Supporting Policy Making in Maritime Transport by ...

Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris

Supporting Policy Making in Maritime Transport by Means of MultiActors Multi-Criteria Analysis: A Methodology Developed for the Greek Maritime Transport System Eliza Gagatsi a*, George Giannopoulos b, Georgia Aifandopoulou b a

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Faculty of Engineering, Civil Engineering Dep,Thessaloniki, Greece b Centre For Research and Technology Hellas, Hellenic Institute of Transport, Thessaloniki, Greece

Abstract Maritime transportation is an important sector of the economy, strongly dependant on a dynamically changing environment comprising of internal as well as external to the system, parameters and market dynamics. The recent financial crisis that strongly affected maritime transportation in many countries among which, Greece, confirms the need for flexible policy structures able to cope with critical and unstable situations. In this particular multi-dimensional environment, policy making is an important yet delicate process that, if properly structured and exploited, can support the sector's competitiveness and contribute to its ultimate exploitation benefiting also a variety of other interrelated sectors varying from the regional to the global level. This paper presents a methodology developed for supporting policy making in maritime transport in Greece, based on the principals of the Multi- Actors Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA). Keywords: maritime policy; policy evaluation methodology; multi-actors multi criteria analysis Résumé Le transport maritime est un secteur important de l'économie, fortement dépendante d'une évolution dynamique environnement comprenant des internes comme externes au système, les paramètres et la dynamique du marché. La récente crise financière, qui a fortement affecté les transports maritimes dans de nombreux pays parmi lesquels, la Grèce, confirme la nécessité de politiques souples structures capables de faire face aux critiques et les situations instables. Dans cet environnement multidimensionnel, de l'élaboration des politiques est un important encore processus délicat qui, si elle est correctement structurée et exploitées, peuvent soutenir la compétitivité du secteur et contribuer à son ultime exploitation bénéficiant également d'une variété d'autres secteurs interdépendants variant du niveau régional au niveau mondial. Ce document présente la méthodologie développée pour soutenir la prise de décisions dans le domaine des transports maritimes en Grèce, fondée sur les principes de la Multi- acteurs Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA). Mots-clé: Politique maritime; politique méthodologie d'évaluation; multi-acteurs multi critères analyse

*

Eliza Gagatsi Tel.: +30 2310 498464; fax: +30 2310 498269; E-mail address: [email protected].

Author name / Transport Research Arena 2014, Paris

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1. Introduction Decision making, as a process linking policy formulation to the actual policy implementation, is characterised by a high level of complexity and arduousness. Reaching the appropriate decision involves the optimization of a multitude of parameters and a complex interplay of information, interests and opinions of a variety of affected social groups (Hey et al, 1997). Different researchers and policy implementation guidelines (HM Treasury, 2003) suggest that “all new policies, programmes and projects, whether revenue, capital or regulatory, should be subject to comprehensive but proportionate assessment so as best to promote the public interest‟. Looking deeper into the Political Science Research, one can find a wide repository of different Policy Cycles, namely tools established for analysing the development of a policy item through a series of (proposed) subsequent methodological steps, varying in their number and scope, all of which though, including the policy evaluation/assessment element, as a process taking place before any other process is enacted and implying the comparability of very different impacts in a manner of transparency, simplicity, and accountability (Dodgson, 2009). In the case of transportation, policy making may address different issues, varying from the planning, design and construction to the management of transport infrastructures and related networks, and resulting to a wide range of impacts and considerable economic, social and environmental consequences (Tsamboulas & Kopscacheili , 2003). Being interlinked to a number of other sectors (eg economy, social cohesion, environment, urban development, tourism etc) transport policy making has proved to be a rather complex task that needs special attention and calls for sophisticated assessment methods facilitating the decision makers on assessing different aspects of each policy alternative. In the particular sector of maritime transportation, policy is made and implemented under conditions of multiple objectives (deriving from the variety of involved stakeholders) and constraints (Frankel, 1992) in an environment characterized by strong complexity in the relations between jurisdictions, administrators, politicians and the industry (Roe, 2009). Focusing on Greece, a traditional global maritime player holding the 3 rd largest fleet and the 16,1% of the world‟s deadweight tonnage (UNCTAD, 2012), maritime transportation is of particular importance to the country‟s economy and prosperity comprising a significant revenue generator and contributor to the GNP. The sector supports major national policy goals, being an important source of employment, a critical factor in securing territorial continuity and regional development (islander areas), and a major tourism facilitator. Further to being important, the Greek maritime transport system, comprising of 4 distinctive sub-areas (Corres, 2007)†, is a rather complex environment dominated by a variety of actors, stakeholders and social parties, all influencing policy making. The inclusion of multiple stakeholders in the decision making process has proven an important and often crucial factor (Macharis et al, 2010), (Walker, 2000) for successful policy implementation, a fact suggesting the need for incorporating group decision approaches in any given policy formulation & assessment methodology.

2. Problem identification 2.1. The Greek Coastal Shipping sector: the „big‟ picture The Greek coastal shipping system, defined as the transportation of passengers, vehicles and cargo between Greek ports, is a complex system involving three types of movements: mainland ‡ to insular, insular to insular and mainland to mainland connections. The unique islander character of Greece, a country with more than 3000 islands, 450 of which are inhabited, calls for a well-structured coastal shipping network that can warranty the territorial continuity of the country‟s transportation system, can reduce insularity and promote regional development. The system is characterized by 3 major aspects: the high seasonality (Giannopoulos et al , 2004), (Lekakou , 2007) of transport demand with more than half of it occurring around the summer period (from May to September)§, the extreme weather conditions affecting transport service provision in different ways (e.g. need for specially designed vessels, incidents of service disruption due to weather conditions etc.) and the significant

†

The Greek maritime transport system comprises of the ocean going, the short-sea shipping, the cruise and the domestic ferries sectors ‡ Mainland Greece also includes two large “island-like areas” namely Peloponesse & Evoia § Source: National Statistic Agency, (N.S.S.G.)


differentiation in terms of demand concentration on specific „lines‟ and destinations. Especially the latter one results to a subset of lines and destinations comprising the „profitable‟ part of the network (e.g. the „lines‟ to Crete island) while the rest is the so called „un-profitable‟ lines‟ network, the operation of which is secured through the financial support of the state („public service‟ lines). The number of „un-profitable‟ lines and the respective national budget spent for its operation have both been increasing year after year, reaching 85.75 mEuros for the operation of 79 out of 157 lines of the network in 2013. 2.2. Current situation and foreseen trends The coastal shipping industry is one of the many sectors that have been dramatically affected by the financial crisis encountered in Greece since 2008. In addition to the decreased demand, shipping companies had to deal with the increased fuel prices –reaching in 2010, 45% of their total operating cost - and the credit risk associated with their debtors, also facing significant difficulties due to the economic stagnation of the country (XRTC, 2011). Finally, a series of protests related also to the crisis, worsened the country‟s touristic image leading to cancelation of many tourist arrivals which further reduced the respective demand for coastal transport services. This situation affected previously well established and profitable shipping companies which are now operating at marginal or no profit (some reporting their biggest losses ever), even in the cases where these operate under public service contracts (COM(2012) 299 final). This led in many cases to weak network coverage – especially in relation to the connections with small and very small islands- along with a low quality of service provision. The downward trend of the demand for coastal shipping services - expected to continue also in the forthcoming years (XRTC, 2012)-, has sky-rocketed the sector‟s unemployment rates, in a period where, unemployment is one of the most critical situations that the country has to cope with. 2.3. The power of national stakeholders During the long history of the Greek Coastal Shipping Sector, numerous cases can be reported where different stakeholders (e.g. ship owners, labour unions etc.) managed to affect the operation of the sector, characterised (until recently) by strong state intervention. (Lekakou et al (2002, 2007) reports different cases of ship-owners „falsifying‟ in certain extent competitiveness by exploiting personal contacts (politics) in the regulatory authorities for their own benefits. As is characteristically mentioned, this was the case where “the regulated companies managed to capture the regulators” (Lekakou, 2007). The vulnerability of the Greek island area makes it strongly dependent on the availability and the proper operation of the country‟s coastal transportation system, a fact that gives additional power to the key system stakeholders being the main elements of it. Thus, it becomes evident that common acceptability based on consensus among the various involved stakeholders is a vital prerequisite for the successful implementation of any given policy measure affecting the operation of this fragile and very important system.

3. Selecting a methodology for evaluating alternative transport policy measures Multi-Criteria- Decision Analysis (MCDA), being a useful analytic tool that supports decision making in an under uncertainty environment, became over the years a popular evaluation method with numerous recorded applications in the evaluation of complex problems. The lack of one single and central goal, that is common to all integrated policies – such as the relevant policies of maritime sector-, combined with a great number of impacts that cannot always be monetised, regards the MCDA methods more “attractive” than Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and other popular and widely used financial-economic evaluation methods (eg costeffectiveness analysis - CEA, Economic Effects Analysis-EEA, balance sheets) (Bakker, 2009) (Macharis, 2008). Zahedi (1986) reports MCDA applications (AHP in particular) in an exhaustive list of research areas including economics and planning, energy, health, conflict resolution, manpower selection and performance appraisal, project selection, marketing, budget allocation, education, politics, sociology, methodology development, consulting etc. Applications of MCDA can be found also in the transport-related bibliography. Macharis & Ampe (2007) reported 143 article titles of relevant MCDA applications in transportation over the period 1980-2006 most of which, published within the last 10 years. According to the same source, the Analytic Hierarchic Process appears as the most popular MCDA method, applied in 36.4% of the identified cases, followed by ELECTRE that is preferred in 14.4% of the cases.


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In the case of maritime transportation, several MCDA applications have been applied, most of which however focus only on the evaluation of specific aspects of maritime transport often related to port choice (Chou, 2010; Vaggelas, 2007; Lirn, 2004), port competitiveness ( (Yeo, 2008), (Ki-Tae, 2003)), ship / ship registry/ ocean carrier selection ( Xinlian Xie, 2008),( Deng, 2011), (Kandakoglu, 2009), (Kannan & Bose, 2011)) etc. In the particular area of maritime transport policy evaluation, there is a lack of such applications, while at the same time several MCDA applications are found in other transport policy areas such as freight transport and logistics (Macharis 2010), the European Transport Policy (Hey et al, 1997), air transport (Vreeker, 2002), public transport systems (Zak J., 2001) (Tsamboulas et al) etc. The main multi-criteria analysis application for maritime policy evaluation problems, was presented by Frankel in 1992. The proposed approach adopts Saaty‟s Analytic Hierarchical logic (Saaty, 1980) on shipping policies evaluation, placing particular emphasis on the problem structuring, and taking into account the complex sets of priorities of the various stakeholders and their conflicting objectives in the choice among alternative strategies (Kumar, 2002). The wide use of MCDA in different research areas led to many techniques being developed and gradually becoming powerful tools for the evaluation of a variety of problems. Multi – criteria Group Decision Making (GDM) is one of the main MCDA techniques with a quite dynamic evolution over the past years. The participation of multiple stakeholders in the evaluation process was introduced first by Banville (Leyva - Lopez, 2010). The main strength of these methods relates to the evaluation criteria which, being developed through the participation of different stakeholders, can better cover their interests and facilitate a more accurate recording of cause/effect assumptions (theory) to be exploited in the decision making process. In the particular case of transportation projects' appraisal, stakeholders' participation is considered a very important asset since it helps identifying and including in the analysis the different priorities of stakeholders, increases the acceptance rate of the project, strengthens the robustness and quality of the decision and overcomes problems with the criteria/ alternatives weights (Macharis, 2007). In the above logic, the recently developed Multi-Actors Multi Criteria Methodology (Macharis et al, 2008) (Macharis & Nijkamp, 2011) combines elements of Group Decision Making Methods under the consideration of a Multi-Criteria evaluation framework well suited for transport related assessment problems. Up to now, several applications of MA-MCA in transportation fields have been published with most important those concerning: the Intermodal terminal location selection case (Lambit) (Macharis, 2011), the Evaluation of Advanced driver assistance (Macharis et al., 2004), waste transport in the Brussels Region (Macharis & Boel, 2004), location of a new HST terminal (Meeus et al., 2004), sustainable traction battery technologies (Macharis et al., 2005), DHL‟s hub strategy (Dooms & Macharis, 2006), and aviation CO2 mitigation strategies (Festraets 2007). This paper adopts the MA-MCA principles to shape a methodology for the formulation and assessment of the Greek maritime transport policy, with particular focus on the coastal shipping sector. As the development of an integrated maritime transport policy requires a deductive and systems approach to reconcile a multitude of goals and interests, and at the same time to comply with a number of standards and constraints posed by national and international regulations (Saaty, 1980) (Frankel, 1992), the present article adopts the AHP method applied within MA-MCA for structuring and assessing such alternative policies. MA- MCA similarly to all other members of the MCDA „family‟, is structured around a number of consecutive steps starting from goal identification and concluding with the actual implementation of the alternatives' evaluation, as shown in the following Figure.


Fig. 1. Methodological framework (based on Macharis, 2005 adapted by the author)

Stakeholders‟ involvement is initiated at the very early phase of the evaluation in contrast to other MCDA methods (Macharis et al, 2008) and focuses on the identification of the evaluation criteria. In the methodology developed within the current research, stakeholders‟ involvement starts from Step 2 namely the definition of the alternatives (e.g. policy measures) to be examined/ evaluated versus their expected impact on the sector‟s viability.

4. Evaluating existing policy measures and proposals to support the viability of the Greek Coastal Transportation system by means of MA-MCA 4.1. Goal identification (Step1) The definition of the analysis goal is a crucial first step that has to be clearly defined and communicated to the various „actors‟ involved in the subsequent steps of the methodology (eg stakeholders, experts etc). Thus, the ultimate goal of the analysis is the evaluation of a number of policies and relevant measures in relation to their expected impact to the Greek Coastal Transportation system's viability cascaded into 4 main elements namely: securing social cohesion, providing opportunities for regional development, improving the sector‟s contribution to the country‟s economy and the employment. The analysis goal and its four dimensions have been recently validated by a workshop undertaken with the presence of all actors, under the auspices of the relevant Ministry. 4.2. Mapping the Greek Coastal Transportation System (Step 2) The system mapping, included in the second methodological Step, provides the necessary knowledge of the system, i.e. its various components, roles, interrelations as well as trends and existing legal limitations. The stakeholders‟ analysis identified the various system stakeholders, their roles, needs, objectives and priorities, thus providing the basis for the identification of the evaluation criteria. Saaty (Saaty, 1994) advises that among other parameters, the knowledge needed to make a proper decision includes the people or actors involved and their objectives and policies. The Stakeholders‟ analysis is in fact an “aid to properly identify the range of stakeholders which needs to be consulted and whose views should be taken into account in the evaluation process” (Macharis et al, 2012). Stakeholders' identification is based on the analysis of historical, legislative and administrative documents (Munda, 2004) taking into consideration the (physical) borders of the system under evaluation, which in the examined case (coastal shipping policy measures) are set at a national level. Table 4


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below gives an overview of the stakeholders mapping under the Porter‟s 5 forces of competition model logic, adjusted to the particularities of the „industry‟ in focus:

Key competiti ve forces

Table 2. Key competitive forces within the Greek coastal transport industry Transport Demand

Transport Supply (Suppliers)

(Competitive Rivalry)

(Clients)

Shipping companies Labor

Island inhabitants

Ports

Tourists

External Competition (new entrants)

Air transport

Foreign shipping companies

Cruise *

Fr.forwarders

Holders

Actors- Stake-

Internal Competition

Transport operators

*concerns only tourism related demand

As part of this analysis, 5 major types of stakeholders have been identified: the decision making bodies (eg the relevant Ministries), the service providers (supply) namely the shipping companies (e.g. ANEK lines, ATTICA, MINOAN, NEL lines, etc.), the ports / port authorities including both island and mainland seaports (supply element), the users of the system (demand) and the labour force (supply), all together comprising the major elements of the Greek Coastal Shipping system. The priorities, interests and main objectives of the various stakeholders differ and often conflict each other. The main interest for example, of the „financial‟ actors (eg shipping companies, ports) are related to cost reduction and profit maximazition at the same time when the system users focus on the quality of the provided services translated into various parameters such as the service frequencies, network coverage, trip duration, departure times etc. Similar conflicts are met among the labour force and the shipping companies, with the first group trying to secure the employment level and working conditions and the second, proposing measures that lead to less strict coastal fleet manning regulations aiming to reduce the relevant labor cost. Figure 2 below provides a graphical representation of the various stakeholders and their overall priorities as identified within the stakeholders‟ analysis phase.

System Users*

…….

Departure time

Safety/security

Trip duration

Fleet characteristics

Service frequencies

Wages

Secure employment

Improved Service Quality

Network coverage

Increased profits

Profit maximization

Labor

Crew composition

Ports

Increase contribution to GDP

Fares prices

Public funding

Cost reduction

Transport cost

No of vehicles

No of lorries

Increase Demand

Shipping comp

Market Share

Dec.Making Body

No.of Passengers

Main priorities

Stakeholders

STEP 2: System mapping

Fig. 2. Main stakeholders‟ groups of the Greek Coastal Shipping sector and their key priorities As already explained, the stakeholders analysis is the basis for the definition of the main elements of the problem under examination, formulating the hierarchy tree. The evaluation criteria (see section 4.5 below) are directly linked to the different stakeholders priorities while the evaluation alternatives (see section 4.3 below) are based on identified policy measures proposed by the stakeholders. 4.3. Defining and selecting the policy alternatives to be evaluated (Step 3) In the maritime case under examination, the evaluation alternatives are a set of previously proposed policies/policy measures aiming to support the sector‟s viability (Step 1- goal). Based on a detailed stakeholders‟ analysis in the 2011-2012 period, the author was able to identify a series of policy measures representing in most of the cases the stakeholders‟ policy proposals, as shown in the following Table.


Table 3. Policy Measures for supporting the viability of Greek Coastal shipping sector Id

Policy Measures (PM) for improving the coastal shipping sector‟s viability

PM1

Policy measures for reducing transport service price (fares) to the final users such as the Abolition of relevant taxes (e.g. VAT) in passenger fares, VAT reduction in vehicles fares, Ticket exemption from any type of non-reciprocal charges/ taxes, Discounts on specific population groups (e.g. the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled, etc.)

PM2

Application of „Road Equivalent Tariff- RET‟ methodology on the un-profitable lines network (see Chapter 3). The RET methodology is compatible with the EU competition Law and has already been implemented in various ferry routes in Europe. RET's application will provide the opportunity of exploiting EU funding mechanisms or other PPP schemes to alleviate the currently problematic situation of the coastal shipping sector**

PM3

Application of less strict coastal fleet manning regulations through measures such as the abolishment of P.D.177/1974 imposing compulsory crew composition of coastal vessels, the implementation of the STCW Convention and harmonization with EC Directive 3577/92, the abolishment of the (Greek) language requirement

PM4

Fuel cost subsidy based on given price limits

PM5

Subsidy of employers‟ social security contributions

PM6

Re-design of the national ferry network under the logic of: - a network composed by several Hub ports (eg Siros, Mitilini) and many peripheral ports around them (Hub & Spoke) - strengthening the role of a variety of mainland ports in the network (e.g. Thessaloniki, Volos, Nafplion) in addition to the port of Piraeus, to facilitate a more balanced distribution of passenger/vehicle traffic and reduce congestion at the port of Piraeus

PM7

Establishment of an integrated information system and development of ICT and mobile applications for the provision of info mobility services (e.g. transport schedules information, ticketing, reservation etc)

PM8

Modernization of port infrastructure and other passenger service facilities in large and in small ports (port infrastructure projects) and development of information management systems (infomobility, berth allocation systems etc)

PM9

Development of a national-coverage combined insular transportation system (vessel-planeseaplane - water taxi-land transportation means).

The above policy measures have been identified following a stakeholder‟s analysis and also a bibliographical review capturing the relevant policy proposals expressed by the identified stakeholders or other relevant actors (e.g. representatives of research and academia etc.). The complexity of the sector is also reflected to the variety of the above policy measures and proposals addressing operational (eg economic parameters) and structural (such as flag related requirements) or functional (such as the network type) characteristics of the system. The selection of the final list of policy measures (evaluation alternatives) is made by the stakeholders identified in the previous step through the application of a 3-round Delphi process (Skulmoski, 2007) (Linstone, 1975). Through a specially-designed on-line questionnaire, the various stakeholders are asked to rate the importance of the above list of policy proposals and include other policies that might have not been identified through the stakeholders‟ analysis. At each iteration, the results of the previous round are presented to the stakeholders who are asked to present their preferences using an ordinal scale (1-5). An important reason for selecting the Delphi method for the alternatives' definition is its contribution to the building of consensus among the various stakeholders and increasing of commitment to the final decision. Depending on the results of the analysis, the final round concludes with a short list of 3-5 policy measures comprising the list of evaluation alternatives. 4.4. Evaluation Criteria definition and weights allocation (Step 4) Based on the stakeholders‟ analysis (step 2a), six evaluation criteria stemming from the relevant priorities of the examined stakeholders, were defined: **

The Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) is a theoretical means of setting ferry fares based on the cost of travelling an equivalent distance by road. (source: Comprehensive study on the implementation of the transport equivalent to Greek shipping, with emphasis on routes unprofitable routes under the operational programs of the NSRF, 2012, HIT/CERTH, Kantor)


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1.

Transport Demand: it is decomposed into 3 main elements: the number of passengers, the number of lorries and the total number of other vehicles using the coastal shipping network. The decreased transport demand is one of the main reasons that has put the coastal shipping industry into a viability danger. Reversing this trend is a priority commonly identified by all involved stakeholders.

2.

Transportation cost: the monetary measurement of what the transport provider, (in the examined case the shipping company) must pay to produce transportation services (Notteboom, 2013). Key components of the transport cost comprise the: VAT, fees and other charges on fares, staffing costs, fuel cost, maintenance / repair cost, insurance cost, port infrastructure and services usage cost (e.g. port charges, mooring, pilotage, crewing etc.).

3.

Trip/journey cost - cost to the user: the cost borne by the transport service user (e.g. island inhabitants, tourists, freight forwarders etc). As already explained in Chapter 2 (Problem Identification) the economic stagnation as a result of the on-going financial crisis, reduced the households‟ purchasing power. Combined with the increased fares resulted by, among other parameters, the increased cost of transport service provision, led to a decrease in transport flows. The reduction of the final service price (fares) allocated to the shipping service user, is expected to attract additional flows.

4.

Subsidy Cost: the cost undertaken by public authorities for ensuring the proper operation of the Greek Coastal Shipping Network. This cost includes the amount spent for subsidizing the operation of the unprofitable lines to secure the country‟s transport network continuity.

5.

Level of Service: represents the quality of the provided services and can be translated in various elements such as service frequency, safety, trip duration, time of departure, fleet age and characteristics, etc.

6.

Employment: this criterion aims to examine the effects of each policy to the employment of the sector, namely the number of Greek officers and crew employed in the Greek coastal shipping sector, the working conditions, wage levels, etc.

The validation of the above criteria is implemented following a „consultation‟ process with the participation of key experts from research and academia. The „consultation‟ team members are independent of the various stakeholders and their contribution aims to reduce possible biases in the criteria identification by the stakeholders. The allocation of weights to the criteria is undertaken by the stakeholders. Each stakeholder is asked to provide weights on the criteria included in its hierarchy tree by using the pairwise comparison method for expressing his judgment on the importance of each criterion over the others, to the ultimate goal of the analysis.The weighting of the alternatives is provided by two groups: the stakeholders‟ group (comprising of the various stakeholders identified in Step 2) and the experts‟ team that have already been involved in the alternatives selection and the criteria validation respectively. Again the relevant alternatives are compared pairwise in relation to their importance to the overall goal and also in relation to their importance towards each of the examined criteria. Using Saaty‟s fundamental scale, the analysis concludes with the creation of the evaluation matrices produced for each stakeholder group. The individual evaluation matrices are combined into the final evaluation matrix that is used for the final calculations based on the Eigen vector method, introduced in AHP, considered being a “fast” and “secure‟‟ method due to the short time required for its application and its high probability in producing “realistic” results (Tsamboulas 2003). Consistency Ratio is calculated for all relevant comparisons made during the various phases of the evaluation process aiming to check the consistency of the weighting/rating process. Adjustments and revision (based on further interaction with the involved groups) is implemented in the cases where CR exceeds 10%. For each actor/ stakeholder, also a uni-actor analysis is implemented showing the particular points of interest for each stakeholder in relation to the various criteria and examined alternatives.

4.5. Criteria and measurement methods (Step 5) For quantifying each criterion, one or more qualitative and /or quantitative elements /data and indexes have been defined. Combined with various socioeconomic elements/variables and indicators (eg GPD, employment level, tourism related data etc) these data will form a “policy measures repository and monitoring mechanism‟ that will be used at a latter stage for assessing the impacts of a given policy. This will be realised by creating „economic screenshots”, a term that is used to describe the effect of a given policy, at a specific timeframe, to the country‟s GDP. The next table gives an overview of the different variables and indicators related to each criterion :


Table 4. Reference variables and indicators per criterion

Criterion

Reference variable Passenger traffic

C1: Transport demand

Index used for the criterion quantification Number of passenger Number of Private cars

Vehicle Traffic

Spatial reference level/unit

Coastal transportation network

Number of trucks

Reference unit (time) - off peak season

- peak season

Number of motorcycles (Weighted) fuel cost per transported unit Fuel Cost C2: Transportation cost

C3: Trip/journey cost- cost to the user

Average fuel cost per transport capacity Other operational costs

Other operational costs per transported unit

Passenger

Passenger fare (conventional/high-speed ships)

Vehicle

Car fare (conventional/high-speed ships) Commercial Vehicle (conventional/high-speed ships)

Shipping companies

Operational period

Other operational costs per transport capacity

Shipping Line

- off peak season - peak season

motorcycle fare (conventional/high-speed ships) Subsidy cost Number of subsidized lines

C4:Subsidy cost

„Un-profitable‟ lines network

Operational period

Subsidy per n.m. Coastal Fleet Characteristics

C5: Level of service

Service frequency

Total capacity

Shipping companies

Average speed

Shipping companies

Number of lines

Shipping Line

Number of accidents/ year


Average fleet age

Shipping Line

Qualitative indicator


Number of employees, Percentage of Greek employees


Safety

Info-mobility

C6:Employment

Operational period Operational period - off peak season - peak season Operational period Operational period Operational period Operational period

4.6. Overall Analysis (Step 6) The next step involves the actual implementation of the analysis. In this step every alternative (defined in Step 3) is evaluated towards the different criteria by using the indicators and measurement methods defined in step 5. The evaluation can be made by the analyst him-self (based on his experience and knowledge of the system), by a group of experts and/or by the stakeholders. To reduce possible biases imposed by the stakeholders involvement under different roles (for a detailed explanation see Macharis et al, 2012 and Macharis & Nijkamp,2011), the methodology adopted considers an evaluation performed by independent experts and also by the various stakeholders/ stakeholders‟ groups. In this step, the results of the evaluation are imported in the evaluation table and the different alternatives are assessed by the use of AHP†† (with the use of specialized tools such as the Expert Choice or Super Decision).

††

Any MCDA method can be applied for the final evaluation (eg AHP, PROMITHEE, ELECTRE,MACBETH, MAVT etc) however in practice MA-MCDA usually make use of two methods namely the AHP or the PROMITHEE – GDSS.


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The „stability‟ of the hierarchy is assessed through consistency checks implemented at each phase of the analysis. AHP considers as „acceptable‟ a consistency ratio (CR) not exceeding 10%.

5. Conclusions and policy considerations Policy making in general, and transport policy making in particular, is a highly complex process, requiring not only in-depth knowledge of the sector, but also the employment of a methodology that can facilitate the identification of alternative policy measures and the selection of the most appropriate ones, under conditions of multiple objectives, through a consensus building mechanism. The present paper provides such a methodology, tailored to the needs of the Greek maritime transport environment, developed to support national decision makers on the complex task of policy selection. The proposed methodology is based on the Multi Actors-Multi Criteria Analysis method, and is structured into six consecutive steps starting from goal identification and concluding with the assessment of the alternative policies. Ensuring the viability of the Greek Coastal Transportation system is considered as the ultimate goal of all alternative policies in that area, with its sub-goals being:  to support cohesion and regional development  to increase the sector‟s contribution to the national GDP  to increase the sector's level of employment. Stakeholder and independent experts' involvement throughout the process, ensures the identification of policy measures that are realistic and the employment of assessment criteria that correspond to their actual needs. Based on an analysis of the proposals made by the relevant stakeholders during the past couple of years, a list of potential policy measures have been identified as a starting point. Also, a list of proposed criteria for assessing alternative policy measures have been set, including:  transport demand  transport cost  trip/journey cost  subsidy cost  service level, and  employment level. For each of the criteria, the respective measurement indicators and data sources have been identified. Looking at the potential policy implications of the presented research, one could note that:  it removes a major part of the vagueness usually characterising policy formulation, as it provides a structured, step-wise approach for identifying and selecting policy measures for the coastal transportation system  it facilitates consensus building among stakeholders with conflicting objectives, as it provides a transparent process for commonly reaching conclusions on the policy measures to be employed  it encourages policy formulation accountability, as one can in retrospect assess whether the policy measures employed had actually resulted in the expected impacts.

Acknowledgements This research has been co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund – ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) - Research Funding Program: Heracleitus II. Investing in knowledge society through the European Social Fund


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