DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS (DEA) APPLIED TO PORTS: THE STATE OF THE ART

Port performance has become a determining factor for the development of the world economy, as maritime transport is the main link in the global logistics chain. In this context, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method has been used to study the efficiency of port systems and the results support organizational decision making. Thus, this article aims to identify the state of the art on DEA applied to ports. Through a bibliographical survey, fifty-five publications on the application of this method of mathematical modeling in the port sector were registered. Of these, fourteen studied the main world ports and only five focused their analyzes in Brazilian ports, which can be considered as a research gap. In addition, it was found that most of the studies are focused on port systems of containers. Therefore, there is an opportunity to explore the DEA tool for other types of loads.