Port competitiveness from the users’ perspective: An analysis of major container ports in China and its neighboring countries

Authors

Chi-Lok Andrew Yuen, Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics, Faculty of Business Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Anming Zhang, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Canada
Waiman Cheung, Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics, Faculty of Business Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Document Type

Article Restricted

Publication Date

2012

Journal Title

Research in Transportation Economics

Volume Number

35

Issue Number

1

First Page

34

Last Page

40

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2011.11.005

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to explore the relative importance of factors that determine container port competitiveness from the users' perspective. Three groups of port users – shipping liners, forwarders and shippers – are considered in this paper. The importance of the various factors is determined on the basis of survey results from the industry experts and then obtained via the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Furthermore, we use the results to evaluate ports in Mainland China, Hong Kong and other Asian cities. Given our results, operators of our sample ports could benchmark their performance with their competitors and identify the areas that they need to improve.