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.

中文翻译：

---

地中海转运港效率更高吗？使用 DEA 元前沿方法分析港口时间的作用

近几十年来，通过评估与基础设施禀赋相关的物理因素的使用情况，港口效率得到了广泛的研究。但港口是服务提供者，在港口货物服务的生产中，港口作业的时间效率至关重要。事实上，它是港口竞争力的关键因素，尤其是当航运公司做出港口选择决策时。尽管时间相关指标在港口行业中很重要，但缺乏衡量港口运营时间效率的实证研究。因此，本研究旨在通过包括可变停泊时间来研究主要地中海集装箱港口的港口效率，以捕获物理投入的有效利用。在这方面，本文旨在确定区分转运和网关/混合港口所获得的效率分数是否存在差异。为了进行分析，使用非参数 DEA 元前沿方法来解释与相关港口类型相关的异质性问题。结果表明，地中海转运枢纽港比门户/混合港口效率更高。深入探讨和分析了解释这一结果的因素。