A Fuzzy Logic-Based Methodology for Ranking Transport Infrastructures

Transport companies in many cases have to evaluate their competitiveness, comparing it with that of their competitors. Usually this assessment is performed through one or more indices representing facility performances, derived from a set of indicators relevant to problem representation. If the aim is to estimate the user evaluation for the service offered by a facility, the development of a synthetic index can be difficult since user’s choice is often characterized by significant uncertainties and it is not always governed by certain rules and rational behaviour, so that it could not be easily and explicitly represented by traditional mathematical techniques and models. Such uncertainties in the relationship between indicator values and facility attractiveness can be properly defined by explicitly specifying them in an approximate way using fuzzy sets theory. In this paper an innovative approach for the classification of Transport Facilities is proposed. The method is based on a Fuzzy Inference System and may be employed both as a benchmarking/ranking procedure and as a decision support tool to evaluate future scenarios as a result of facilities remodelling.