An interactive multi objective model for the strategic maritime transportation of petroleum products: risk analysis and routing

Dealing with the maritime transportation of crude oil and petroleum products has become a problem of major international concern due to the potential of environmental pollution created by oil spill incidents. This paper presents the development of a strategic multi objective network flow model, allowing for risk analysis and routing, with multiple commodities, modalities and origin-destination pairs. The development of an interactive solution methodology is also presented followed by its implementation via a World Wide Web-based software package. Government agencies will find the model helpful in determining how regulations should be set to derive desirable routing schemes. Shippers will also find the model useful in optimizing their logistics costs.