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The technical efficiency of Norwegian container ports: A comparison to some Nordic and UK container ports using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

Maritime Economics & Logistics volume 15, pages 197–221 (2013)Cite this article

Abstract

In this article we evaluate the technical efficiency of Norwegian container ports relative to a frontier composed of the best performing among themselves and other comparable Nordic and UK ports. The rationale is that a technical efficiency assessment of Norwegian container ports has not been found in the literature; therefore, it is unknown what their potential for improvement relative to other comparable international ports is. A Data Envelopment Analysis is used to derive the technical and scale efficiencies. The data set comprises 24 container ports, which include ports from Norway, all the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom. The primary data were derived from various issues of Containerisation International Yearbook (CIY) and cover the period of 2002–2008. Besides the efficiency analysis, an effort was made to counter-check the CIYs data with the administrations of the respective container ports. This study concludes: (1) the average potentials for technical and scale efficiency improvement across ports and improvement during the period studied are 18 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively; (2) Norwegian ports are over-performers and under-performers with regard to technical and scale efficiency, respectively; (3) for Norwegian ports to improve their overall efficiency, they need to increase their size because they are too small relative to the tasks they perform; and (4) the data from the CIYs were found to be imprecise and unreliable in some cases.

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Notes

  1. Intent, Science Direct, Routledge, Inderscience and, the Social Science Citation Index. In addition, a complementary search was performed in the following journals: Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, the Journal of Productivity Analysis; the European Journal of Operational Research; the Journal of Production Economics; Omega: The International Journal of Management Science; the Annals of Operations Research; Maritime Economics & Logistics; the International Journal of Maritime Economics; the International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications; Review of Network Economics; Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice; Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review; Transportation, Transportation Policy; the Journal of Transportation Economics and Policy; Transport Reviews; Transportation Planning and Technology; the International Review of Business Research Papers; and the International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to many port authorities and port terminals for providing data for this study. The authors are sincerely thankful to comments from two anonymous referees and MEL editor-in-chief and editorial office for their conscientious work on this article. Any errors are our responsibility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vestfold University College, PO Box 2243, Tønsberg, NO-3103, Norway

    Halvor Schøyen

  2. Molde University College, PO Box 6405, Molde, Norway

    James Odeck

  3. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, 7491, Norway

    James Odeck

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  1. Halvor Schøyen
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Schøyen, H., Odeck, J. The technical efficiency of Norwegian container ports: A comparison to some Nordic and UK container ports using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Marit Econ Logist 15, 197–221 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/mel.2013.3

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Keywords

  • Norwegian ports
  • technical efficiency
  • scale efficiency
  • container port
  • Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)