Productivity in the Container Port Business: Focus on the Mediterranean Range

This thesis addresses the issue of container port productivity measurement and focuses on the ports of the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean has become a key region as a transhipment node for the world's largest container flows. This thesis considers the Mediterranean as a whole including recent port developments in Southern Europe, Middle East and North Africa. There are two major questions addressed in this thesis. The first one is agreeing on a definition of what container port productivity means and to define a reduced number of key performance indicators. The analysis of the industry best practices and a review of academic literature on port productivity have established that handling, berth and terminal area productivity are key indicators of physical productivity of container ports. The second question is to understand whether physical port productivity in the Mediterranean is driven by three different characteristics: port throughput, geographical proximity to the shortest navigation route and by share of transhipment. The methodological approach includes a multiple regression analysis considering fourteen explanatory variables. This empirical analysis is complemented by two other types of analysis, a grouping by key performance indicators and a grouping by time-series. To this end two datasets are used, a time-series dataset for 36 container ports in the Mediterranean range over a thirty-eight-year period, and a cross-sectional dataset for the same 36 container ports in the Mediterranean range. The outcome of this research proves that port throughput and the share of transhipment are the main drivers of physical port productivity, whereas the proximity of shortest navigational route does not come across as relevant. The two types of analysis were coherent on the robustness of the outcome. The existence of a common definition and the identification of common indicators for container port productivity will lead to the possibility of more meaningful comparison amongst ports and to more informed decision making from the different clients, service providers, terminal operators, infrastructure owners, regulators and policy makers.

Maria Feliciana Monteiro has a 15 year career as a transport economist, port and maritime regulator and as a lecturer on transports and infrastructure. She was awarded a major prize sponsored by MSC shipping company for her MSc thesis on port competition. With a background in economics, she started her professional career by working as an economic advisor for the Portuguese agency for the promotion of Foreign Trade (ICEP) in Buenos Aires. Later she worked in the Portuguese maritime regulatory agency (IPTM). During her PhD she was granted a position by the Department of Transports and Regional Economics of the University of Antwerp (UA) as an Academic Assistant. She worked on a number of research and advisory projects related with transports and transport infrastructure. Currently, she is working as an Invited Lecturer at the Technical University of Lisbon (IST). She is also a regular contributor to the Portuguese Freight Forwarders Association magazine (APAT). She holds a BSc in Economics, an MSc in Transports, an MSc in Transports and Maritime Economics and a PhD in Applied Economics.