A multiple criteria approach for ship risk classification: An alternative to the Paris MoU Ship Risk Profile

The Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control (Paris MoU) is responsible for controlling substandard shipping in European waters and, consequently, increasing the standards of safety, pollution prevention, and onboard living and working conditions. Since 2011, the Memorandum adopted a system of points, named the “Ship Risk Profile” (SRP), under which each ship is assigned a risk profile according to its score on a set of criteria. Being a multiple criteria decision aiding (MCDA) tool at its core, comprising criteria, weights, and risk categories, limited research has been performed on the SRP from an MCDA perspective. The purpose of this paper is to propose an MCDA approach for ship risk classification through the Deck of Cards Method (DCM). The DCM is particularly suitable within this context as it allows, intuitively for the decision-maker, to model preference among different criteria and among different levels on criteria scales. First, a framework is built, based on the criteria established in the SRP. Second, the DCM is used to build the MCDA model, including the definition of the criteria value functions and criteria weights. Finally, the proposed MCDA model is applied to a dataset of ships and the results are discussed. Robust results have been obtained with the proposed approach, making it a potential alternative to the current SRP.