A New Competition Index For Maritime Sector: A Case Study On Ship Inspections

The concept of competition is used in many areas from economy to health. As in all sectors, there is competition in the maritime transport industry. Although various Regional Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) have created risk assessment indexes for risk profile calculation, an index to measure competition in maritime transportation has not yet been used in the literature. Ships must successfully pass the inspections they face within the framework of international rules to maintain their commercial existence. The aim of this article is to provide a new perspective on measuring competition between ship types based on the results of inspections in maritime literature. In this context, for the first time in literature, the Ship Inspection Competition Index (SICI) is defined to examine the competition of ship types, flag states, recognized organizations, and ships subject to other inspection regimes. The SICI analysis was conducted using United States Coast Guard (USCG) Port State Control inspection results between 2020 and 2023. The results showed that tankers are more competitive than other ship types. At the same time, a competitiveness analysis of recognized organizations found that one organization was perfectly competitive (SICI = 0.0) compared to others. In the study, Cronbach's Alpha reliability test was conducted, and the result was 0.943 for the deficiency-based measure and 0.976 for the detention-based measure. Both results indicate a high level of reliability. It is considered that this study may provide valuable insights for future research.