Policy-makers of today’s transportation investment projects engage in dialogues and debates inwhich the reasonableness and clarity are of great value. In the traditional transportation systemsplanning practices, different stakeholders reason and provide evidence in support of theirpreferences, but these opinions are often conflicting and rarely consistent. This paper presents adecision-aiding approach for finding a transportation alternative that best achieves the project’sgoals and also indicate the level of satisfaction of different stakeholders. The proposed approachapplies (i) a reasoning map to structure how experts and citizens perceive the alternatives forachieving the project’s goals, and provides (ii) belief measures in evidence theory to what extentthe alternatives achieve the goals of different stakeholders. This method gives three kinds ofresults. First, the degrees of goal achievement can be calculated for different stakeholders.Second, the integrity of the reasoning and the quality of information are both evaluated based onmeasures of uncertainty associated with this information. Finally, the critical reasoning linksthat matter most significantly to goal achievement can be identified by means of sensitivityanalysis. The paper applies the proposed method to evaluate a Streetcar alternative against BusRapid Transit alternative in a real-world transit alternatives analysis. The reasoning-buildingprocess provides means for the planners and citizens to present their own logic and justifications.This promotes focused discourse among different stakeholders and enriches the quality of theplanning and decision-making process.
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