Weighting the competitiveness factors for container ports under conflicting interests

Abstract

Generally, an evaluation of container port competitiveness is regarded as a multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem which involves various stakeholders with conflicting interests. To solve MCDM problems, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method has been popular, but problems arise in managing uncertainty among decision makers, and contradictory opinions. The key issue discussed in this paper is how to obtain compromise weights (CWs) using a combined AHP procedure. This procedure incorporates Dempster-Shafer theory for eliminating uncertainty in the evaluation, and a levelling process for adjusting the contradictory opinions of each group, a so-called multiple decision-making group problem. For an empirical analysis, container ports located in Northeast Asia, known to exhibit severe port competition, were selected. Using an adoption of the methodology, the matrix of CWs was obtained. Using this matrix permits an exact evaluation of competitiveness in the sampled container ports.

Keywords:

• container port competitiveness
• multiple decision-making group problems
• combined AHP procedure
• compromise weights
• Dempster-Shafer theory

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to professionals in the field for their time and willingness to share their experiences and insights with us, and to anonymous reviewers whose comments improved the quality of the paper.