1 Introduction

The territory is the result of a multiplicity of components (e.g. economic, environment, social) that interact among them (Fusco and Nijkamp 1997, 2004). One can not ignore this multidimensional nature in evaluation and choice of actions, and needs a careful understanding of the effects, not only in the context of reference, but also on other areas of the urban system where these effects can occur. Moreover, the number of stakeholders involved is very high and their interests are often conflicting and variable over time; thus, the planning processes are very complex. Useful methods for evaluating the trade-offs among economic, social and environmental sustainability, and for dealing with several stakeholders, are the multi-criteria decision making methods, and, among them, the analytic hierarchy process (Saaty 1977, 1980, 2008; Saaty and Kearns 1991) that organizes the elements of the decision process in a hierarchy.

The question of the port areas regeneration is currently debated in many cities in the world. Many coastal cities are now reminding their relationship with the port areas; the problem is how to reuse the port plants in an innovative way, designing a new waterfront and diversifying the activities related to the mere shipping. “Nowadays, port areas can constitute the entry point and core place for sustainable development for the entire urban system with their dynamism that makes them as magnets. To understand and exploit this potential, it will be necessary to design an analytical framework which would link the new opportunities provided by traditional port areas/cities to creative, resilient and sustainable urban development. From that perspective, there is a need to develop fit-for-purpose, dedicated policy tools and initiatives, on the basis of general planning principles for harbour front and sea front development. This task would have to be undertaken against the background of the challenge to improve the socio-economic and ecological resilience of a port city in relation to the city system and to activate many initiatives that would convert historic-cultural urban port landscapes into sustainable and creative hotspots, starting from re-using, recovering and regenerating such places. This would also call for a new analytical apparatus in which integrated assessment of novel initiatives would have to be ensured in order to balance also conflicts between interests and values of a multiplicity of stakeholders.” (Port Cities 2012)

We propose an application of the AHP to support the complex decision-making about the suitable functional solutions that can transform the port area of Naples as a hotspot of creative and sustainable local development, and competitiveness for the city. Because of the interaction between different spaces and facilities, functions, uses and statutes, the case of the port of Naples may be particularly significant for a critical assessment of the conflict conditions in the development of strategies for mediation (see Talhofer et al. (2012); Hošková-Mayerová et al. (2013), for publications dealing with similar topics).

The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides an overview on the port of Naples; Section 3 describes the AHP; Section 4 provides the hierarchical decision model for the sustainable development of Naples port city-area; Section 5 describes the experimentation and the related results; Section 6 provides concluding remarks and directions for future work.

2 The port of Naples

The foundation of Naples and its port unquestionably dates back to the period of Greek colonisation; in the ninth century B.C. a group of sailors from Rhodes reached this part of the coast and, between the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., the Greek colony was founded on the Acropolis of Pizzofalcone. In 475 B.C. the inhabitants of Cuma founded Neapolis (new city) in the eastern part of the original city. As a mainly military port in Greek and Roman times, the port of Naples gradually became more open to sea traffic and grew in importance (see http://www.porto.napoli.it/en/informazioni/storia.php).

Today, the Port of Naples is one of the largest Italian seaports and one of the largest seaports in the Mediterranean Sea basin having an annual traffic capacity of around 25 million tons of cargo. The port is also an important employer in the area having more than 4,800 employees that provide services to more than 64,000 ships every year.

The Port of Naples is situated in the centre of Naples (see Fig. 1), very close to the central Piazza Municipio and Piazza Garibaldi (FS and MN terminals) and about 15 km from Naples Airport. The Harbour station area can justifiably be termed a monumental complex in its entirety: the Harbour station building is monumental in terms of its universally recognised architectural features which has led to its being protected by restrictions established by a specific decree drafted by the Environmental and Heritage Office; the wharf on which the building stands is similarly monumental in scale and provides continuity with piazza Municipio overlooked by the main representative symbols of the city, such as the royal palace, Castel Nuovo, the city council building and, in the background, the hill with the castle of Castel SantElmo and the charterhouse of San Martino as a sort of plinth (see http://www.porto.napoli.it/en/settori/stazioneMarittima.php). Very close to the port, there is the University of Naples Parthenope, that originated in 1919 with the establishment of the Regio Istituto Navale, a center of higher education appointed to the promotion of scientific culture of the sea and the study of the related economic aspects.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Port of Naples. The centre of Naples is represented in the red area of (a). a from http://www.comune.napoli.it/, b from http://www.porto.napoli.it/en/

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The “Circolo Canottieri Napoli” is one of the most prestigious and renowned Italian yacht clubs. Founded in 1914 and situated in the green oasis of gardens Molosiglio, close to the port, overlooking the Gulf of Naples, in one of the most beautiful bays in the city. The sports practiced for over three thousand members are: Bridge, Canoeing, Powerboating, Swimming, Water Polo, Rescue, Tennis, Triathlon, Sailing.

In the first chapter of a ground-breaking major best-seller in Italy, Saviano (2008) writes: “Everything that exists passes through here. Through the port of Naples. There’s not a product, fabric, piece of plastic, toy, hammer, shoe, screwdriver, bolt, video game, jacket, pair of pants, drill, or watch that doesn’t come through the port. The port of Naples is an open wound. The end point for the interminable voyage that merchandise makes. Ships enter the gulf and come to the dock like babies to the breast, except that they’re here to be milked, not fed. The port of Naples is the hole in the earth out of which what’s made in China comes.”. Moreover, Saviano (2008) writes of huge cargoes of Chinese goods that are shipped to Naples and then quickly distributed unchecked across Europe. He investigates the camorra’s control of thousands of Chinese factories contracted to manufacture fashion goods, legally and illegally, for distribution around the world, and relates the chilling details of how the abusive handling of toxic waste is causing devastating pollution not only for Naples but also China and Somalia.

2.1 Management plan for the historic centre and great works project in the Port of Naples

The historic center of Naples has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1995, with the following motivation: “Naples is one of the most ancient cities in Europe, whose contemporary urban fabric preserves the elements of its long and eventful history. Its street pattern, its wealth of historic buildings from many periods, and its setting on the Bay of Naples give it an outstanding universal value without parallel, and one that has had a profound influence in many parts of Europe and beyond.”

In the Management Plan for the historic centre of Naples (Comune Napoli 2011), the historic urban landscape concept is introduced as an instrument for reflecting on criteria and methods of conservation and enhancement of the historic centre.

Campania’s UNESCO routes represent the systemic source of the relationship between the city and the historic center of Naples; they entrust the function of center of tourist routes to the harbor and all area in front of Beverello.

Recently, the great Works project in the Port of Naples is declared acceptable by the European Commission; thus, 240 million euro, with the funds from POR-FESR 2007–2013, will be used for logistics, reclamation works and for the drainage network. The President of the Port Authorities, Luciano Dassatti, and the President of the Campania Region, Stefano Caldoro, signed (December 18, 2012) an agreement protocol in which they defined the commitments and implementation modalities of the great Works project in the Port of Naples (Regione Campania, 2012). Among the objectives to be achieved, there is the sustainable development of the port, as part of a wider network of regional port facilities in the national context and the Mediterranean basin. The budget allocates 22 million euros to switching the port to alternative energy, including solar panels. Another 90 million euros will go to connecting the port to the railway system, freeing the city of trucks. The project will also separate the commercial from the tourist sections of the port, which is a major Mediterranean cruise stop with 1.5 million people transiting through every year. “ We must step up the pace of these public works, or we will lose the EU funding”, Naples Mayor Luigi De Magistris said of the overhaul, which is scheduled to begin in 2013, ending in 2015. “The port is now the city’s major economic resource, and represents many opportunities for businesses and tourism.” “We presented this great project to the EU, and we defended it until we got the OK,” Campania Region President Stefano Caldoro said. “This project will make our port an international hub of Mediterranean traffic, which is favored by our geographical location.” (ANSAMed 2012).

For the sustainable development of the port, what should be privileged? What immediately should start and what delay? In our paper, we provide a first investigation along this direction.

3 Analytic hierarchy process

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) (Saaty 1980) is a structured technique for dealing with complex decisions. AHP is used around the world in a wide variety of decision situations, in fields such as government, business, industry, healthcare and education; recently, Saaty and Zoffer (2011) propose AHP for negotiating the Israeli-Palestinian Controversy.

Rather than prescribing an ideally correct decision, the AHP helps the DMs to find the one that best suits their needs and their understanding of the problem. The AHP provides a comprehensive and rational framework for structuring a decision problem, for representing and quantifying its elements, for relating those elements to overall goals, and for evaluating alternative solutions (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Example of hierarchy [Figure from Vargas 2010]

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To make a decision in a systematic way, we need to decompose the decision into the following steps (Saaty 2008):

  1. 1.

    “Define the problem and determine the kind of knowledge sought.

  2. 2.

    Structure the decision hierarchy from the top with the goal of the decision, then the objectives from a broad perspective, through the intermediate levels (criteria on which subsequent elements depend) to the lowest level (which usually is a set of the alternatives).

  3. 3.

    Construct a set of pairwise comparison matrices. Each element in an upper level is used to compare the elements in the level immediately below with respect to it.

  4. 4.

    Use the priorities obtained from the comparisons to weigh the priorities in the level immediately below. Do this for every element. Then for each element in the level below add its weighed values and obtain its overall or global priority. Continue this process of weighing and adding until the final priorities of the alternatives in the bottom most level are obtained.”

In order to ascertain that the expert is consistent in providing pairwise comparisons, AHP does not demand perfect consistency but a judgement is only considered acceptable when consistency ratio (C.R.) of the pairwise comparison matrix is of 0.10 or less. If C.R. value cannot pass such acceptable level then the expert makes judgements arbitrarily or mistakenly and then he has to do it again.

Cavallo and D’Apuzzo (2009a, b, 2010, 2012a, b, 2014) and Cavallo et al. (2009, 2010, 2012, 2014) provide an algebraic approach to the PCMs.

4 Development of a hierarchical decision model

As mentioned in Sect. 1, we propose an application of AHP to support the complex decision-making about the sustainable urban development of Naples port area.

Thus, we identify the objective (goal) to reach, that is:

  1. O

    Sustainable urban development of Naples port area.

From the analysis of Management Plan for the historic centre, Recommendation on HUL and great Works project in the Port of Naples (see Sect. 2.1), we deduct sub-objectives and criteria relative to AHP.

The territory is the result of a multiplicity of components that interact among them (Fusco and Nijkamp (1997, 2004)); thus we identify the following three sub-objectives:

O\(_{1}\) :

Economic sustainability: pursuing the economic needs of the port area;

O\(_{2}\) :

Environment sustainability: maintaining quality and reproducibility of natural resources;

O\(_{3}\) :

Social sustainability: ensuring conditions of human well-being (safety, health, education) evenly distributed by class and gender.

We stress that these components are also suggested in (Unesco 2011): “This Recommendation addresses the need to better integrate and frame urban heritage conservation strategies within the larger goals of overall sustainable development, in order to support public and private actions aimed at preserving and enhancing the quality of the human environment. It suggests a landscape approach for identifying, conserving and managing historic areas within their broader urban contexts, by considering the interrelationships of their physical forms, their spatial organization and connection, their natural features and settings, and their social, cultural and economic values”

By SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, performed in the Management Plan for historic centre of Naples (Comune Napoli 2011), and analysing the objectives of the great Works project in the Port of Naples, we define criteria.

Relative to the sub-objective \(\hbox {O}_{1}\), we define the following evaluation criteria:

C\(_{11}\) :

Optimizing infrastructures, particularly by improving the road network (e.g. road trim, flow of traffic, links to the nearby beach areas and to monumental interest areas);

C\(_{12}\) :

Creating new employment in the port area (e.g. encouraging the development of business activities, sales of local products, building a shopping center);

C\(_{13}\) :

Involving private operators (e.g. coordination and integration of ship-owners, merchants, service providers);

C\(_{14}\) :

Promoting interventions that raise the tourism-related activities (e.g. increasing the attractiveness of the port area and surroundings during all seasons, providing guides and tourist routes);

C\(_{15}\) :

Creating innovative services for citizens and tourists (e.g. multimedia fruition of tourism services, museum, information, online reservations of hotels and transport);

C\(_{16}\) :

Redevelopment of the built heritage of the port and monumental area.

Relative to the sub-objective O\(_{2}\), we define the following evaluation criteria:

C\(_{21}\) :

Creating a small green oasis, flower beds, hedges, and planting typical Mediterranean plants;

C\(_{22}\) :

Improving water quality and cleaning up the seabed;

C\(_{23}\) :

Implementing sustainable mobility between the port and the surrounding residential areas, in order to reduce the high level of air and noise pollution;

C\(_{24}\) :

Using renewable energy in building interventions (e.g. solar panels, renewable materials).

Relative to the sub-objective O\(_{3}\), we define the following evaluation criteria:

C\(_{31}\) :

Improving the quality of employment (e.g. adopting safety standards in the workplace, promoting technological innovation of machinery and equipment);

C\(_{32}\) :

Lowering the crime rate in the port area through the revitalization of the port of Naples and the establishment of safeguards surveillance;

C\(_{33}\) :

Improving quality of life, with a stronger focus on children, social integration and problems of marginalization (e.g. areas of children’s entertainment, baby parking for workers, awareness-raising events);

C\(_{34}\) :

Strengthening human capital (e.g. education and research on activities of the sea, with particular reference to international law, yacht design and new materials for shipbuilding, marine biology).

Finally, we identify the following alternatives:

A\(_{1}\) :

A scenario of facilities and cultural services (e.g, workshops, exhibition spaces, recovery and restoration of relics and artefacts of naval archaeology). It will be appropriate to involve universities (i.e. Federico II, Orientale, Sun, Suor Orsola Benincasa, Parthenope), in the management process of the UNESCO site, in order to enhance both the availability of the cultural heritage and the organization of intangible assets that allow the strengthening of the vision of the UNESCO site as City of widespread training. The scenario proposes a coordination between the various universities and connection between the world of research/universities and businesses, and between businesses and associations, both in terms of information disclosure and publication of the results. Finally, the scenario considers essential the strengthening of the system of reception and student services.

A\(_{2}\) :

A scenario of services for tourism and leisure activities, to enjoy the sea and the monumental area, and accommodate events (e.g. the Americas Cup World Series). By its nature of a “transit port”, the port of Naples must be able to intercept and manage tourist flows directed towards other destinations, by arousing interest in Naples and, more generally, to the reality of the UNESCO sites of Campania. The scenario proposes a collaboration with tour operators in order to offer tour packages both directly on board cruise ships (one million three hundred thousand visitors per year) and by providing organized assistance in land for tours and excursions in historic centre, in Neapolitan hinterland, on the smaller islands and the sites bordering the Bay of Naples. As problems of crime undermine the tourist image of the city of Naples and endanger the safety of tourists, this scenario envisages the establishment of safeguards actions (e.g. safeguards surveillance, street lighting, video cameras) in the port area. Finally, this scenario proposes the development of medium-low hotel accommodation in order to improve the tourism flows, in addition to existing good availability of medium-high hotel accommodation.

A\(_{3}\) :

A scenario with a fair-trade center in the port area, to support producers, awareness raising and campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade. Naples boasts the presence of a first-order goldsmith pole in the heart of downtown (Borgo Orefici) and the presence of deep-rooted historical craft traditions, such as: the pizza, pastry craft, nativity scenes in S. Gregorio Armeno, production of bridal and communion gowns, holy dresses, restoration and sale of sacred objects (mainly in via Duomo). This scenario encourages a fair-trade center with the sales of local products and local handicraft, and the aggregation and integration to create groups, supply chains of production, forms of coordination between business enterprises.

The decision-making variables are structured as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Hierarchical structure of the decision problem

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5 A preliminary experimentation

In order to build the PCMs for the hierarchical structure in Fig. 3, we decide to involve several stakeholders (e.g. students, experienced urban design practitioners, ship-owners, workers, employees and merchant of Port of Naples). By means of a questionnaire, we ask them the pairwise comparisons between two elements in a level with respect a fixed element in the upper level of the hierarchy.

In this paper, we perform a preliminary experimentation: 39 students of Department of Architecture and 39 students of Department of of Economic, Legal and Social Studies took part in the present research. The students completed the questionnaire during a class period and received instructions to fill out the survey. If there is any matrix with an unacceptable C.R. value i.e. greater than 0.10, the student is required to make judgement on that matrix again. In order to improve the consistency, we explained to the students, during previous class periods, the concept of PCM and its properties (e.g. consistency, transitivity).

The judgements from students are then aggregated through geometric mean in order to get an overall evaluation of the priorities for each element in every level of hierarchy.

5.1 The questionnaire

The questionnaire includes 4 sections:

  • in the first section, the students perform 15 comparisons, that are the pairwise comparisons between \(C_{1r}\) and \(C_{1s}\) with \(r<s\), \(r,s=1,\ldots , 6\), with respect to the economic sustainability \(O_{1}\);

  • in the second section, the students perform 6 comparisons, that are the pairwise comparisons between \(C_{2r}\) and \(C_{2s}\) , with \(r<s\), \(r,s=1,\ldots , 4\), with respect to the environment sustainability \(O_{2}\);

  • in the third section, the students perform 6 comparisons, that are the pairwise comparisons between \(C_{3r}\) and \(C_{3s}\), with \(r<s\), \(r,s=1,\ldots , 4\), with respect to the social sustainability \(O_{3}\);

  • in the fourth section, the students have to perform 3 comparisons, that are the pairwise comparisons between \(O_{r}\) and \(O_{s}\) with \(r<s\), \(r,s=1,\ldots , 3\) with respect to the goal \(O\), that is the sustainable urban development of Naples port area.

As an example, the third section of the questionnaire is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Third section of the questionnaire. The alternatives are well explained in the questionnaire

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5.2 The PCMs and the weighted rankings

By the answers to the questionnaire, for each student \(S^{(k)}\), \(k=1, \ldots , 78\), we build the related PCMs:

  • \(A_{k}\) is a 3 \(\times \) 3 PCM with the preference ratios between the sub-objectives \(O_{i}\), \(i =1, \ldots ,3\) with respect to the goal \(O\);

  • \(B_{k}\) is a 6 \(\times \) 6 PCM with the preference ratios between the criteria \(C_{1i}\), \(i =1, \ldots ,6\) with respect to the sub-objective \(O_{1}\);

  • \(C_{k}\) is a 4 \(\times \) 4 PCM with the preference ratios between the criteria \(C_{2i}\), \(i =1, \ldots ,4\) with respect to the sub-objective \(O_{2}\);

  • \(D_{k}\) is a 4 \(\times \) 4 PCM with the preference ratios between the criteria \(C_{3i}\), \(i =1, \ldots ,4\) with respect to the sub-objective \(O_{3}\).

For each student \(S^{(k)}\), by applying the geometric mean to the rows of the corresponding PCMs, we obtain:

$$\begin{aligned} p_{i}^{(k)}=\root 3 \of {\prod _{j=1}^{3}a_{ij}^{(k)}}, \end{aligned}$$
(1)

that are the weights of the sub-objectives \(O_{i}\), \(i =1, \ldots ,3\), with respect to the goal \(O\), and

$$\begin{aligned} v_{1i}^{(k)}=\root 6 \of {\prod _{j=1}^{6}b_{ij}^{(k)}}, \quad v_{2i}^{(k)}=\root 4 \of {\prod _{j=1}^{4}c_{ij}^{(k)}}, \quad v_{3i}^{(k)}=\root 4 \of {\prod _{j=1}^{4}d_{ij}^{(k)}}, \end{aligned}$$
(2)

that are the local evaluations of the criteria \(C_{1i}\) (\(i =1, \ldots ,6\)), \(C_{2i}\) (\(i =1, \ldots ,4\)) and \(C_{3i}\) (\(i =1, \ldots ,4\)) with respect to \(O_{1}\), \(O_{2}\) and \(O_{3}\), respectively.

The weights \(p_{i}^{(k)}\) and the local evaluations \(v_{1i}^{(k)}\), \(v_{2i}^{(k)}\), and \(v_{3i}^{(k)}\), of \(k=78\) students are aggregated, by means of geometric mean, and normalized, in order to obtain the global weights \(p_{1}\), \(p_{2}\), and \(p_{3}\) of sub-objectives \(O_{1}\), \(O_{2}\), and \(O_{3}\), and the local evaluations of criteria with respect to the related sub-objective (see Fig. 5).

Fig. 5
figure 5

Evaluation matrix of criteria with respect to sub-objectives

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By applying a weighted arithmetic mean, we compute the weights of criteria (shown in Fig. 6) with respect to the goal.

Fig. 6
figure 6

Evaluation matrix of alternatives with respect to criteria

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Then, we proceed with the pairwise comparisons of alternatives with respect to each criteria (14 consistent PCMs of order 3\(\times \)3 provided by an expert) and, by means of geometric mean of the rows, compute the local evaluations of the alternatives (shown in Fig. 6) with respect to each criteria.

Finally, by applying a weighted arithmetic mean, we compute the global evaluations of alternatives with respect to the goal, that are:

$$\begin{aligned} v(A_{1})=0.28, \quad v(A_{2})=0.47,\quad v(A_{3})=0.25. \end{aligned}$$
(3)

By global evaluations in (3), we get a ranking of the alternatives that highlights that the preferable alternative is \(A_{2}\), that is the scenario referred to services for tourism and leisure.

5.3 Sensitivity analysis

In order to study how the output of our mathematical model can be apportioned to uncertainty in its inputs, we perform a sensitivity analysis. We stress that the main difference between the groups of students is related to the weights \(p_{1}\), \(p_{2}\) and \(p_{3}\) of the sub-objectives; in particular we obtain:

$$\begin{aligned} p_{1}=0.31, \quad p_{2}=0.32,\quad p_{3}=0.37, \end{aligned}$$

and

$$\begin{aligned} p_{1}=0.45, \quad p_{2}=0.19, \quad p_{3}=0.36, \end{aligned}$$

by students of Department of Architecture and Department of Economic, Legal and Social Studies, respectively. The second sample of students prefers economic sustainability, that is pursuing the economic needs of the port area.

For this reason, we analyse how the weights \(p_{1}\), \(p_{2}\) and \(p_{3}\) of the sub-objectives affect the choice of the alternative.

By Fig. 7, we can see that the preferable alternative is always \(A_{2}\), contrariwise, there is sometimes an inversion of the preferences between \(A_{1}\) and \(A_{3}\).

Fig. 7
figure 7

Ranking of the alternatives in function of \(p_{1}\), \(p_{2}\), \(p_{3}\). a \(p_{1}=0.37\). b \(p_{2}=0.25\). c \(p_{3}=0.36\)

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6 Conclusions and future work

We propose an application of the AHP for the sustainable urban development of Naples port area, by focusing on economic, environment and social impact, and perform a preliminary experimentation with a sample of students of Department of Architecture and Department of Economic, Legal and Social Studies.

In a future work, we will consider a wider sample of stakeholders, such as institutional actors (e.g. Municipality of Naples, Campania Region, Port Authority, ASL ), enterprises (e.g. experienced urban design practitioners, operators in the field of hospitality and catering), social and cultural actors (e.g.upper-school institutes, research institutes and universities, tourist promotion institutes, cultural associations, non-profit organizations, citizens, ship-owners, workers, employees and merchant of Port of Naples). Including several stakeholders is a Recommendation on HUL: “This approach addresses the policy, governance and management concerns involving a variety of stakeholders, including local, national, regional, international, public and private actors in the urban development process.” (Unesco 2011)

Finally, we will investigate the inclusion of more comprehensive and dependent criteria by applying the analytic network process.