RM is an essential element playing most important role in ensuring the effective operation and management of the sea ports and terminals and as a part of the RM, the process of risk evaluation is its main core. A new methodology proposed in this paper is based on the FST and ER approach. In this methodology by using a proposed generic risk evaluation model first, risks levels of the 22 individual risk factors for three Iranian ports were evaluated by using the FST. In the second part the result of the evolutions for three Iranian ports were synthesised by use of the ER approach in order to derive the belief degrees of the same risk factors for the mentioned ports. In the last part by feeding the relative weights available from an illustrative example along with the belief degrees calculated through the proposed methodology into the IDS software, the overall scores of the three nominated ports were calculated. In all the processes experts’ judgements were contributed for the purpose of this paper.
Moreover the developed ER approach in this paper provided a specific method to support MADM under uncertainties i.e. sources of risks and uncertainties during PTOM. The ER approach was not only capable of producing trustworthy results for MADM but also was a flexible method to handle a wider range of the complex MADM problems. Consequently as the ER approach is capable of dealing with general MADM problems, it also is being applied to decision problems in management and engineering, including product and process design, risk and safety analysis and synthesis, project management, marketing strategy analysis, quality and environmental management.
Eventually the proposed methodology and model in the form of a decision support can be implemented on any specific port during the course of their RM cycle, auditing, port-to-port risk evaluations and etc. This can help the ports’ and terminals’ managers and professionals, e.g. port risk managers and port auditors to take corrective and preventive actions at early stages to defeat a variety of problems. As by the use of the FST and ER approach operational risk factors of the nominated ports were evaluated, the same proposed methodology and model can be utilised in future to evaluate other categories of the risk factors associated in ports and terminals e.g. business risks and organisational risks.