A two-phase model for sustainable location of dry ports: a case of Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in China

This paper proposes a two-stage model for determining the sustainable location of dry ports. In the first stage, a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model containing nine criteria is developed. The weight of criteria is determined by the stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) method, and then the ranking of alternative cities is determined by the weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) method. In the second stage, a mixed-integer linear programming location model with multiple capacity levels is proposed to determine the final optimal cities for the dry ports by minimizing the relevant economic costs, environmental costs and social responsibility costs. A case study of Ningbo-Zhoushan Port is performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model. The results show that: (1) the total cost of the optimized inland transportation network system is reduced by 49.661% compared with that before the optimization, with Suzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Changsha, Wuxi and Hefei identified as the optimal locations for the dry ports; and (2) shippers close to seaports tend to choose road transportation, while shippers far away from seaports tend to choose rail transportation through dry ports.