Assessing the role of port efficiency as a determinant of maritime transport costs: evidence from Canada

Qiao Lei and Chris Bachmann ()
Additional contact information
Qiao Lei: University of Waterloo
Chris Bachmann: University of Waterloo

Maritime Economics & Logistics, 2020, vol. 22, issue 4, No 3, 562-584

Abstract: Abstract The primary objective of this paper is to determine the role of port efficiency in determining a port’s associated maritime transport costs using direct and disaggregate measures, such as average truck turnaround time, berth utilization, and vessel turnaround time. Ports are complex places difficult to characterize by a single measure of efficiency. Port efficiency is better assessed by measuring the performance of a port’s constituent activities. Prior studies on port efficiency have primarily relied on indirect and aggregate measures of port efficiency, such as scores from the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report or from data envelopment analysis. In the work presented herein, 11 port utilization indicators, collected over 6 years at Canada’s three leading container ports (Vancouver, Montreal, and Halifax), are used to econometrically estimate the unique impact and elasticity of each indicator on import and export container freight rates. Results suggest that higher berth utilization, longer truck turnaround times, longer container dwell times, and longer vessel turnaround times are associated with higher container freight rates (with elasticities ranging from 0.05 to 0.49). On the other hand, higher container throughputs, more vessel calls, and more containers, loaded and unloaded, per vessel are associated with lower container freight rates (with elasticities ranging from −0.07 to −0.53).

Keywords: Port efficiency; Maritime transport costs; Container freight rates; Trade costs; Canada (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41278-019-00135-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:marecl:v:22:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1057_s41278-019-00135-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41278/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/s41278-019-00135-5

Access Statistics for this article

Maritime Economics & Logistics is currently edited by Hercules E. Haralambides

More articles in Maritime Economics & Logistics from Palgrave Macmillan, International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().