Multicriteria Decision-Making in Transportation Systems
Summary
Multicriteria Decision-Making (MCDM) in transportation systems addresses the complex challenge of evaluating and prioritising competing objectives—such as cost efficiency, environmental impact, safety, and user satisfaction—when planning and operating transport networks. By integrating quantitative measures (for example travel time, emissions and operating costs) with qualitative considerations (such as stakeholder preferences and social acceptance), MCDM methods enable decision makers to balance trade-offs and derive solutions that reflect diverse policy goals. Traditional approaches like the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) remain widespread for their conceptual clarity and ease of implementation. Recent advances incorporate network-based extensions, fuzzy and neutrosophic set theories to handle uncertainty and imprecision, and hybrid frameworks combining expert opinion with data-driven optimisation. The integration of these methods into transport planning software and stakeholder engagement platforms has enhanced transparency and supported more resilient, sustainable mobility solutions. Case studies span urban bus fleet renewal, freight route optimisation, shared mobility schemes and infrastructure investment prioritisation, demonstrating the global relevance of MCDM for policymakers, operators and communities alike.
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Multicriteria Decision-Making in Transportation Systems publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in multicriteria decision-making in transportation systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Multicriteria Decision-Making (MCDM): A set of methods for evaluating and ranking alternatives based on multiple, often conflicting criteria.
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP): A structured technique that decomposes a decision into a hierarchy of criteria and subcriteria, using pairwise comparisons to derive weights.
Analytical Network Process (ANP): An extension of AHP that models interdependencies and feedback among decision elements through a network rather than a strict hierarchy.
Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS): A method that ranks alternatives by measuring their distance from an ideal solution and an anti-ideal solution.
Neutrosophic Set: A mathematical framework generalising fuzzy sets by introducing degrees of truth, indeterminacy and falsity to handle uncertain or incomplete information.
References
- Multiple criteria decision-making techniques in transportation systems: a systematic review of the state of the art literature. Transport (2015).
- Sustainability performance assessment of freight transportation modes using an integrated decision-making framework based on m-generalized q-neutrosophic sets. Artificial Intelligence Review (2024).
- Assessing Public Transport Supply Quality: A Comparative Analysis of Analytical Network Process and Analytical Hierarchy Process. Journal of Soft Computing and Decision Analytics (2023).
- Electric Bus Selection with Multicriteria Decision Analysis for Green Transportation. Sustainability (2020).
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