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

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.