The determination of Turkish container ports performance with TOPSIS multiple criteria decision making method

Abstract

Purpose- Ports have a leading role on affecting country and regional economy with the development of international trade. With the world trading volume increasing day by day the performance of ports and terminals, which provide export, import, transit, local or regional transportation services, must be examined regularly in order for their maximum capacity to be utilized. Furthermore, due to the high costs of infrastructure and superstructure investments of container ports, long term plans and strategies are required. This study aims to evaluate the performance of 20 container ports operating in Turkey by examining the performance criteria of container ports in the world. Methodology- For this reason, when calculating the maximum capacity utilization of the ports, the main principle is to examine the effective utilization of all the inputs using various methods. In this study, the performance of 20 container ports operating in Turkey, has been analysed with the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method, using non-financial data from 2015. Findings- As a result of the analysis, the values that show the overall performance of the ports were converted into a single score with the help of the TOPSIS method and port performances were evaluated by comparatively examining the results obtained. Mersin port, Ambarli Marport and Kumport derived first with the highest performance. Conclusion- Port performance measurement has an important requirement for maritime transport. The high performance of container ports improve the productivity of the production such as labour and capital.