Developing a Multicriteria Model for Use as a Highway Assessment Technique

INTRODUCTION

This paper is concerned with the development of a simple multicriteria model for use as a priority assessment technique (PAT) by Local authority transport planners faced with the problem of identifying which of a range of highway investment proposals should be implemented. The project of which it forms a part has involved three main phases:

Phase I - a review and critique of PATS developed by British local authorities;

Phase II - the application of a representative sample of PATS to a set of six highway schemes, together with an analysis of the different scheme rankings which emerged;

Phase III - the construction, based upon the experience of phases I and II together with knowledge of recent developments in multicriteria analysis, of a computer-based PAT.

An account of the outcome of the first two phases of the project is given in Simon (1987); more detailed information is available in Simon (1986a,b; 1987).