A new Evaluation and Decision Making Framework Investigating the Elimination-by-Aspects Model in the Context of Transportation Projects' Investment Choices

摘要

The Transportation Elimination-by-Aspects (TEBA) framework, a new evaluation and decision makingframework (and methodology) for large transportation projects, is proposed to elicit, structure andquantify the preferences of stakeholder groups across project alternatives. The decision rule used forgroup decision making within TEBA is the individual non-compensatory model of choice elimination byaspects (EBA). TEBA is designed to bring out the decision rule employed by decision makers whenranking the options presented, incorporate various criteria types and ease communication of relevantinformation related to options and criteria for multiple stakeholder groups. It is a platform fordemocratizing the decision making process. The TEBA framework was tested using a case studyinvestigating alternative land connections between Beirut and Damascus. Key results showed that (1)stakeholders have employed EBA in making decisions, (2) a defined group of decision makers will rankoptions differently when provided with modified sets of criteria, (3) the public sector and general publicgroups ranked Impact on Employment among the top criteria, (4) the most important criterion per groupfrom EBA was as expected; (5) the EBA analysis suggested that only 3 to 4 criteria are significant inreaching a decision; (6) aggregation of user assigned weights masked relative importance of criteria insome cases; and (7) analysis of user assigned weights and Minimum Threshold (MT) values suggesthigher risk perception with increased criterion importance. Policy implications include recommendationto reach out to stakeholders for input on decisions, including the “people” but refrain from relying oncriteria weights assigned by “experts” and reduce the “experts”’ role in decision making. Also, it isrecommended to model the decision making in a probabilistic framework rather than a deterministic “onescore” approach, seek to identify a consensus ranking, place particular attention on determining the valuesof the criteria that emerged as “top” at the evaluation stage and continue to emphasize risk measures.Keywords: Transportation Investment, Collective Decision Making, Cost Benefit Analysis, Elimination by Aspects,Consensus Model / Joint Decision Making, Index of Dispersion, Behavioral Choice