Jim Wilson

“The aim of the CPPI is to provide an objective measure of container port performance, identify global or local trends in maritime container trade efficiency, and highlight where vessel time in port could be improved,” the CPPI 2025 says in its Executive Summary. A good question therefore is whether or not it can be relied...

It is clear that the CPPI can now be used to review port performance over time. To be fair, previous versions of the report did not enable a robust time-based analysis because those earlier versions were focused on comparing port performance within that year. In the most recent report, the earlier data was “normalized”. That’s...

Being a big port isn’t the key to performing well, the CPPI indicates. Good management is the key. Any port could, in theory, boost its performance by copying the good management practices of high-scoring ports. Adopting digital systems was one driver of improved performance. As the report says on page xv: “the CPPI confirms that...

A few commentators have gotten the hump about Bell Bay being quite highly ranked (well, highly ranked relative to other Australian container ports anyway) in the World Bank’s Container Port Performance Index. Bell Bay gets a CPPI 2024 ranking of 196, which leaves behind several more well-known Australian ports. It’s worth pondering on this. Every...

Is Australian container port performance really all that bad despite Australian ports having low rankings in the World Bank’s Container Port Performance Index? It’s a fair question to ask. Critics of the CPPI have certainly used that argument. The CPPI is a body of work by the World Bank that is based on S&P Global...

“I hate you,” said the orange. “But why?!” exclaimed the apple, surprised, and hurt. “Because you are green! And green is not beautifully orange, like me,” the orange preened, twisting slightly in the early morning sun to highlight its beauty. There was an awkward silence. “Well,” said the apple, with righteous annoyance, “of course I...

Australian ports are unfairly penalised by the World Bank’s latest Container Port Performance Index because it doesn’t take investment into account, or so the critique goes. We’ll skip over the problems of insisting that one thing is bad because it is not some other thing, or that a pure report should be contaminated with nonrelevant...

If anyone suggests that performance, or indeed, anything else needs to be measured, then the next obvious question is: what should we count? There are some fairly obvious candidates: total vessel time in port, the difference between “time in port” and “time at berth”, and crane rates (boxes moved per berth hour). Metrics that count...

As the World Bank indicates in its latest CPPI report, a timely turnaround of container ships keeps logistics costs low and ensures that ports “remain catalysts for development”. As any good manager understands, if we want to know how a thing is performing, then we need to measure that thing. That task has been done...

We have just published our latest Annual Review! Every year in shipping is an amazing year! 2025 in Australia in international shipping was another heck of a ride! A massive break bulk stevedoring strike ground to a halt in early 2025, and that was followed by a series of literal disasters in Queensland and WA....