Effect of Liner Shipping on Container Terminal Performance of Apapa and Onne Ports in Nigeria

This study investigates the effect of liner shipping on container terminal performance of Apapa and Onne ports, Nigeria. Liner shipping serves as the independent variable or predictor variable. Container terminal performance also serves as the key dependent variable or criterion variable under which the measures such as cargo throughputs and vessel turnaround time are appraised. The population of the study consists of the staff in the two ports (Apapa, 636 and Onne, 277), that is 913 staff and the study sampled 279 respondents out of which 222 were found useful and valid for the study analysis. The study collected data with the help of a structured questionnaire. The study used Pearson Products Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) to test the hypotheses with the aid of SPSS 22.0. The reliability of the research instrument was tested using the Cronbach alpha to ascertain the reliability of the instrument. The study found that liner is very instrumental to effective shipping operations. Conclusively liner shipping has a positive and significant relationship with cargo throughputs of Apapa and Onne Ports and liner shipping has a positive and significant relationship with vessel turnaround time of Apapa and Onne Ports. Therefore, the study recommends that port operators performance should be appraised constantly in order to ensure that the maritime sector is positioned to achieve the stakeholders objectives in Nigerian ports.