A road maintenance management strategy evaluation and selection model by integrating Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS methods: The case of Ethiopian Roads Authority

Abstract

The construction industry is the most important for the social, economic, and political development of countries. The road construction sector is the largest in the construction industry. Inappropriate road maintenance leads to an inefficient and random way of spending maintenance costs. Therefore, road maintenance needs to prevent deterioration that shortens the service life of the road. Thus, the study was focused on a road maintenance strategy evaluation and selection model by integrating Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS methods. The evaluation was a multiple-criteria decision-making problem. The fuzzy AHP technique was used to determine criterion weight. To deal with the uncertain judgment of decision makers, a fuzzy TOPSIS method is applied as an evaluation tool in a fuzzy environment where the uncertain, subjectivity, and imprecise judgments of decision makers are handled with linguistic values parameterized by triangular fuzzy numbers. To achieve the objective, the data were collected from primary and secondary sources. The method of data analysis for this study was made by integrated methodology, and the analysis was made by using Microsoft Excel. The study revealed that quality, maintenance time, environment, production cost, and profit are the most important selection criteria. The finding of the study revealed that periodic maintenance was the best relative closeness value among the considered alternatives. This study recommends that the analysis method can be implemented by the Ethiopian Roads Authority to demonstrate its practicality in selecting the appropriate strategy.