A multi criteria comprehensive evaluation approach for emergency response capacity with interval 2-tuple linguistic information

Abstract

Emergency response capacity evaluation (ERCE) is an important and challenging issue in emergency management with the frequent occurrence of emergency events. Because of their different backgrounds and preferences, decision makers (DMs) often prefer to use linguistic variables from different linguistic term sets to express their decision information about the importance and the ratings of multi criteria involved in ERCE issue, some of which may be imprecise and uncertain. Therefore, this paper proposes a multi criteria comprehensive evaluation (MCCE) approach for ERCE with interval 2-tuple linguistic information. First, a new method for comparison between interval 2-tuples is proposed. Then, the classic analytical hierarchy process is extended into the ITL-AHP, in which the interval 2-tuple linguistic preference relation (ITLPR) and its multiplicative consistency are defined. An iterative algorithm to improve the consistency level of an ITLPR is proposed. Based on improved ITLPRs, the priority weights of criteria are derived by the normalizing rank summation method. In individual decision information collecting processes, both subjective weights and objective weights of DMs are considered. Furthermore, some interval 2-tuple interval weighted aggregation operators in which the weight vectors take the form of interval 2-tuple linguistic information are developed. Finally, a numerical illustration and comparison analyses are provided to elucidate the feasibility and superiority of the proposed method. The proposed method can provide a flexible way to perceive and appraise the emergency response capacity (REC) and an effective tool to handle the emergency management performance evaluation and decision making under fuzzy and uncertain information environment.