Attributes influencing port times of container ships

Shipping of freight by sea is the pillar of international trade. Maritime transport has its crucial nodes in the port systems. One of the main characteristic of ports in the context of maritime transport, is given by the port time of ships from arrival to departure in/from the port, after having completed the loading/unloading operations. It is therefore necessary to know how the different attributes of the ports influence the port times of ships. The most important attributes are then discussed and a multiple linear regression model is estimated. The results obtained are interesting because they highlight the role of attributes that affect the entire port system, such as the ship capacity. The results are important because they make it possible to identify overall investments relating to the single port system in addition to the usual actions to optimize the processing of individual ships.