Toward Sustainable Ferry Routes in Korea: Analysis of Operational Efficiency Considering Passenger Mobility Burdens

With its long coastline, and numerous inlets and offshore islands, coastal ferry industries play a vital role in Korean maritime transportation. This study focuses on the southwestern part of Korea, Mokpo (which has the most inhabited islands and the highest proportion of elderly island residents), and aims to evaluate the impact of passengers’ mobility burdens on the efficiency of ferry routes to achieve a better service for passengers. Integrated principal component analysis–data envelopment analysis and a fuzzy C-means clustering method were applied to analyze the efficiency of ferry routes in the Mokpo area. The efficiency results indicate that longer routes do not always achieve high-efficiency scores. The proportion of general passengers appears to influence the efficiency improvements of both general and subsidiary ferry routes. These findings can assist in better comprehending the relationship between passengers’ mobility burdens and ferry route efficiencies; this will enable the authorities and ferry management departments to develop appropriate policies and strategies and to reconstruct certain features of the inefficient routes, thereby increasing operational efficiency, reducing mobility burdens, and improving the convenience of ferry travel and sustainability of Korean passenger routes.