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The container transport system: Selection criteria and business attractiveness for North-European ports

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Maritime Economics & Logistics Aims and scope

Abstract

In the modern global business environment, port policymakers must continuously make an effort to understand what factors influence port users’ choice of port. This article identifies which factors affect port selection most strongly. It does so for three ports: Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg – and three types of decision makers: shippers, carriers and freight forwarders. The Analytical Hierarchy Process method is applied to gauge port players’ prioritization of decision factors in port selection. Data are collected by means of two sets of questionnaire surveys. The prioritized criteria differ between the three mentioned respondent groups, which is attributed to their respective positions and responsibilities within the supply chain, and the contract of carriage concerned (carrier haulage or merchant haulage). The overall results yield the following ranking of port selection criteria in decreasing order of importance: port costs, geographical location, quality of hinterland connections, productivity and capacity. In respect of general port attractiveness, Antwerp is found to be the most attractive, followed by Rotterdam in second place, and Hamburg in third.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to extend their heartfelt gratitude to Professor Hilde Meersman for her support throughout this research project. They also thank the following companies for their valuable inputs: Alianca Belgium, ANTTREX Shipping NV, BASF, Burger logistic Services NV, China Shipping agency, CMA-CGM, DB Logistics, DHL, Evergreen Belgium Shipping Agency, Gosselin Group, Hanjin Shipping Co LTD., Hapag Lloyd, Heineken Nederlands Supply, John T. Essberger& Deutsche Afrika-Linien, Kuehne+Nagel, Lanxess, Maersk line, MSC Belgium, Nike CSC, P&G, Toyota Motor Europe NV/SA and Volvo Logistics. We also would like to appreciate the journal’s reviewers for their in-depth comments and guidance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Antwerp, Antwerpen, 2000, Belgium

    Marzieh Nazemzadeh & Thierry Vanelslander

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  1. Marzieh Nazemzadeh
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Appendices

Appendix A

Questionnaire 1: Factor priority

Questionnaire for determining factor priorities in port and shipping services by shippers, freight forwarders and ship owners.

Part 1: Introduction

The purpose of this survey is to gauge your opinion, by means of pairwise comparison, regarding five factors relevant to the competitiveness of a container transport system. The following factors are extracted from the literature:

  1. 1

    Port capacity

    • Available berths, cranes, storage and so on.

    • Probability of losing time (while berthing, crossing locks and so on)

    • Free capacity

  2. 2

    Port costs

    • Port charges (port dues, pilot cost, towage and so on.)

    • Terminal charges

    • Storage cost and dwell time

  3. 3

    Port productivity

    • Container yard efficiency

    • The number of TEU and/or tonnes handled per crane per hour

    • Customs efficiency

  4. 4

    Quality of hinterland connection

    • Land cost (inland transhipment freight rates and other land transport costs associated with the port)

    • International connectivity

    • Intermodal connectivity (rail, highway, barges)

  5. 5

    Geographical location

    • Proximity to the markets (demand)

    • Distance of shippers from the port (supply)

You are requested to indicate how important each of these factors is to your selection of a port/shipping line by ticking the corresponding number on the scale.

How to weight your choice:

‘1’: absolute priority to the factor on the left

‘3’: strong priority to the factor on the left

‘5’: equal priority to the factors on the left and the right

‘7’: strong priority to the factor on the right

‘9’: absolute priority to the factor on the right.

You may use the even numbers in between to give a more qualified response.

An example:

Q: When comparing port capacity with port cost, which factor is more important to your choice of port?

illustration

figure b

Part 2: General questions

1-Which of the following best describes the organization you are representing?

( ) Shipping company

( ) Exporting/Importing company

( ) Manufacturing company

( ) Retailer

( ) Freight forwarder

2-How many containers do you trade annually?

( ) Under 500   ( ) 500–1000    ( ) 1000–2000

( ) Over 2000

3-Which of the following ports is your main European trading port?

( ) Antwerp   ( ) Hamburg   ( ) Rotterdam   ( ) Others

4-What percentage increase in your total transport costs because of the imposition of road toll (either at destination or origin) may alter your current port and shipping networks utilizations?

( ) 0–0.5   ( ) 0.5–1   ( ) 1–1.5   ( ) 1.5–2

Appendix B

Questionnaire 2: Port choice

Questionnaire for determining port and shipping network selection by shippers, carriers, and freight forwarders.

Part 1: Introduction

The purpose of this survey is to gauge your opinion, by means of pairwise comparison, regarding the relative importance of key criteria in port and shipping network selection. In this study, three ports are considered: Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg. These ports are used in a pairwise comparison in respect of the weighted factors.

An example:

Q: Which port would you chose when it comes to ‘port capacity’?

(if you have an absolute preference for the port of Antwerp):

illustration

figure a

Appendix C

Methodology description:

Pairwise comparisons and judgment scales

Two sets of questionnaires were distributed to evaluate the preferences and port selection with respect to prioritized criteria. Having five criteria to be evaluated by respondents generates 10 questions for the criteria priorities questionnaire and 15 questions for the port choice questionnaire. The following formula gives the number of questions generated:

where Q, is the number of questions and n refers to the number of attitudes to be evaluated. To avoid that respondents would experience difficulties in distinguishing between the scales (Kasperczyk and Knickel (2014); Belton (1986); Belton and Gear (1983); Triantaphyllou (2001)), we apply a 5-point scale in the questionnaires.

Consistency

If the matrix is perfectly consistent, the transitivity rule (2) holds for all comparisons.

Since the real world is inconsistent, the case of perfect consistency in pairwise comparison matrices occurs rarely. On the other hand, to acquire reliability, a minimum consistency is required. Therefore, a consistency test must be conducted using equation (C.3).

where λ Max is maximal eigenvalue. The consistency ratio is driven by equation (C.4).

where RI is the random index.

The acceptable consistency of the matrix is considered for CR less than 10 per cent. In addition to Saaty (1977), some other researchers (Lane and Verdini, 1989; Forman, 1990; Tummala and Wan, 1994; Alonso and Lamata, 2006) have suggested simulations with different numbers of matrices which are similar to the indices carried out by Saaty. Table A1 shows the random indices calculated by Saaty (1977).

Table A1 Random indices
Full size table

Aggregation

The final step is to determine the global priority by synthesizing local priorities, using equation (C.5).

where p i represents global priorities of the alternatives, l ij represents local priority, and w j stands for the weight of criterion j.

As we collect individual questionnaires, the overall pairwise comparison is obtained through agglomeration. The following formula is used to this end:

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Nazemzadeh, M., Vanelslander, T. The container transport system: Selection criteria and business attractiveness for North-European ports. Marit Econ Logist 17, 221–245 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/mel.2015.1

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