Though it is found previously in some empirical studies that being a hub port rather than a feeder port is associated with higher efficiency, in this study, the analysis of the potential factors affecting the efficiency level through a Tobit regression model mentioned previously reveals that there is no significant influence of high transshipment activities on port efficiency. With a low t statistics value as an indicator for the lack of significance of relationship (0.62), transshipment or being a hub port is not found to have a strong impact on the efficiency level of the terminals. However, when we investigate the transshipment ratios instead of using a dummy variable to categorize the terminals as hub or gateway ports, the relationship seems stronger than the result of the Tobit model. This is clearly due to the fact that there are many container terminals lying between these two categories (hub or gateway). The average tendency for the relationship between efficiency scores and transshipment ratios is plotted in Figure 22 and Figure 23 for CCR and BCC efficiencies, respectively. The correlation coefficient of the efficiency scores against transshipment is (0.794) for the CCR model. On the other hand, in the BCC model, the correlation coefficient of the efficiency scores against container throughput is less than (0.185). However, as seen in the trend of the marks in Figure 23, the container terminals with high transshipment ratios are associated with high efficiencies without exception. It should also be pointed out that in the sample all the private container terminals with the highest efficiency scores do also have high transshipment ratios. With the highest efficiency scores on average both in CCR and BCC models, Marport container terminal in Turkey, and Port Said, Damietta and Constanta container terminals in the region also have significantly high transshipment ratios.
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