Kent akademisi (Online), cilt.15, sa.4, ss.1651-1669, 2022 (Hakemli Dergi)
There should usually be a physical distance between the production, use and consumption points of the products, and one of the most important logistics activities in the supply chain is transportation. The method that enables transportation to reach the widest areas in the world is sea transportation. With maritime transport, continents and countries connect with each other and realize the supply chain. The two main criteria of maritime transport are ships and ports. It is very important to determine the ideal ship size that the ships used in maritime transportation are of different types according to the load, distance and location. There are more than one decision making model and decision criteria in determining the ideal dimensions of the ships. For this reason, shipping companies have difficulties in choosing the right ship size in their investment and operation decisions. There are two main criteria in ship types. They are ships engaged in long-distance sea transport and short-distance sea transport. Maritime companies have the chance to find all kinds of cargo with their ships regarding long-distance maritime transport. In short-distance maritime transport, the choice of ship is more limited. Coasters, which are the most used ship type in short-distance sea transportation, play an important role in the Turkish Maritime Industry. Therefore, Electre method, which is one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods, was used in this study to reveal the ideal dead weight tonnage (DWT) of a dry cargo coaster for shipping companies in Turkey. The coasters were divided into five categories according to their tonnage capacities, and then dry cargo coaster experts were asked for their opinions on five tonnage categories. The obtained data were evaluated with the Electre method and the optimal coaster tonnage was revealed