The Use of Multicriteria Techniques to Rank Highway Investment Proposals

Local authority transport planners are annually faced with the problem of selecting, from a wide range of proposals, a sub-set of projects which is in some sense “best” relative to their investment budget constraint. The choice is a complex one, for at least three reasons. The range of proposals is often wide in terms of project type, cost and impacts. Many of the impacts are difficult to quantify, both in theory and practice. Finally, there is not a single decision maker, but a series of groups, each with legitimate interests in what proposals should go ahead.