A decision making model for alternative high-speed ferries

Karayiannis, T. and Molland, A.F. (2001) A decision making model for alternative high-speed ferries. In Proceedings of Sixth International Conference on Fast Sea Transportation (FAST 2001). Royal Institution of Naval Architects. pp. 1-11 .

Abstract

A description is given of a new approach to decision making in the fast ferry market. The approach focuses on the key issues of passenger satisfaction and design robustness. The attractiveness of competing ferries and therefore the selection between them does not depend solely on clearly defined technical aspects that can be easily quantified and compared, but also on subjective preferences that vary from one passenger to the other. Another important issue concerns the uncertainty about the variation of external factors during the economic life of the vessel. These include economic and environmental factors, such as unpredictable future variations in fuel prices, to which fast ferries are particularly sensitive, or changes in routing with all the related sea keeping and other performance implications. The decision making model focuses on the concept of design robustness by applying an algorithm based on a Taguchi-type approach. This sensitivity analysis allows the identification of the best among alternative designs as the most robust one, in other words the one that would maintain its good performance should external uncontrollable factors vary. The structure of the model is such that designs of various hull forms and types can be compared and ranked. A case study is presented to illustrate the application of the methodology.

This record has no associated files available for download.

Contributors

Download statistics