SELECTION OF PAVEMENT MARKINGS USING MULTICRITERIA DECISION MAKING

A decision support system (DSS) that was developed to aid in the selection of pavement marking materials is described. The DSS is based on multicriteria decision making, a technique that enables a variety of considerations to be brought into the analysis. Through a series of interactions with a Connecticut Department of Transportation task force, the key criteria were identified and structured into a goals hierarchy. Safety, costs, and convenience are the major categories for the goals. The task force helped to establish an objective function that quantifies how each goal and subgoal contributes to the overall goal of selecting the best pavement marking. This objective function was incorporated into a computer-based model using off-the-shelf personal computer software.