

2006 was another year that has continued to test the model of measurement and
comparison of the efficiency of ports and terminals, and Yeo and Song, rated the
efficiency of container terminals in Asia by the HFP method Hierarchy Fuzzy
proceedingsor, concluding that Singapore and Hong Kong are the most efficient ports in
the sample, that port authorities should give consideration to factors of quality and
customer service and that the location, port facilities, the volume of cargo, the costs of
the port and service level are key attributes of port competitiveness.

Wang and Cullinane (2006) studied the relative efficiency of 104 container terminals in
Europe. Questioned even with the great changes that have affected shipping, such as the
globalization of service, the extension of international logistics services and the extent
of the hinterlands of the ports, which is after all the new role of ports in supply chains?
They note that Winkemans (2001) and Robinson (2002) argue that "being efficient" is
an imperative of modern container terminals in a competitive environment and that
Europe faces increased competition in ports due to the close proximity of their ports,
with the rest of world. As the vast majority of authors use the DEA output as the
movement of containers in TEU and as input, the length of the platform, the terminal
area and equipment which are directly related to the labor force and the capital. It also
confirmed that the larger terminals are usually more efficient for reasons of scale and
efficiencies that vary with the location of terminals, regardless of their size.

Barros (2006) studied the efficiency of Italian ports, Lui et al. applied the methods and
DEA Production Frontier to Chinese ports to measure the relative efficiency, indicating
that limiting the number of ports and the type of load is considered essential in the
evaluation of port efficiency. They report that the international terminal lines are more
efficient than the terminals with regional lines and the terminal joint Sino-foreign
ventures are more efficient than the fully Chinese and that the port terminals are more
concerned with profits in the short term, than to gain competitive advantage with the
long-term innovation.

Ugboma and Ugboma, 2006, studied the application of Analytic Hierarchy Process to
the ports of Nigeria, seeking to determine the selection criteria by the owners of the
charges, finding that the efficiency, price, reputation damage in the low load and rapid
response to the needs of customers are very important factors. Guy and Urli, 2006,
applied a model of decision between Montreal and New York, noting that the costs of
the port and its level of service associated with the need to expand their hinterland are
key to choosing a port.

Blonigen and Wilson evaluated in 2006, a methodology to compare the efficiency of

ports, and tested based on censuses to U.S. ports. This model was also tested by Santos
and Haddad, in 2006 for the Brazilian ports.

Lee, Kim and Ho in 2006, tested configurations and performance of logistics parks
created by the container ports in Asia, concluding on the relationship with the
performance of ports and their distribution between hub ports and regional ports.

In 2007, Barros and Peypoch evaluated the efficiency of ports Portuguese and Italians,
this time based on the Luenberger indicator, using indicators of cost, manpower and
revenue of a given port, and the movement of cargo and vessels. And Fung and Lee
evaluated the productivity of ports in Malaysia, using the DEA method. Already
Hernandez et al., Studied the changes in technical efficiency and the Spanish ports over
several years using the DEA method and the index of Malquimist and concluded that no
legislation that encourages genuine competition between stevedoring companies.

In 2007, Trujillo Tovar and compared the efficiency of a wide range of European ports,
including two Portuguese ports, Lisbon and Setúbal, based on the methodology Cobb-
Douglas, and variables such as the movement of different types of cargo to surface,
employment and the rate of containerisation. They conclude that the document fails to
explain the factors that determine the different levels of port efficiency, which would be
very important to help improve its efficiency to be a real alternative to the road in
Europe.

In 2007, Alonso and Bofarull realized that Spanish clients tend to be faithful to their
own supply chains and, second, are faithful to the Spanish ports have always served
them well.

Also in 2007, Chang and Lee made an extensive review of existing studies with regard
to port performance and inter-port competition and concluded that they are to study the
following questions: What is the hinterland where the ports compete? As the issue of
security will affect the efficiency of ports? Privatization becomes even more
competitive ports? How to measure differences between the relative efficiency of ports
in competition? As the hinterlands are changing the face of restructuring of supply
chains?

It also confirmed that the competition attracts many studies and that competition
between ports today is not only among themselves, but between supply chains which
belong to the ports. With regard to performance, identify methodologies DEA, FDH
Free Disposal Hull model and AHP Analytic Hierarchy Process as the most used.

In 2007, Cheo used the DEA and the indicator Maquimist and concluded on the
importance of port efficiency issues such as investment, efficient management and
institutional reform. In 2007, So et al. applied the DEA methodology to measure the
relative efficiency of container terminals in the Northeast Asia.