Analytic hierarchy process and TOPSIS based approach towards international container transshipment port selection: Application of Mediterranean region

As we progress into 2018, we have passed a half century where international shipping has multiplied 20 fold. During 2017, 84% of the globally carried cargo was carried by sea. Parallel to the Global Trend, within Turkey, 87% of total amount of cargo carried was carried similary by sea. Worldwide, 25% of container shipments gets transshipped. During 2016 ad 2017, the overall volume of container shipments handled in Turkey has risen 15% where the transshipped containers have seen a rise of 20%. Port-Port transshipment volüme shows the strongest growth and more than tripled in the last 20 years. Worldwide container port throughput increased from 36 M TEU in 1980 and 88 M TEU in 1990 to about 528 M TEU in 2008 and 623 M TEU in 2012. In addition, about 28% of the total throughput consists of transshipped containers in 2012. During 2016, 180,6 M Teus of containers have been carried which equals to a approximate total amount of 700 M Teus throughput reflected to ports. The total ports capacity in 2016 is around region 1,053 BN Teus whereas the terminal handling of containers in Turkey is approximately 9 M Teus. In 2017, the Global throughput of containers have increased to 200 M with a reflection of approximate 780 M Teus to ports and terminals. The same year, the Global container terminal capacity has reached 1,089 BN Teus and the container handling capacity of terminals in Turkey have reached approximately 20 M Teus and the realized handling levels were region 10 M Teus. It is estimated that the Global capacity of terminals will reach 1.2 BN levels with an estimated utilization level around 70.9% (851,1 M Teus). Containers are boxes, that the dimensions have been standardised, are used to transport goods from one terminal to another. Compared to conventional bulk, the usege of containers that has several benefits; the main benefits of using containers for sea transportation are that they have less damaging, require less packaging and leads to higher productivity. Containers are moved from one destination to another by vessel. On the other hand, new ship designs, along with a labor cost decrease, can be reached by extending autonomous operations. Therefore, per ship revenue would increase, while per container fuel costs would decrease. Feeder vessels connect ports with low transport volume or inadequate accessibility for big vessels to called hub ports. Also the hubs are connected with large ocean going vessels and feeders to save time and cost. These increasing figures reflect an increasing demand for transshipment terminals. Also an independent or alliance shipping line operating services connecting only hub ports from the port of loading and transshipping the containers to smaller market ports, through feeder vessels. Transshipment means a service through which the container is carried by a feeder vessel or main vessel from the loading port and delivered at the final port of destination undergoing transshipment in different hub ports. In other Word transhipment is the act of discharge a container from vessel (generally at a hub port) and loading it onto another vessel to be further carried to the final port of discharge. In the first leg of voyage, the container will be carried from the port of loading to the transshipment hub. There the container will be discharged from the vessel and will be loaded in next vessel, then carried by the vessel and discgarged in the required port of destination. Transshipment can be viewed as routing goods in such a way that would decrease shipping costs, take advantage of economies of scale and improve the range of services or routes offered to customers, also transshipment services provide shippers with additional routing options and reduced transit times. The container operators networks are developed to meet the growing demand in global supply chains. Shippers demand direct services between their preferred ports of loading and discharge. The demand side thus exerts a strong pressure on the service schedules, port rotations and feeder linkages. Shipping lines, however, have to design their liner services and networks in order to optimize ship utilization and benefit the most from scale economies in vessel size. Their objective is to optimize their shipping networks by rationalizing coverage of ports, shipping routes and transit time. Shipping lines may direct flows along paths that are optimal for the system, with the lowest cost for the entire network being achieved by using transshipment nodes in the network. Container transshipment terminal selection has become an essential part of the decision making process for container carriers. In this document, it is targeted to create a new approach and a tool and a decision model that supports the container terminal selection process. In the first section, the "container" is covered in detail with its history. Additionally, container types and the pros and cons of container utilization is highlighted with supportive up to date information. In the second section, starting with the first ship that was utilized to carry containers up to today's mega containerships – the history of containerships is covered. Containership types and the revisions in the ship passage channels with reference to the container ship knowledge is additionally covered in this section. Port and terminal notions have been addressed in the Third Section. History from the first handled container up to today, functions, provided services, external interactions and structure of Terminals have been studied in this Section. Global Container Carriers including the Alliance Structures and Global Container Terminals have been studied and covered with supportive up to day news. This study covers the transshipment terminals in the Mediterranean and the main hub and transshipment terminals of the Mediterranean Region have been covered within Section 3. Selection, including multiple selection methods have been underlined in Section 4. The methods; AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) that will be used during the selection process have been covered in this Section. In the Fifth Section, the previous studies capturing containers, container terminals and criteria on transshipment terminal selections have been studied. The main and sub-criteria selection is covered in this Section, including the simplification of the sub-criteria. During the application of the method, also supported by Specialists' recommendations, AHP has been used to handle the criteria for selecting the Mediterranean transshipment terminals and TOPSIS has been used to prioritize the transshipment terminals based on feasibility. During the studies, the selected Specialists have been involved during the entire process. Their comments and views have been collected after each assessment in order to monitor and assure consistency in the study. The sixth is the Conclusion Section where the application methods of the subject solution approach have been studied and Turkey's status related to the subject study has been underlined. The innovations and recommendations for similar future Studies in this area and the potential contribution of this study to the entire Container Transshipment Knowledge have been presented.