Multi-Criteria Analysis of a People-Oriented Urban Pedestrian Road System Using an Integrated Fuzzy AHP and DEA Approach: A Case Study in Harbin, China

Abstract

Increasingly, cities worldwide are striving for green travel and slow traffic, and vigorously developing people-oriented urban pedestrian traffic with sustainability has become a fixture in recent discourse. This paper comprehensively considers the sidewalk’s facilities environment and the status of pedestrian traffic flow; divides the urban pedestrian road system (UPRS) into five subsystems around the underpass, overpass, crosswalk, sidewalk, and road crosswalk; and introduces the basic structure as well as the function of each system. Then, the indicators are classified into two types of crosswalk facilities and sidewalk facilities, and a comprehensive pedestrian road indicator system with the combination of subjective and objective is established. Consequently, the integration of the fuzzy AHP and DEA-based symmetrical technique for the subjective evaluation indicator combined with pedestrian traffic characteristics is developed. A nine-step semantics scale of relative importance was used so that the symmetry of the response of pedestrian satisfaction was maintained. Fuzzy evaluation based on AHP is further modeled, and the DEA is employed to achieve an overall evaluation of the quality of service (QoS) for UPRS. The applicability of the established evaluation system is finally verified through a real case study in Harbin, China. The serviceability assessment method in this paper provides a new idea for planners to conduct sustainability evaluation for UPRS in future urban renewal development.