Decision-making of investment in navigation safety improving schemes with application of cumulative prospect theory

Abstract

Navigation safety improving investment aims at mitigating risk and improving safety of shipping system, while decision-makers’ attitudes toward the uncertainty of shipping safety possess a characteristic of “bounded rationality.” To study the tendency of shipping safety investment decision-making with different risk perception and appetite, a decision-making method based on cumulative prospect theory is proposed in this article. First, we extract the decision attributes through analyzing the factors affecting shipping safety investment. Then, according to cumulative prospect theory, the value function and the probability weighting function for calculating cumulative prospect values of shipping investment attributes are given. Under the risk-based multi-attribute group decision-making framework, linear programming model and projection method are introduced to aggregate the weights of attributes and decision-makers, respectively. Furthermore, through a case study, the proposed methodology is utilized in Three Gorges Dam area, and the desirable safety investment scheme is determined from a set of candidate alternatives. The case study shows not only validity and feasibility of the decision-making approach but also the mechanism of shipping safety investment decision-making with consideration of the behavior characteristics of decision-makers such as reference dependence, risk appetite distortion, and loss aversion.