Because of its geographical location, the Philippines must have an efficient maritime transport infrastructure to facilitate international trade. But currently, vessels calling at the Port of Manila are facing delays in receiving services due to congestion. This has resulted in waiting time costs, which are borne by shipping lines and owners of cargo. One measure that could relieve congestion is to increase the number of servers, or berths.
The decision whether to construct a new berth must be carefully considered, because such construction is very costly. This study can inform that decision. The study applies queuing methodology to determine the optimal number of berths that will minimize the total cost, including waiting and service costs, at the Manila International Container Terminal (MICT). The data for the month of January 2013 was collected and provided by the authority at the Port of Manila. Statistical tests were applied to check the distribution pattern for ships’ rate of arrival.
One of the basic assumptions of queuing methodology is that customers (in this case, vessels) arrive randomly at berth and should be served on a first-come first-served basis. The results of the present study reveal that the pattern of ship arrivals follows Poisson’s law of random distribution, which confirms the basic assumption and validity of the proposed queuing methodology.
The queuing model was solved for different numbers of berths. The second case is the base case, which depicts the present situation in which five berths are serving the vessels calling at the MICT. The average waiting time obtained after solving the queuing model is quite close to the actual waiting time, which confirms the validity of the model used. In order to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of a capacity-expansion decision, the total cost for different numbers of berths was estimated in order to determine the optimal number of berths. From the port users’ perspective, the benefits of capacity expansion are reduction in waiting time and, consequently, reduction in waiting time cost. In this study, the vessels’ charter cost and containers’ lease cost are considered as waiting time cost because delays in service provision will increase these cost. From the port authority’s perspective, it is important to minimize the construction cost of each berth. The study results reveal that the optimal number of berths that minimizes the total cost is five. The analysis reveals that the number of berths at MICT is already adequate. In order to release congestion, port managers must take other actions. For this purpose, it is recommended that future studies trace out the reasons for congestion at ports and suggest appropriate measures to release congestion.