Developing a comprehensive approach to port performance assessment

Abstract This paper investigates the port performance assessment and proposes a comprehensive framework with various perspectives as well as priority distributions of stakeholders’ expectations in port business and operations. One fundamental questions in port performance studies is how to evaluate and quantify intangible indicators on performance. There are definitely inputs and outputs, which may be measured and evaluated through conventional instruments. However, each instrument deals with a particular aspect of whole performance problem (e.g. port efficiency, port productivity,), and many of these instruments are limited to ‘measurable’ data on port management and operations. In this paper, these two common problems are put under the scope, and a comprehensive port performance assessment scheme is established by gathering various perspectives. Quality function deployment (QFD) approach is preferred to formulize the problem and define priority ratings of expectations by each stakeholder in the port domain. The framework can contribute to a broader understanding of ports as business units, its development drivers and interaction with community neighbors, and to shed light to port performance assessment considering both public and private entities.