JOURNAL OF THE FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE OF GAZI UNIVERSITY, vol.34, no.2, pp.820-833, 2019 (SCI-Expanded)
Search and rescue (SAR) at sea is one of the most common and extraordinarily important missions for the coast guard. The coast guard must have the capability of assigning a vessel immediately for reported vessel or people in distress at sea. Coast guard surface vessel design inherently involves engineering trade-offs and there is not a single vessel design type, which is ideal for SAR mission. The significant increase in the number of immigrants crossing the Aegean Sea in recent years has revealed the fact that the Turkish Coast Guard assets should be assigned by utilizing scientific methods so as to provide maximum benefit. The purpose of this study is to propose a model based on Analytic Network Process (ANP) and Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks (BOCR) to determine the SAR status and priorities of coast guard surface vessels in Turkish Coast Guard command. This integrated approach allows us to find dimensionless measurements called as weights or priorities of the surface vessel types according to SAR task. This study is the first application in the literature that provides basic input using the ANP and BOCR approach for decision making problems for SAR missions. Consequently, KAAN 29/33, SAR 33/35 and 80 class of boats have found to be more suitable for SAR task.