Operational and disaggregate input efficiencies of international container ports: an application of stochastic frontier analysis

This paper applies stochastic frontier/metafrontier analysis to study output and disaggregate input efficiencies of international container ports during 2004-2011 to identify avenues for strengthening port operations. One output variable, four input variables and six environmental variables reflecting different conditions confronted by ports were used to evaluate technical efficiency, disaggregate input efficiency and meta technical efficiency for 35 international container ports using stochastic frontier/metafrontier analysis. Moreover, input efficiency is discussed separately for each selected input variable. The results show that the Asia-Pacific group is significantly superior to the Europe/America group in output efficiency for throughput and in input efficiency for ship-to-shore cranes and trucks; the Europe/America group is significantly superior in input efficiency of container storage. To improve performance, port operators should pay more attention to inefficient variables in each individual group and allocate more resources to improving those. A few remarks at the end concern applications of suitable frontier/metafrontier models.