Introduction: Ports play an important and strategic role in the growth and development of a country; Therefore, the development of ports is an important driver for the economic, social and regional growth of countries. A key and practical concept to achieve port development is the concept of sustainable development. Shahid Rajaei port of Iran is considered the most important import and export gate of the country due to its unique geographical location. Therefore, the most important goals of this research are to identify the effective and key indicators of sustainable development in Shahid Rajaei port of Iran and to prioritize these indicators.
Materials and methods: In order to identify the key indicators of sustainable development in Shahid Rajaei port and prioritize these indicators, by reviewing the literature, sustainability indicators were identified and extracted from the research literature. In the second step, in order to prioritize the indicators, a questionnaire was designed and provided to the sample of the research statistical community. which includes managers, officials and officials of various port departments and experts and experts in this field. The sampling method in this research is a non-probability and non-random judgment. In the next step, AHP and SWARA multi-criteria decision making methods were used to rank the indicators. In the following, related software such as Excel and Super Decisions were used. Finally, average ranks and Copeland methods were used to integrate the results to achieve a prioritization.
Results: According to the obtained results, the economic dimension is the most important dimension of sustainability; Then, social and environmental aspects are important. The findings show that in terms of education level, the majority of research experts have master's and doctorate degrees and are at a high level scientifically. And due to the fact that most of the experts have more than 15 years of work experience, they are experienced people with high work experience.
Discussion: In the environmental dimension, the indicators of identifying types of environmental pollution and waste management were ranked first. In the economic dimension, the index of the amount of investment and the increasing trend of the market share and the index of access to road, rail and air transport lines were ranked first in two methods. In the social dimension, the index of job creation and high quality of port services ranked first. The results of this research can be a basis for the improvement and growth of sustainability in the port and to provide the managers and authorities of the port with proper direction and vision in the field of sustainable development, to take appropriate decisions and actions in the future.