An Empirical Study of Container Terminal’s Service Attributes

Abstract

This paper empirically evaluates container terminal service attributes from shipping lines and shipping agencies' perspective. Some methods are applied for study, such as Internal-Consistency Reliability, Factor Analysis, Cluster Analysis, Importance-Satisfaction Analysis and analysis of variance. The results suggest that customers perceive reliability of the agreed vessel sailing time to be the most important container terminal service attribute followed by custom declaration efficiency, loading and discharging efficiency, port cost and berth availability. While quality of port facility is the most satisfactory service attribute. Based on the concept of market segmentation, we employed cluster analysis to classify customers of container terminal into three segments, namely port cost oriented firms, port facilities and equipments oriented firms, and service efficiency and IT service oriented firms. Theoretical and practical implications of the research findings are discussed.

Evaluation of Transshipment Container Terminals’ Service Quality in Vietnam: From the Shipping Companies’ Perspective

“…Notwithstanding the fact that evaluation of service quality is conducted in various industries, studies of container terminals are exceedingly limited [21]. Kolanovic et al [11] investigate the dimensions of port service quality using a factor analysis that includes, among a set of 25 attributes, port accessibility, port reliability, port functionality, availability of port information, and port flexibility. Ha [8] suggests a framework for evaluating terminal service quality that includes seven factor groups: available information regarding port-related activities, port location, port turnaround time, available facilities, port management, port costs, and convenience for customers.…”

“…According to the functions of hub shipping, TCTs create a bottleneck in the network; any delay or interruption might escalate the effects, not only on hub-spoke networks, but also on supply chains [10]. Service quality constitutes hardware factors, such as accessibility, equipment, and facilities, and software factors, such as management, information, and terminal convenience [8,11]. Service quality measurement is required in order to simultaneously consider quantitative and qualitative variables.…”

Examination of importance and range of comprehensive service for refrigerated containers in seaports

“…This analysis should consider the specificity of refrigerated cargo and logistic approach for performed services. For example, the dimensions concerning port services have been proposed by Lu et al (2011). They cover, i.e., port facilities and equipment, customer orientation, port costs, IT service, service efficiency, staff service ability, general service etc.…”

A terminal level analysis of service quality at Nigerian seaports

“…It is interesting to note that, although some studies about customers' expectations and perceptions about service quality of seaports have been conducted, globally, very little is known (see Lu et al 2011;Sayareh et al 2016;Hemalatha et al 2018) about terminal level analyses of service quality provided by seaports. 2 On African seaports (see for example, Ugboma et al 2004;Ugboma et al 2007;Onyemechi et al 2017), to the best of our knowledge, virtually no study has provided a terminal level analysis of service quality like the one proposed in this paper.…”