Evaluation of Seaway Passenger Transportation in Kocaeli Bay, By Using the Methods of Analytic Hierarchy Process and Analytic Network Process

Municipalities are in charge of running and managing public transport activities. This study aims to identify the factors affecting seaway passenger transportation via scheduled high-speed sea buses, motorboats, and cityline from 11 points in Kocaeli Bay. To provide sea transportation service in Kocaeli at a sustainable cost, which is the legal obligation of Metropolitan Municipalities, framing the current transportation system as a whole in the light of these factors is another objective. In today’s rapidly changing world, the criteria may quickly change over time. Many primary and secondary criteria affect public transportation systems. Therefore, it would be appropriate to use multi-criteria decision-making methods while dealing with Public Transport systems. In addition to the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, it would be appropriate to use the Analytic Network Process (ANP) method, which is a structure that examines the interaction between criteria and allows systematic revealing of all types of dependencies and feedback between factors and sub-factors affecting the decision-making process. In the study, the results obtained by AHP and ANP methods were compared and evaluated, in order to determine the optimal alternative for the seaway passenger transportation in Kocaeli Bay to be economical, sustainable and continuous.