Analysis of the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Public Service Obligation (PSO) Sea Transportation Routes in Indonesia: A Case Study of PT PELNI (Persero)

Maritime transportation under the Public Service Obligation (PSO) scheme plays a strategic role in ensuring interregional connectivity, particularly in Indonesia's disadvantaged, frontier, outermost, and border (3TP) areas. However, variations in the operational efficiency of PT PELNI (Persero)'s passenger ship routes may reduce the effectiveness of government subsidy utilization. This study aims to measure the operational efficiency of PSO passenger shipping routes, identify efficient and inefficient routes, and formulate operational improvement recommendations. A quantitative approach was employed using the Input-Oriented CCR Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model on 26 Decision Making Units (DMUs) representing PT PELNI (Persero)'s PSO passenger ship routes. The input variables consisted of fuel consumption, operating costs, and the number of crew members, while the output variables included the number of passengers, cargo volume, and sailing frequency. The study findings indicate that 5 vessel routes are operating efficiently, while the remaining 21 routes are still inefficient. Based on the DEA projection results, there is potential to improve efficiency through a reduction in fuel consumption of 37,599,416 litres (19%), operational cost savings of Rp744.57 billion (18%), and the optimisation of 458 crew members (20%), without reducing passenger volumes, cargo volumes, or sailing frequency. The relatively high fuel consumption, operating costs, and crew requirements are closely related to PT PELNI's role as a Public Service Obligation (PSO) operator serving government-assigned routes. The fleet continues to operate to ensure national connectivity and support regional economic activities through its ship promotes trade function, particularly in remote, frontier, and outermost (3T) regions. Consequently, operational costs tend to be higher than those of purely commercial shipping services.