A Novel Fuzzy SIMUS Multicriteria Decision-Making Method. An Application in Railway Passenger Transport Planning

To increase the level of adequacy in multi-criteria decision-making in the case of uncertainty, it is essential to reduce the subjectivism and to increase the reality of obtained results. The study aims to propose a novel fuzzy multi-criteria method based on the fuzzy linear programming method and sequential interactive model for urban systems method (SIMUS), named fuzzy SIMUS. This paper is something completely different because it links the power of fuzzy with the advantage of the SIMUS method. Indeed, not using weights, it works with optimal values. Here, this procedure is presented for the first time. The methodology consists of three stages. The first stage includes forming the parameters of a multi-criteria model in the case of uncertainty. The initial matrix has three values: lower, medium, and upper. In the second stage, the fuzzy SIMUS model for each objective is formed based on fuzzy linear programming method. The third stage deals with the ranking of the alternatives. The methodology was experimented for planning railway intercity passenger transport in Bulgarian’s railway network. Nine alternative transport plans and eight criteria were studied. It was found that the objectives which influence ranking the most are the frequency of train stops (15%), direct operational costs (15%), train’s capacity (14.7%), and reliability (14.3%). A transport plan for railway passenger transport is proposed. A verification of the results was performed. It was found that the stability of the choice presented a suitable alternative.