Are transhipment ports more efficient in the Mediterranean Sea? Analysing the role of time at ports using DEA metafrontier approach

In recent decades, port efficiency has been widely studied by evaluating the use of the physical factors related to the endowment of infrastructure. However, ports are service providers, so in the production of port cargo services, the time efficiency in port operations matters. In fact, it is a key factor of port competitiveness, especially when shipping lines come to making port choice decisions. Despite the importance of time-related metrics in the port industry, there is a lack of empirical research measuring time efficiency in port operations. Therefore, the present research aims to study the port efficiency of the major Mediterranean container ports by including the variable berth time to capture the effective usage of the physical inputs. In this regard, the paper aims to identify whether there are differences between the efficiency scores obtained distinguishing between transhipment and gateway/mixed ports. To conduct the analysis, a non-parametric DEA metafrontier approach is used to account for heterogeneity problem related to the type of ports concerned. The results show that the transhipment hub ports are more efficient than gateway/mixed ports in the Mediterranean Sea. Factors explaining this result are explored and analysed in depth.