Application of DEA and SFA on the Measurement of Operating

Proceedings of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol. 5, pp. 592 - 607, 2005

Application of DEA and SFA on the Measurement of Operating
Efficiencies for 27 International Container Ports
Lie-Chien Lin
Associate Professor
Department of Logistics Management
National Kaohsiung First University of
Science and Technology
2, Juoy Rd. Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

Lih-An Tseng
Warehouse Officer
Research and Development Department
Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau, MOTC
62, Linhai 2nd Rd. Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

Abstract: The operating efficiency of a port is the critical element for its competitiveness in the international market. Previous research for port operating efficiencies measurement usually adopts either DEA or SFA method, but not both of them. Therefore, this paper is aimed to measure the operating efficiencies of 27 international container ports from 1999 to
2002 by applying both SFA and DEA models with three inputs and single output. The result shows that the total average of operating efficiency scores are SFATR(0.8217) ＞
SFACD(0.7979)＞DEABCC(0.7075)＞DEACCR(0.6150), and Hong Kong port demonstrates the best performance in each model. Also, three hypotheses for port performance, including the geographical location of port, port administrative structure, and national economic growth rate, are performed in this paper. The results show that the operating efficiencies are not significantly different with the previous two hypotheses; however, the last hypothesis shows significant difference in DEA model.
Key Words: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA), Port
Operating Efficiency, International Container Port.
1. INTRODUCTION
The efficiency of port operation is an important indicator of economic development since more than 80% of the global international trade is conducted by way of maritime

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