Efficiency and input congestion of major marine transport companies in the world

The marine transport companies have been experiencing intense competition with the supply increasing faster than the demand, making most of them face input congestion. This paper applies the input congestion data envelopment analysis (DEA) model proposed by Tone and Sahoo (2004) to compute efficiency scores and input congestions of 159 major marine transport companies in the world during 2010–2019. The inputs include employees, total assets, and capital whereas the output is net sales. The base year for monetary values is 2010. It is found that the annual ratios of input-congested marine companies are between 20.9% and 65.7%, indicating that input congestion is not an unusual phenomenon among these companies. This paper also applies a BCG-like analysis to consider inefficiency and input congestion at the same time. The Mann-Whitney U test shows that most of the marine transport companies in Asia, Europe, and the Americas face both inefficiency and input congestion problems during the data period. This analysis is able to provide the implications for shipping companies to conduct more precise and efficient resource allocation and coordination in the post Covid-19 era.