COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TURN-AROUND TIME AMONG SELECTED SEAPORTS IN WEST AFRICAN SUB-REGION

Turnaround time of a vessel in a seaport exhibits the capability and ability of a port in providing efficient and effective services. Ship turnaround time is one of the most significant Port performance indicator. This is the total time, spent by the vessel in port, during a given call. It is the sum of waiting time, berthing time, service time (i.e., ship’s time at berth) and sailing delay. West African ports play a crucial role in trade and economy, as 95% of merchandise trade is handled by ports. However, port turnaround time remains a key problem. It is significantly slower when compared to ports in other developing countries, being several times higher than for ports in China, Singapore and Malaysia. It is estimated that about 40% of ships time is spent in ports. The main contributing factors in high turnaround time of a vessel in a sea port are the port congestion, loading/unloading speed, method of cargo handling, general operational delays, strikes, ship catastrophe, pilotage and mooring time and delay due to weather. To reduce the turnaround time of a vessel in a seaport, the port processes are to be streamlined and capacity augmented. This research is aimed at identifying the factors that are responsible for turnaround time of vessels at West African Ports. As the present day vessels are of very large size to take advantage the economy of scale requires huge investment. The return on investment depends on the earning of vessel during her entire life. The voyage time of a vessel is the only earning period of the vessel, whereas the time spent in seaports is expenditure for the ship owners. Therefore every ship owners expect a very low turnaround time to get maximum benefits. The turnaround time is a function of port operations and port facilities. Currently, it is not possible to determine the significant factor(s) that influence port performance, in terms of turnaround time. The primary data of vessel arrival/departure Apapa & Cotonou Port Trust (NMPT) recorded at Vessel Traffic Management System (VTMS) are used for the present study. This study revealed that more than 120 factors affect the turnaround time of the vessel in a seaport. The factors attributable to high turnaround time at Lagos/Cotonou are mainly due to the pre-commencement and post-commencement documentation/custom formalities and the total time lost during loading unloading process. Non-availability of berths in case of liquid bulk cargo and non-availability of equipment’s and lack of mechanization in the dry bulk cargo handling also contributes to the increased turnaround time of vessels. The weightage of these factors in contributing high to turnaround time are analyzed through the developed optimization tool and total time consumed by the top 20 critical factors are calculated month on month basis.