The Service Quality For Safety of Ship Navigation in Harbor - An Empirical Study on The Port of Kaohsiung

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Taiwan is an island-country relying on marine transportation to develop its economy. Since ports are entrances of marine transportation, the accident prevention has been an important factor to affect the economy development of Taiwan. Previous studies showed that marine accidents occur mostly in ports and their vicinity. Hence, the safety of ship navigation in port is an important issue for port authorities. The purpose of this research is to discuss the service quality of safety for ship navigation in ports. According to the requirement of shipmasters to navigate ships in ports, the customer demands of service quality are investigated. The technique demands of service quality are then examined from the operation process of service provider (port authorities). At last, the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is employed to transfer the customer demands into the technique demands, by which the policy priorities to improve the safety of ship navigation in ports is found. To validate the research model, 81 shipmasters berthing their ships in Kaohsiung in June 2007 were sampled. The results indicate that the customer demands of service quality include 6 dimensions: VTC facilities, VTC services, facilities to lead navigation, service of harbor pilots, traffic control of waterways, and berthing service. The technique demands of service quality consist of 4 constructs: VTC function, profession of operators, ship equipments and port service. The results of QFD show that the vessel traffic, the operator ability to deal with emergency, the profession and attitude of operators on duty are listed on the first priorities. The ability of foreign language of operator should also be improved as well. The results can provide information for port authorities to improve the navigation safety of ships in ports. Keywords: Navigation safety; Service quality; Quality Function Deployment.