The most important reason for the rapid increase of global warming and the occurrence of related climate changes is the contamination caused by greenhouse gases released into the air. Whereas air pollution affects human health significantly, it also threatens the lives of plants and animals. As it is known, the majority of the human population contemporarily lives in cities. In these circumstances, air pollution occurring in cities is of great importance. When the sources of air pollution occurring in cities are examined, it is seen that the pollution caused by emissions originating from vehicles and industry is the leading cause among these reasons. Exhaust gas emission values originating from ships occupy an important place in the emission amounts emitted by vehicles. Considering both emissions from ships and operational reasons, it is understood that air pollution can occur at levels that will seriously affect human health at port areas. Keeping these facts in mind, Trabzon port, which is considered to be a major threat to human life due to released exhaust gases because of being in the city center and one of the biggest ports in the region, was chosen in this study. Emissions originating from ship movements and operations at this port were measured, mapped and the flow trends of these emissions were determined by the AERMOD model and the effect on the environment was investigated. Within the scope of the study, the exhaust emission measurements of the ships and the vehicles serving for operational purposes were performed all the year round. Afterwards, the annual distribution of gases was determined by modeling the measured emissions with the AERMOD model program. As a result of the analyses, it was found out that a large part of the exhaust emissions occurring at the port area originated from the ships and the amount of CO₂ gas emission constituted approximately 97% of the total exhaust gas emission. Also, it was determined that the exhaust gas emitted to the widest area was NO_x and the gases emitted to the environment were spread over an area of approximately 40 km² around the port area.

Considering the number of deaths due to air pollution, it is clear that it poses a great danger to public health. Sources that cause air pollution can be divided into two groups: natural resources (such as desert storms, fires and volcanic eruptions) and artificial sources (residences, industrial sector and motor vehicles), which cause a much higher rate of air pollution than natural resources. It is known that air pollutants originating from ships and port operations have an important share among vehicle sourced pollutants. Considering the emissions from both ships and operational reasons and their proximity to human habitats, it is obvious that port regions are important points in terms of emissions harmful to human health. The use of cold-ironing technology in ports instead of providing the energy needed from ship auxiliary machinery during the hotelling period at the port is the most effective method used to reduce the amount of ship-sourced emissions in the port area. On the other hand, it is seen that the number of ports where cold-ironing technology is used, which is extremely effective in reducing emissions harmful to human health, is quite limited. In this context, the share of the emission amount during the hotelling period in the total emission amount in the port area was calculated according to ship type and duration of hotelling in the port, and the importance of the use of cold-ironing technology in reducing the port-originated emissions was emphasized.

A shipping agency or shipping agent is the designated person or agency held responsible for handling shipments and cargo, and the general interests of its customers, at ports and harbors worldwide, on behalf of ship owners, managers, and charterers. Shipping agents will usually take care of all the regular routine tasks of a shipping company quickly and efficiently. They ensure that essential supplies, crew transfers, customs documentation, and waste declarations are all arranged with the port authorities without delay and often provide the shipping company with updates and reports on activities at the destination port so that shipping companies have real-time information while goods are in transit. Due to these reasons, selection of the ship agencies becomes an indispensable part of maritime transportation. Managing a ship agency requires interconnected and labor-intensive processes for any kind of shipping operations, which results in a complicated mission. This study presents the most important ship agency selection criteria, according to the determined criteria in the literature, by employing fuzzy AHP technique, one of the most common fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods.