Systematizing international benchmarking for ports

The subject of port efficiency is one of the important issues facing port authorities and policy makers today. A number of studies have been undertaken which compare ports in terms of their efficiency. But any port comparison can only be valid and meaningful if a port's efficiency is compared with a similar port. The principal objective of this paper is to introduce a systematic approach to identifying similar ports based on the technique of principal component analysis. Secondly, it seeks to identify the most important factors underlying the port classification. Lack of awareness of which factors differentiate ports has resulted in an unnecessary collection of data which are of limited use in port classification. This study has identified three groupings of similar ports within which port comparison can be justifiably made. This approach can be used for any future port comparison and can be applied to other areas of activity facing the same difficulty.