Identifying and ranking the affecting factors for performance enhancement in maritime transport with a multi-branch decision-making approach based on the utility theory

Background and Theoretical Foundations: Transportation is one of the necessities for the economic development of any country. Among various modes of transportation such as air, land and sea the sea transportation is the cheapest, and it is more important as the worlds continue to grow. In Iran, due to political issues and sanctions, and since imposing limitation on marine transport cannot be implemented in international law, sea transport has become more important than land and air. Methodology: In this study, value-added factors in the development of the maritime transport industry are identified. To identify the role that different factors play in the final value created, the criteria of service, cost quality, and time, using the Johansson model are used, as well as the multi-criteria utility method (MAUT) to evaluate and compare the value of different processes. Findings: The application of the multi-criteria utility method is illustrated with an example from each industry sector, namely liners, bulk carriers, tankers and specialized loads. Conclusion: The results showed that the most important factor by transport companies is the emphasis on quality. There is also a different importance on services and costs in different parts of the industry and the time criterion is considered as the least valuable factor by all four parts of the companies surveyed