QUEUE MODEL ANALYSES OF CONTAINER VESSEL OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE OF ONNE PORT, NIGERIA

This study evaluated the operational performance of Onne Port container terminals from 2007 to 2022, employing descriptive statistics and queueing model to diagnose delay in container vessel handling within Nigeria maritime logistics landscape. The analysis reveals an average ship turnaround time of 2.8 days (≈3days) above the global 48‑hour benchmark, accompanied by 0.825‑day delays, rising annual traffic of 567 vessels, low berth occupancy (32.2%), and high vacancy (67.8%), indicating idle infrastructure despite growing demand. Delay distributions show a median of 0.7 days, mode of 0.5 days, and range of 2.84 days, with a standard deviation of 0.6246, skewness of 2.38, and kurtosis of 7.51, confirming a right‑tailed, leptokurtic pattern vulnerable to extreme outliers from systemic bottlenecks. The study confirms delays not statistically significant (p=0.33 at 95% confidence level) to influence queue. Applying M/M/c queueing models, the study confirms Poisson arrivals (202 vessels/year), a service rate of 20 vessels per berth, an optimal capacity of 201 vessels, and a traffic intensity of 9.99, critically saturating infrastructure and amplifying queues. The findings highlight capacity mismatches eroding Onne Port competitiveness for time‑sensitive shippers, where prolonged turnaround and delays stem from under‑utilized berths, procedural lags, and vulnerability to traffic surges. Given that the container terminal exhibits high traffic intensity (ρ ≈ 1) alongside a relatively low berth occupancy of 32.19%, the study recommends reducing ρ by improving throughput and smoothing arrivals rather than merely adding berths; enhancing berth‑use efficiency, raising the effective service rate, deploying IoT‑enabled process optimization to cut delays below 0.5 days, instituting quarterly KPI monitoring with statistical alerts, and fostering public‑private partnerships benchmarked to global standards. These measures are expected to align Onne Port with international norms, increase throughput, and strengthen Nigerian port resilience.