Disentangling the resiliency of international transportation systems under uncertainty by a novel multi-layer spherical fuzzy decision-making framework: Evidence from an emerging economy

•Global transportation systems (GTS) resiliency factors have been extracted by SLR.•A conceptual framework of 12 factors and 22 subfactors of GTS resiliency.•A novel spherical fuzzy (SF) Delphi has been developed to screen critical factors.•A novel SF-DEMATEL-ANP approach has been designed to analyse screened factors.•A critical analysis of the policies of an emerging economy toward GTS resiliency. Although transportation systems play a critical role in the global socio-economic facets, they are acknowledged as vulnerable systems directly impacted by unexpected events, e.g., natural calamities, war, traffic accidents, terrorist attacks, and public health. In this respect, improving the resiliency of transportation systems under uncertainty is a controversial global challenge that this study could underpin. To do so, a systematic literature review (SLR) extracted a list of resiliency factors for resilient transportation systems. Next, a novel version of spherical fuzzy Delphi (SFD) screened factors, considering the case of Iran’s international maritime transportation system. Moreover, the causal network relationship of the finalised factors was analysed by a novel hybrid spherical fuzzy approach, including a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and the analytic network process (ANP). Later, the unexpected events that occurred after 2000 were investigated. The SLR deeply investigated 51 of the top relevant articles. As a result, 12 factors and 22 subfactors that affect transportation systems resiliency were extracted. Notably, the rest of the findings primarily apply to the Iranian context. By implementing the SFD, ten factors were screened for Iran’s international maritime transportation system and then analysed by SF-DEMATEL. After, the analysed factors were weighted by SFANP, where “recoverability” was selected as the most critical factor, and the “technological and communicational” factor was chosen as the least critical factor. Furthermore, the results provide a critical analysis of the policies adopted by Iran’s international maritime transportation system to enhance resiliency under disruptive events.