Intelligent decision support for criteria weighting in multicriteria analysis for evaluating and selecting cargo ships under uncertainty

Evaluating and selecting the most suitable ship for a given cargo shipping task is of tremendous importance for organizations in the maritime shipping industry. In practical decision making situations, the multi-dimensional nature of the ship evaluation and selection problem and the imprecise and subjective characteristics of the human decision making process make it difficult for the decision maker (DM) to precisely determine the relative importance of the selection criteria in a given situation. As a result, inconsistent criteria weightings are often produced, which lead to unreliable decisions being made in selecting the most suitable ship for a specific shipping task. This paper proposes an intelligent decision support system (DSS) for effectively assisting the DM in determining the criteria weightings in ship evaluation and selection. An example is presented for demonstrating the applicability of the proposed intelligent DSS for determining the criteria weightings in the ship evaluation and selection process.