An Integrated Intuitionistic Fuzzy Closeness Coefficient-Based OCRA Method for Sustainable Urban Transportation Options Selection

Abstract

Transportation systems play a key role in urban development by providing access for people to markets and education, employment, health care, recreation, and other key services. However, uncontrolled urban population and fast growth of vehicle mobility inevitably lead to unsustainable urban transportation systems in terms of economic, technical, social, and geographical aspects of sustainability. Thus, there is a need to select suitable sustainable urban transportation (SUT) alternatives, which can contributed to the technological advancement of a city and changes in societal necessities, mitigating the climate change impact from transport and transforming living habits, in the context of high urban population growth. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce an integrated multi-attribute decision analysis (MADA) framework for assessing and ranking the sustainable urban transportation (SUT) options under an intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) context. In this regard, firstly IF-distance measures and their properties are developed to obtain the criteria weight. Second, an IF-relative closeness coefficient-based model is presented to find the criteria weights. Third, the operational competitiveness rating (OCRA) model is introduced with the IF-score function-RS-based decision experts’ weighing model and the relative closeness coefficient-based criteria weight determination model under the IFSs environment. To exemplify the utility and effectiveness of the developed IF-relative closeness coefficient-based OCRA methodology, a case study ranking the different SUT bus options is presented from an intuitionistic fuzzy perspective. A comparison with different models is made to prove the superiority and solidity of the obtained outcome. Moreover, the comparative analysis outperforms the other extant MADA models, as it can provide more sound outcomes than others, and thus it is more suitable and efficient to elucidate uncertain information in handling practical MADA problems. In this study, we analyze and determine the most suitable and sustainable SUT by considering the economic, technical, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability and also make a significant contribution to the current scientific knowledge by providing a novel decision support system from an uncertainty perspective.