PRIORITIZATION OF HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS USING THE MCDM METHOD FOR A LARGE SCALE HIGHWAY NETWORK

摘要

In Seoul Metropolitan area, highway investment for major arterial network has been scarce before 1980s, suddenly increased during the late 1980s, and then cut down to the previous level in years 2000s. Conversely, traffic demand has increased continuously, leading to an unbalanced traffic demand compared to the supply level, and this resulted in severe traffic congestions. Considering that a strong criticism has started to grow in the public against the highway investment, and that there is a need to harmonize the various interests of many groups participating in a highway constructions, the current single criteria decision making process to determine future highway investments calls for a substitution. In this regard, several available multiple criteria decision making methods were reviewed and then TOPSIS (Technique Order for Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) was adopted to meet this demand. TOPSIS is an evaluation method that is often used to solve multiple criteria decision making problems. In TOPSIS, it is known that the quantitative and qualitative analysis items associated with a highway project can be systematically integrated to make a prioritized list of future highway projects, even for a large highway network. In this research, TOPSIS structure and its problem solving technique were reviewed and then applied to Seoul's large highway network. Then the prioritized list made in this research was compared with an existing list which had been made earlier and secured in the city government for years. The comparison showed a quite different order and this was believed to occur because the application of the multiple criteria decision making process has opened the exchange of value judgments for the quantitative variables and qualitative variables included in the highway improvement projects, a promising phenomenon that was not possible previously.