Welcome guest
On using DEA for benchmarking container terminals
M.B.M. de Koster, B.M. Balk, W.T.I. van Nus
International Journal of Operations & Production Management
2009
1140 - 1155
0144-3577
10.1108/01443570911000168
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare efficiency scores from the benchmarking exercise with those of previous studies and to discuss the reasons behind diverging results.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) on primary data of large container terminals.
Findings – The results differ strongly from those available in the literature. Causes for these differences are: public (secondary) data are not always accurate; different terminal types are compared; terminals of different scale are compared; and terminals are mixed with ports.
Practical implications – DEA may be appropriate for container terminal benchmarking, but only if better quality and additional input and output data can be obtained. In its application, the analysis should be controlled for terminal types.
Originality/value – Summary of the state of play in the use of DEA methodologies for comparing the efficiency of container terminals at ports.
Benchmarking, Data analysis, Freight containers
Research paper