Title: Risk assessment of ship-to-ship transfer operations based on stochastic criteria evaluation and intervally scaled importance weights

Authors: Dimitrios I. Stavrou; Nikolaos P. Ventikos; Yannis Siskos

Addresses: National Technical University of Athens, 9 Iroon Polytechniou str., Zografou 15773, Greece ' National Technical University of Athens, 9 Iroon Polytechniou str., Zografou 15773, Greece ' University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli and Dimitriou str, Piraeus, 185 34, Greece

Abstract: Ship-to-ship (STS) transfer of cargo operations suffers inherently from risks that can compromise the success of such operations, leading to an accident with adverse effects on human lives and the environment. A feasible way to tackle the risks of STS transfers is through the use of multicriteria decision aid (MCDA) methodologies. This paper aims to develop an MCDA model to evaluate risks of an STS transfer based on the outranking relation concept. The proposed methodology uses confidence indices to compare alternative risk scenarios on stochastic risk criteria evaluation. To do so, a team of experts evaluate the scenarios regarding three risk factors; the likelihood of a scenario to occur, the severity of the scenario and the ability to detect the risk on time. Next, fuzzy domination relation is applied to complete the ranking of the risks. Finally, robustness analysis is performed to control the model's stability.

Keywords: maritime activities; risk assessment; uncertainty; multicriteria decision analysis; MCDA; ship-to-ship transfer; STS transfers; stochastic criteria evaluation; intervally scaled importance weights; fuzzy domination relations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDSS.2016.081741

International Journal of Decision Support Systems, 2016 Vol.2 No.1/2/3, pp.109 - 134

Received: 27 Oct 2015
Accepted: 17 Mar 2016

Published online: 24 Jan 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article