Measuring West-Africa Ports Efficiency Using Data Envelopment Analysis

Abstract

The present study measured the relative efficiency of five major commercial ports in West Africa, using three different Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methods, the CCR, BCC, and Windows I-C methods over the years 2005-2016. Seven input variables and one output variable were used in the model analysis. The CCR and BCC methods were used to evaluate the technical and scale efficiency while the Windows I-C method provided a comprehensive ranking of the studied ports. The results showed that the scale efficiency score of 89.53% indicated that on average the production scale of the ports had deviated from the most productive scale size (MPSS) by 10.47%. These results revealed that the source of the overall inefficiency is due to scale rather than pure technical inefficiency. Hence, in order to improve the overall efficiency, the two scaled inefficient ports of Abidjan and Cotonou should adjust their scale of operations. Then, further investigations were conducted to detect correlations between various variables used in this study. The research found that the absence of any correlation for non-significant variables and negative correlation for the significant variables throughout time resulted from the fact that these variables were not fully utilized. Meaning that they were not efficiently used to boost the container throughput on a scale basis, the research also found that a pandemic or insecurity could easily impact seaports activities with the case of the Ebola outbreak which strucked the West African region from the year 2013 to 2016, or the terrorism threats which prevailed in the region around the year 2012. Thus, for ports to stand out in the present fiercely competitive environment, ports authorities ought to analyze their operational scale to identify whether or not the production size is fitting before further port capacity expansion.

Evaluation of Seaport Service Quality in Tanzania: From the Dar es Salaam Seaport Perspective

“…Several scholars have noted its significance in their studies. Among of them, Kalgora (2019) stated that seaport has to pursue service quality in order to remain at the top of the sector within its region, which later affects the improvement of a nation's economy [10]. A similar view was also reported by Bae and Park, 2018; Pham and Yeo, 2019 who argued that advancement of service quality is one way to gain a competitive edge in maritime transportation for the seaports [6,7].…”

“…Expansion of seaport industry in this region suggested the seaport authority to shift the focus from ordinary service delivery to the quality of service offered to their customers. Nowadays, they are many maritime seaports along the coast of East Africa; but the four that are highly competitive are Mombasa seaport in Kenya, Djibouti seaport in Djibouti, Dar es Salaam seaports in Tanzania and Maputo seaport in Mozambique [10].…”

Navigating prosperity: the impact of seaport efficiency on economic growth in Ghana’s maritime landscape

“…However, despite the wealth of global and regional studies, there is a notable gap in the literature concerning a comprehensive and context-specific analysis focused on Ghana. While some studies touch on the broader West African region (Abbes, 2015;van Dyck, 2015;Abdoulkarim et al, 2019;Kalgora et al, 2019) there is a lack of in-depth examination of how seaport efficiency uniquely influences economic growth dynamics within the Ghanaian context.…”

Comparative Evaluation of Operations Efficiency Between Major Seaports in Southern and Eastern Africa Using Dea Window Analysis

“…Bomboma , they applied various data envelopment analysis methods such as BCC, CCR and Windows I-C methods to measure 5 key commercial seaports efficiencies in West Africa over 11 years (2005-2016). Study found that Cotonou and Abidjan seaports should regulate their operational scales in order to improve their seaport efficiency, also they found that insecurity like terrorism and outbreak disease such as Ebola impacted seaport activities in West Africa [16]. Bomboma Kalgora (2019) he used Windows I-C method of DEA model to analyse competitiveness of strategic five container seaports in West Africa covering the period of 11 years (2005-2016).…”