Research On Application Of DEA Method In Evaluation Of Port Performance

It is a complex job to plan and operate a port, because it involves many departments and it is nearly not possible to assess the performance of a port by using just one index. To make assessment of the performance of a port is a planning problem of multi-input and multi-output.Data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is an analysis method for multi-input and multi-output problems, is applicable to the problem of port operating assessment and will be illustrated in this paper, with the focus on the description of the basic conceptions, the often used models and the methods of application.Firstly, the applicability of the DEA method in assessing the port efficiency is discussed based on the data of the internal resource allocation conditions of the sixteen European and Asian ports in the year of 1996. Different conclusions of assessment are gained since different index system is adopted in the present analysis. Directions for improvement are pointed out for the relative ineffective ports. Order arrangement is made for all the ports in consideration according to their relative efficiencies after making analysis of the ports by using an improved DEA method.Then, the developing process of Tianjin Port in recent one and half decades is analyzed by using the DEA method. The years are clarified into relatively inefficient and efficient one. For those inefficient years, analysis of their scale interests is carried out and the directions of improvement are point out. For those relative effective ports, however, order arrangement is carried out through further analysis in order to indicate for the decision makers the year of higher efficiency in terms of its performance.By making use of the advantage of the DEA method that it is capable of searching for the optimized solution and can analyze the problem of multi-output, forecast of the throughput and the waiting time of the vessels for berthing is carried out for an individual year. The values of the forecast are different from the actual ones, which is considered to be due to the over burden of the facilities. The results further reflect the practicability of DEA method in analysis of the port performance from the opposite...