Hong-Oanh Nguyen

Measuring port efficiency using bootstrapped DEA: the case of Vietnamese ports

ABSTRACT Standard data envelopment analysis (DEA) tends to be sensitive to the number of variables of a chosen sample, and it is unable to account for their random nature. Standard DEA can exhibit statistical inconsistency, biased results, and an arguable inference process. Thus, in this study, an efficiency evaluation method is used to overcome these limitations, especially since no studies of port efficiency have addressed this issue. This study applies bootstrapped DEA to a sample of the 43 largest Vietnamese ports and compares the results with those from stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and standard DEA. The results show that while the efficiency scores obtained from the three methods provide useful and consistent measures of the ports’ efficiency, they differ significantly. Furthermore, while the efficiency scores produced by bootstrapped DEA are consistent, unbiased, and not sensitive to the sample size, standard DEA and SFA yield efficiency scores that are much larger than bootstrapped DEA. In addition, bootstrapped DEA provides the confidence intervals for efficiency scores and allows for hypothesis tests of port performance.

Influential factors in the design of port infrastructure tariffs

ABSTRACT The main aim of this article is to examine the factors influential to the practical process of port infrastructure tariff design. The analysis is based on the survey data of 67 seaports representing the Australasian, East Asian, European, North American and South American regions. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was first carried out to identify the factors influential to the selection of the infrastructure tariff design model. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to confirm the relationship between the variables. The findings showed that demand, knowledge about pricing theories, the dynamics of port and shipping sectors (including competition and ship size), pricing objectives and port cost consideration are influential factors in infrastructure tariff design. Most ports use a mix of pricing approaches including price discrimination, cost-based pricing and market-based pricing. Ports are aware of the basic pricing approaches but have limited knowledge of their application. Based on the results of analysis, policy implications for port management in designing port infrastructure tariffs, limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Port infrastructure pricing policy and practice: a case study of Australia and New Zealand seaports

This paper examines the infrastructure charges of seaports and port pricing policies in Australia and New Zealand. Its analysis covers 40 seaports and takes into account their administrative roles as well as geographical factors. An analysis of the effectiveness of port pricing policies and their relationship with port reforms is also conducted. The paper finds the existence of disparities in the growth rates of port infrastructure tariffs across ports in both countries. Port infrastructure tariffs have grown considerably over the study period, but at different rates. Port pricing policies also vary substantially across the states and between the two countries, notwithstanding the fact that the ports have different traffic volumes. Infrastructure pricing practice is affected by port reform and administrative regime. While corporatised ports appear to have high growth rates of their infrastructure charges, commercialised and privatised ports tend to maintain lower growth rates of infrastructure tariffs.

The role of rail in the Australian port-based container market: challenges and opportunities

ABSTRACT The number of containers handled by Australian seaports has quadrupled over the past two decades. This has posed major difficulties for community and businesses. Knowing the projected demand, the need for disruption-free and reliable land corridors is of emerging importance. This paper first aims to establish a transparent image of the role of rail in the Australian port-based container flows and, second, to empirically identify the key impediments to the competitiveness of rail in this market. To achieve the second objective, a survey was distributed among Australian ports and key container stevedores. This paper identifies that despite the significant growth in the container volumes, rail’s share in the land-based movement of this traffic was small, principally due to lower service levels. The analysis indicated that inadequacy of intermodal infrastructure is a key impediment for the use of rail, followed by poor interoperability and shortage of below-rail infrastructure. This paper concludes with important recommendation for government and industry to make informed infrastructure planning and investment decision.

Application of the discrete variable investment model to analyse the decision to adopt e-business among transport and logistics companies

In the era of globalisation, and information and communications technology (ICT), e-business can be critical to the competitiveness and growth of transport and logistics companies. This study aims to identify and evaluate the effect of various factors influential to the decision to adopt e-business among transport and logistics companies. A discrete variable investment model is developed and applied to the survey data of transport and logistics companies in Australia. The results of the analysis indicate that business nature, current use of ICT and perceived benefits of ICT have a significant impact on the decision to adopt e-business, while business expectations, the year of establishment, number of employees and barriers to adoption do not significantly affect the adoption decision. The results of the analysis shed light on the behaviour of transport and logistics companies and the sectors overall view towards adoption of e-business.

Explaining variations in national fleet across shipping nations

Many studies on national shipping attribute the declines in national fleets of developed economies to the lack of comparative advantage, but little has been done so far to identify factors contributing to countries’ shipping comparative advantage using a systematic approach. Although shipping markets are highly international and competitive, it is not clear whether tonnage owned by countries is governed by country-specific factors. This paper seeks to explain variations in nationally owned fleet across shipping nations. The main variable of interest is national fleet tonnage owned by country of domicile as opposed to registered tonnage. The results of econometric analysis using data from 84 shipping nations indicate that various country-specific factors do indeed contribute to variations in fleet tonnage across shipping nations, albeit at different levels of significance. Financial market development, external trade, ship registration, shipbuilding and shipping history appear to have the most significant impact, followed by the level of development and technology and maritime policy. Based on the results of analysis, implications for policy and future research are also discussed.

Exploring the role of information systems in mitigating gate congestion using simulation: theory and practice at a bulk export terminal gate

Using an Australian wood chip export terminal as a case study, this research presents a terminal gate simulation model that improves understanding of the complex interactions at the terminal gate and describes the potential of information and digital systems alternatives for mitigating congestion. The alternatives modelled include: a terminal appointment system to schedule truck arrivals; integrating weigh-bridge information to eliminate one stage of the unloading process; and, reducing conveyor operation time.Simulation results indicate that a terminal appointment system can reduce turnaround times by up to 23%, primarily through a reduction in waiting times. Integrating weigh-bridge information can improve turnaround by up to 18%, while reducing the conveyor operation time can improve turnaround by up to 5%. The paper highlights that achieving these simulated results in practice actually relies on a range of factors and assumptions hard to embed in the simulation. These factors influence the nature of the complex interactions at the terminal gate and include the extent to which stakeholders are willing to share information and develop or retain levels of trust between each other.The paper argues that one potentially effective strategy for aligning stakeholders’ interests involves engaging them all in the decision-making processes in finding and developing a suitable congestion management solution. This approach mitigates concerns regarding system abuse, ensures all technological and business requirements of stakeholders are considered and, enhances the implementation process to deliver increased effectiveness of the solution.This research is part of a major ongoing research project undertaken in Australia funded by the Australian Research Council through the Industrial Transformation Research Program.

Evaluation of impediments to the competitiveness of the rail sector in Australia

Over the past four decades, Australia’s rail sector has been in decline and has lost almost half of its previous share in the non-bulk freight market. Government policies to encourage the use of rail for the transportation of freight have been met with ongoing challenges, resulting in an urgent need to explore strategies to increase rail’s competitiveness and achieve greater market share. While there has been an increase in international research on improving the competitiveness of rail transport in the non-bulk freight markets, previous studies focussed primarily on the line-haul component of rail transport and insufficient attention was been paid to the relationship between competitiveness and the broader transport system in which rail operates. Until now, rail freight transport has not been investigated as a system comprised of different sub-systems which must be integrated into the wider multimodal freight transport environment. As a result, fragmentation of freight strategies have occurred which does not necessarily improve the competitiveness of rail transport. This research addresses the above issues by providing a more detailed and transparent image of the key challenges faced by the rail sector in Australia. These challenges were previously ambiguous, mainly due to the paucity of empirical research and absence of stakeholder involvement. Therefore, the primary research question of this thesis is to identify and investigate strategies to improve the competitiveness of the rail sector in the Australian non-bulk freight market. A quantitative research methodology was adopted to address the primary research question, and a conceptual model was developed following a systematic literature review. The systematic review adopted in this thesis was critical to achieving a more detailedunderstanding of the key challenges facing the rail sector in Australia and to create an accurate input for the empirical stage. This approach was also beneficial to reducing the bias of available literature by applying predefined data collection strategies, inclusion and exclusion criteria and meta-analysis. Subsequently, an instrument was developed to conduct a web-based survey. The data collection was accompanied with large participation (200 potential participants with a 42.2 per cent response rate) from rail stakeholders at a national level. By conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the empirical results of this thesis identified four key impediments, each containing three to five factors: (i) infrastructure management, (ii) shortage of freight data and poor information sharing, (iii) interoperability and service delivery and (iv) organisational communications and commercial relationships. Four key research areas emerged when the findings of the literature review and empirical research were synthesised, resulting in further investigation being undertaken to fully address the primary research question: (i) providing strategies for service improvement, (ii) investigation of rail freight from a transport geography perspective, (iii) exploring the role of intermodal terminals in development of non-bulk rail freight market and (iv) the role of rail in the Australian port-based market. Further analysis was then conducted to address these areas. To provide strategies for improved service quality a probabilistic mathematical model was developed to evaluate the relationship between reducing transit-time and reliability as the major time-based attributes of a freight service. The model was then applied to the Australian rail freight network to provide strategies for service improvement in poor corridors. To investigate the rail freight from a transport geography perspective and to explore the role of intermodal terminals in development of non-bulk rail freight market, various secondary data sources were used with author’s original analysis. Finally, primary data was collected using a survey distributed among Australian ports with intermodal activity and secondary data was collected from other sources to explore the role of rail in the Australian ports. The above investigations were accompanied by various transportation science methods. This thesis has been developed on a publication basis and the findings have been presented as seven publications, five of which have been published and two are currently under review. These publications focus on addressing the secondary research questions and objectives, all of which answer the primary research question. This thesis makes several contributions to the industry and academia. Firstly, it provides a more transparent image of the key challenges faced by the rail sector in Australia. Secondly, it provides important recommendations for the Australian rail sector and government to make informed transportation and policy decisions, including those related to track upgrade, development of intermodal terminals interoperability and access charging systems. Thirdly, this thesis contributes to the stakeholder management and rail transportation literature by framing the concept of rail stakeholders. Fourthly and most importantly, this research contributes to the literature of transportation by developing a conceptual framework which integrates the systems approach into the competitiveness concept within a freight transportation context. This in-depth investigation into the relationship between freight service performance and competitiveness in the freight markets offers significant benefits to industry and academia when developing freight transportation improvement strategies.

Competitiveness of the Liner Operators: Methodological Issues and Implications

In the 21st century, ocean container carriers are facing high competition in cargo volume attraction and retention from their business to business customers. The main focus of this study is on the methodological issues in the analysis of shipping lines’ competitiveness. A system review of the literature is conducted in three stages to identify the key factors influential to the competitiveness of liner shipping companies. An initial search has found 897 studies, which were then reduced to 39 after further scanning and review. The systematic review has elicited 15 key selection criteria which were further reduced through analytic hierarchy process to five critical factors influential to the liner shipping companies’ competitiveness. For example, among the most frequently cited factors are the freight rate, service quality, scheduling, handling equipment and information technology. Based on the findings from the systematic literature review, a conceptual framework to identify the main determinants of the liner operators is developed, and implications for future research are also discussed.

Selection of ocean container carriers: One countrys perspective

The objective of this study is to identify the most influential factors that affect choice of ocean container carrier by freight forwarders. It identifies the most influential factors considered by them when selecting ocean container carriers by analysing data collected from a survey of 105 freight forwarding organisations in Ghana. Exploratory factor analysis is used to identify the underlying factors which influence the selection of carrier. The findings of the study indicate that service quality, document accuracy, freight rates, environmental issues, schedule reliability and quick handling are the most influential factors that guide freight forwarders when purchasing liner shipping service. This study provides a better understanding of these influential factors from the perspective of the freight forwarders themselves. The findings are important to ocean container carriers since they can enable liner shipping companies to channel resources appropriately in response to factors which are identified as determining freight forwarder carrier selection. Key word: Freight forwarders, ocean container carriers, carrier selection factors.