Purpose

Port throughput analysis is a challenging task, as it consists of intertwined interactions between a variety of cargos and numerous influencing factors. This study aims to propose a quantitative method to facilitate port throughput analysis by identification of important cargos and key macroeconomic variables.

Design/methodology/approach

Mutual information is applied to measure the linear and nonlinear correlation among variables. The method gives a unique measure of dependence between two variables by quantifying the amount of information held in one variable through another variable.

Findings

This study uses the mutual information to the Port of Isafjordur in Iceland to underpin the port throughput analysis. The results show that marine products are the main export cargo, whereas most imports are fuel oil, industrial materials and marine product. The aggregation of these cargos, handled in the port, meaningfully determines the non-containerized port throughput. The relation between non-containerized export and the national gross domestic product (GDP) is relatively high. However, non-containerized import is mostly related to the world GDP. The non-containerized throughput shows a strong relation to the national GDP. Furthermore, the results reveal that the volume of national export trade is the key influencing macroeconomic variable to the containerized throughput.

Originality/value

Application of the mutual information in port throughput analysis effectively reduces epistemic uncertainty in the identification of important cargos and key influencing macroeconomic variables. Thus, it increases the reliability of the port throughput forecast.

中文翻译：

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互信息分析影响端口吞吐量的因素

目的

港口吞吐量分析是一项艰巨的任务，因为它由各种货物和众多影响因素之间的相互影响组成。这项研究旨在提出一种定量方法，通过识别重要的货物和关键的宏观经济变量来促进港口吞吐量的分析。

设计/方法/方法

互信息被应用于测量变量之间的线性和非线性相关性。该方法通过量化通过另一个变量保存在一个变量中的信息量，给出了两个变量之间依存关系的唯一度量。

发现

这项研究使用到冰岛Isafjordur港口的相互信息来支持港口吞吐量分析。结果表明，海产品是主要的出口货物，而大多数进口是燃料油，工业原料和海产品。在港口处理的这些货物的聚集，将有意义地确定非集装箱港口的吞吐量。非集装箱化出口与国民生产总值（GDP）之间的关系相对较高。但是，非集装箱进口主要与世界GDP相关。非集装箱吞吐量显示出与国民生产总值的强烈关系。此外，结果表明，国家出口贸易量是影响集装箱吞吐量的宏观经济变量的关键。

创意/价值

相互信息在港口吞吐量分析中的应用有效地减少了重要货物识别和关键影响宏观经济变量识别方面的认识不确定性。因此，它增加了端口吞吐量预测的可靠性。