Formulating transit development strategy at Anzali port through SWOT & QSPM methods

Anzali port as a major and oldest port in north of Iran plays a significant role in cargo Transit. Formulating an appropriate strategy in transit will improve the performance of this port through attracting more cargo. In this study, the weakness and strength (Internal Factors) as well as the threats and opportunities (External factors) of Anzali port are identified and evaluated through SWOT analysis. Analyzing internal factor evaluation matrix shows that “entering ship to the port without delay” and ”the high rate of cargo handling” are major strengths in functional area of this port while “the lack of coordination among port and other organizations” as well as “ lack of Storage” are the most dominant weaknesses. Results for evaluating external factors indicate “increasing transit income” as the best opportunity and “sever competition in attracting cargo transit” as an important threat. Finally, QSPM technique is applied to evaluate the alternative strategies in this port. Comparing eight key selected strategies indicates that “attracting merchant”, “keeping the fixed customers” and “overhauling port facilities” have the highest priority respectively. In order to provide the total weighted scores in SWOT and the relative attractiveness of the QSPM, two separate Likert scale questioner forms are distributed among 16 experts of Anzali port