The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has secured 13 new ports for its port data project.

The project, which was launched in 2013, assesses a port’s financial stability, labour productivity and operational efficiency by looking at 23 indicators such as revenue generated per employee, average ship waiting times and tonnage handled per hectare of land.

“For ports to work better, managers need to benchmark their performance on a wide range of indicators,” said Mark Assaf, manager of the project. “But there’s a lack of reliable data for port managers to use.”

According to UNCTAD, most data on seaports is aggregated at the country level rather than individually and there is a lack of global standards.

“Port managers want to know that they can trust the data, and that they’re comparing apples to apples,” Assaf said. “This is why from day one we’ve made sure the ports in the project agree on the indicators, the units of measurement and the methodology.”

Each port’s scorecard is updated annually.

The project now covers 42 participating ports across Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, according to UNCTAD.