Sustainable transportation mode selection from the freight forwarder's perspective in trading with western EU countries

Abstract

The transportation mode selection problem is one of the most significant problems that logistics companies and freight forwarders face. The complexity of this problem is reflected in a large number of factors that affect the choice of an adequate mode of transport. In order to facilitate the decision-making process when choosing, the aim of this paper is to propose an approach for selecting sustainable transportation mode when trading with western EU countries using the Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods, i.e., SWARA (Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis) and MARCOS (Measurement Alternatives and Ranking according to Compromise Solution) methods. SWARA was used to determine the weights of the criteria, while MARCOS was used for the final ranking of the alternatives. In this paper, nine criteria and five alternatives for the realization of transport from Serbia to Germany were observed. The developed approach represents a novelty since the combination of these methods has not been used yet to solve described problem. The results of the described methodology showed that road transport (via the Horgoš border crossing) proved to be the alternative with the best value, while road transport via the Batrovci border crossing proved to be the alternative with the lowest value.