Applying AHP and Clustering Approaches for Public Transportation Decisionmaking: A Case Study of Isfahan City

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to define appropriate criteria for the systematic approach to evaluate and prioritize multiple candidate corridors for public transport investment simultaneously to serve travel demand, regarding supply of current public transportation system and road network conditions of Isfahan, Iran. To optimize resource allocation, policymakers need to identify proper corridors to implement a public transportation system. In fact, the main question is to adopt the best public transportation system for each main corridor of Isfahan. In this regard, 137 questionnaires were completed by experts, directors, and policymakers of Isfahan to identify goals and objectives in the field of urban transportation. In the next step, objectives were prioritized by a multi-criteria decisionmaking method. Afterward, for the main 35 corridors of the city, available information, including trip demands toward main destinations of studied corridors derived from Isfahan comprehensive transportation studies and number of passengers of bus lines, were collected. Finally, 3,906 taxi passengers were interviewed at the end points of each corridor. The role of each policy in improvement of the objectives was assessed by expert choices, and suitable public transportation policies in studied corridors were defined by clustering parameters and converting them into weighted criteria. Mass transportation and implementation of road space rationing policies had the most influence on achieving prospected objectives in the city’s urban transportation system. Findings of this paper present a general evaluation of each implemented policy for the studied corridors.