Evaluation of the Structural Competitiveness of Major Container Ports in Europe Using a Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach (CRITIC-TOPSIS-SAW)
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This study aims to evaluate the infrastructural competitiveness of Europe’s ten largest container ports using a quantitative approach and to identify the key infrastructure components that determine it. The study examines critical criteria such as quay length, maximum depth, number of cranes, terminal area, and annual capacity. Methodologically, a hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach was employed, incorporating CRITIC for the objective weighting of criteria and SAW and TOPSIS methods for ranking port performances. The findings revealed that the number of cranes (27.10%) and maximum depth (22.96%) were the most distinctive factors in the structural competitiveness of ports. According to the performance ranking, both SAW and TOPSIS results identified the ports of Antwerp-Bruges and Rotterdam as the top two ports with the strongest infrastructure in Europe. The high level of agreement obtained among different ranking methods indicates that the findings are consistent and robust in terms of sensitivity analysis. Moreover, this situation is also supported by the value of 0.9879 for the Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient. Consequently, it is recommended that port authorities and decision-makers prioritize strategic investments not only in terms of physical space size but also in terms of crane capacity, which increases operational speed, and depth increases suitable for large vessels.
Source: Fiscaoeconomia
Author: Bora Öçal
Institution: Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi
Language: Turkish
Topic: Maritime Ports and Logistics
Subfield: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7204458683