Fuzzy multicriteria ranking of urban transportation investment alternatives

Abstract

This paper proposes the fuzzy multicriteria ranking method to conduct the evaluation of urban transportation investment alternatives. Since urban transportation investment is a public investment problem, which requires that various aspects of impacts upon different interest groups be considered, it is therefore regarded as a multicriteria decision making and group decision making problem. In view of future uncertainties, since investment alternatives cannot be cleared in terms of numerical values under the anticipated achievement values of each criterion, it is then considered to be within the range of fuzziness. To make it easier to put the application to practical use, this paper has used triangular fuzzy numbers to spell out the possible range of the anticipated achievement values, whereas the principle of majority rule is used to establish weights and the anticipated achievement values of the triangular fuzzy numbers. From fuzzy weights and fuzzy achievement values, the fuzzy synthetic achievement values of investment alternatives can then be derived. This paper has further revised the Kim-Park method so as to perform the superiority and inferiority comparisons among the fuzzy synthetic achievement values, in the hope that the degree of optimism and pessimism of most of the experts in the decision making group can be demonstrated without each expert stating his/her preferences. An example is used to exemplify the method being presented.