In any public service development decision, it is essential to reach the stakeholders’ agreement to gain a sustainable result, which is accepted by all involved groups. In case this criterion is violated, the impact of the development will be less than expected due to the resistance of one group or another. Concerning public urban transport decisions, the lack of consensus might cause lower utilisation of public vehicles, thus more severe environmental damage, traffic problems and negative economic impacts. This paper aims to introduce a decision support procedure (applying the current MCDM techniques; Fuzzy and Interval AHP) which is capable of analysing and creating consensus among different stakeholder participants in a transport development problem. The combined application of FAHP and IAHP ensures that the consensus creation is not only based on an automated computation process (just as in IAHP) but also on the consideration of specific group interests. Thus, the decision makers have the liberty to express their preferences in urban planning, along with the consideration of numerical results. The procedure has been tested in a real public transport improvement decision as a follow-up project, in an emerging city, Mersin, Turkey. Results show that by the application of the proposed techniques, decision-makers can be more aware of the conflicts of interests among the involved groups, and they can pay more attention to possible violations.

Sustainable urban transport requires smart and environmentally-friendly technical solutions. It also needs to meet the demands of different user groups, including current and potential future users, in order to avoid opposition of the citizens and to support sustainable development decisions. While these requirements are well-known, conducting full surveys of user needs and preferences are tedious and costly, and the interests of different user groups may be contradictory. We therefore developed a methodology based on the prevalent Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is capable of dealing with the inconsistencies and uncertainties of users’ responses by applying an Interval Analytic Hierarchy Process (IAHP) through comparing the results of passengers to reference stakeholder groups. For a case study in Mersin, a coastal city in southern Turkey with 1.7 Million inhabitants, three groups were surveyed with questionnaires: 40 users of the public transport system, 40 non-users, and 17 experts. Based on interval pairwise comparison matrices, consisting of whole judgments of all groups, the IAHP methodology could attain a consensual preference ranking for a future public transportation system between the three groups. A sensitivity analysis revealed that the factor ranking was very stable.

All countries have suffered from the COVID-19 crisis; the pandemic has adversely impacted all sectors. In this study, we examine the transport sector with a specific focus on the problem of commuting mode choice and propose a new decision-making approach for the alternative modes after synthesizing expert opinions. As a methodology, a customized model of the recently developed best–worst method (BWM) is used to evaluate mobility choice alternatives. The survey reflects citizens’ opinions toward mobility choices in two Italian cities, Palermo and Catania, before and during the pandemic. BWM is a useful tool for examining mobility choice in big cities. The adopted model is easy to apply and capable of providing effective solutions for sustainable mode choice. The urban context is analyzed considering the importance of transport choices, evaluating the variation of resilience to the changing opinions of users.

Transportation improvements affect technological and socio-economic development, and several scholars have researched various transportation problems. The current study aims to illustrate a thorough review of those transport problems, where the Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP) is used for enumerating the related criteria and alternatives. A systematic review methodology, the PRISMA protocol, is applied in the review process. The contribution of this work is highlighted along with the extensions of the AHP improving decision-making support. To this end, current research demonstrates the relevant results of 58 papers published from 2003 to 2019. The results indicated that most researchers applied the conventional AHP method to deal with transportation issues, while the most critical issue was public transport, followed by logistics problems. On top of that, TOPSIS was integrated with AHP more than other MCDM methods when dealing with multi-criteria transportation problems. Moreover, the "Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice" journal achieved first place by publishing ten papers on the topic, and the highest number of articles was published in 2018. The results are discussed adequately, and in the conclusion policy implications are presented.

Improving the local urban transport system’s quality is often seen as one of the critical points for the government and the local operator. An amelioration of the system can improve users’ satisfaction and attract new users while simultaneously decreasing traffic congestion and pollution. Efficient methodologies are required to achieve sustainable development regarding complex issues associated with traffic congestion and pollution. In this study, we propose using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) grey values to overcome the limitations of the uncertainty in the classical AHP approach. The presented grey-AHP model assumes an efficient contrivance to facilitate the public transport system’s supply quality evaluation, especially when respondents are non-experts. Finally, we estimate and rank the public transport system’s supply quality criteria by adopting the proposed model for a real-world case study (Amman city, Jordan). The study’s outcome shows the effectiveness and the applicability of the developed approach for enhancing the quality of the public transport system.

Public transport development decisions are generally made by local government representatives or managers of the local transport company through a top-down procedure. However, if the implications do not meet the demand of the public, the improvement cannot be considered as sustainable and in a long range, correction is necessary. This paper aims to introduce a new model which is capable of supporting public transport development decision making by examining the preferences of different stakeholder groups (passengers, potential passengers, and local government) and creating an acceptable coordination for an ultimate, sustainable decision. In the model, Analytic Hierarchy Process is applied, combined with Kendall rank correlation and an extra level of stakeholder significance in the decision. A case study is also presented on the situation of a Turkish city: Mersin. The results show, that by the application of the new model, a more integrated and thus more sustainable solution can be created for the public transport problems of the city, and by this, probably more citizens can be attracted to use public transport modes which might result in decreased CO₂ emissions.