Benefits evaluation of the Northeast Passage based on grey relational degree of discrete Z-numbers

Abstract

The opening of the Arctic routes has great economic and strategic value, but the navigation environment is highly uncertain, unknown and complex. Aiming at the ambiguity and partial reliability of the uncertain information in the Arctic routes, based on the Z-number theory and the grey relational theory, this study establishes a grey relational optimization decision-making model for the comprehensive benefit evaluation of the Northeast Passage (NEP). First, the discrete Z-number is used to represent the comprehensive benefit evaluation information of channel, and Jensen Shannon divergence is introduced to measure the difference information between discrete Z-numbers. Then, on the basis of the grey relational degree of discrete Z-numbers, a new multi-dimensional fuzzy grey multi-criteria decision-making model is established and subsequently optimized using the PSO algorithm. Finally, the effectiveness and superiority of the new model are verified by comprehensively evaluating the benefit of using the Arctic NEP and the traditional route under different sea ice conditions. Results show that the comprehensive benefit of the Suez Passage is still the highest, but that of the NEP has been steadily increasing. Therefore, with future improvements in Arctic sea ice conditions and infrastructures, the NEP may become the best route for ocean shipping.