Assessment of Vessel Turnaround Time in Eastern Nigerian Ports

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue VI, June 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Assessment of Vessel Turnaround Time in Eastern Nigerian Ports

Monday, E. I.*, Emenike, G. C. and Ibe C. C.
Centre for Logistics and Transport Studies, University of Port Harcourt, Choba, Rivers State, Nigeria
*Corresponding Author

Abstract:- The study examined vessel turnaround time in Eastern Nigerian ports. The study adopted a survey research design. Three hundred and eleven questionnaire were administered to operational staff of Eastern Nigerian ports, and oral interviews were conducted using simple random sampling technique across the Ports. A direct emailing system was utilised to administer respondents questionnaire directly and available data obtained were analysed descriptively. The study findings revealed that container terminal performance in Eastern Nigerian ports with regards to vessel turnaround time at its best of 2 days per vessel especially for Onne Port in recent time, followed by Rivers Port, Delta (Warri) Port, and the Calabar Port in that order of efficiency. The PPMC analysis revealed that the rho outcome of 0.798 @ p0.000 <0.05 reveals that there is a strong significant relationship between port infrastructure and vessel turnaround time in Eastern Nigerian ports, which infer that the null hypothesis was rejected and alternate hypothesis was accepted indicating that; there is a significant relationship between port infrastructure and vessel turnaround time in Eastern Nigerian ports. The study concluded that vessel turnaround time has a global standard duration of 24 hours per vessel, hence the need for total improvement across the Eastern Ports. Port managers should improve on port automation orientation of their ports by encouraging the use of efficient work information and communication technology systems in order to improve on vessel turnaround time among others port performance indicators. Port managers should institutionalise port automation that will improve cargo turnaround time in the various sea-port so as to increase the income generation activities of port, thereby improving the nation’s economy.

I. INTRODUCTION

The operational situation at the four ports in Eastern Nigeria since the pre-concession era demonstrates a very low by 8% with respect to level of cargo through put, inefficiency in labour performance/output, and high turnaround time for ships, low berth occupancy, low labour (stevedores) performance, and customer’s service level (Nwanosike et al., 2016). Some ports are still performing below expectation in spite of port concession policy. Eastern ports which are all landlord ports operate below expectations,

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