Title: A hybrid Data Envelopment Analysis and simulation methodology for measuring capacity utilisation and throughput efficiency of container terminals

Authors: Hokey Min, Byung-In Park

Addresses: Department of Management, BAA 3000C, College of Business Administration, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA. ' Chonnam National University, San 96-1, Dunduck-dong, Yosu, Chonnam 550-749, South Korea

Abstract: As growth in international trade slowed down in the recent years, inter-modal traffic volume declined and subsequently led to reduction in demand for container services. The reduced demand in container services and the ongoing glut of container port facilities throughout the world have sparked fierce competition among international container terminals. In an effort to help the port authorities to develop a winning strategy in the increasingly competitive container market, this paper develops a meaningful set of benchmarks that will set the standard for best practices. In particular, we propose a hybrid Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)/simulation model that is designed to evaluate the relative efficiency of container terminal operations. To illustrate the usefulness of the proposed hybrid DEA/simulation model, we used the real examples of major container terminals in South Korea.

Keywords: container terminals; data envelopment analysis; DEA; simulation; capacity utilisation; throughput efficiency; container ports; benchmarks; best practice; South Korea.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2008.019184

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2008 Vol.4 No.6, pp.650 - 672

Published online: 02 Jul 2008 *

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