A new port study by Mary Brooks, Thanos Pallis and Tony Schellinck examining Users’ perspectives of port effectiveness in North America is published in Transport Research Records (TRR), an ISI indexed scholarly journal published by the Transportation Research Board in US. (vol. 2222, pp. 34-42),
This study discusses the findings of a survey of port users’ perspectives in North America that identifies and evaluates a key, yet under-researched, component of port performance, that is effectiveness in delivering port services to port users. This research responds to recent calls by port scholars for studies measuring port performance for more analytical emphasis on users’ perspectives. The study was conducted with the help of 13 professional associations in the U.S. and Canada and results in an understanding of (a) how port users evaluate the ports they use, (b) what is most important to them in terms of the attributes of services, and (c) how they evaluate the performance of ports they use on the U.S. east coast and in Canada. Participants were asked to rate the importance of various performance criteria and then to apply them by evaluating the performance of the ports they use on those dimensions. To analyze the findings, the study employs a gap analysis and uses Normalized Pairwise Estimations to measure the actual influence of a criterion on port performance. With performance being more than just satisfaction, this process generates knowledge on what contributes to better performance in the eyes of users in two different regions of North America. The results of this type of study will, in future, enable stakeholders to compare performance from specific ports as input to decision-making, and enable ports to focus their resources on improvements that matter to their customers and supply chain partners.
The study is available via the TRR homepage.
