One solution for cross-country transport-sustainability evaluation using a modified ELECTRE method

Transport is an economic activity having complex interactions with the environment, and since the concept of sustainable development was identified as a global priority, there has been a growing interest in assessing the performance of transport systems with respect to sustainability issues. Although the Ecological Economics literature deals extensively with the strategy of sustainable development, far less attention has been paid to its application in the transport sector as of yet. The main purpose of this study was to introduce the noncompensatory analytical tool, which integrates multidimensional conditions present in the sustainability concept. The focus was on the potential of the outranking approach, namely the ELECTRE (ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité; Elimination And Choice Corresponding to Reality) method for the evaluation of transport sustainability at the macro level, using the indicator set as a starting point. The method has been applied to selected European countries within a case study. As a result, according to transport-sustainability issues, pairwise relations between countries have been established. Based on these relations, and according to the chosen criteria, a set of countries with a better level of performance was selected as the core subset of the relation graph. To control and avoid the appearance of indifference relations between countries, as well as to reduce the subjectivity of decision makers, we propose a modification of ELECTRE I. Finally, we apply both the original and the modified methods, together with the sensitivity analysis. The results are presented in a convenient graph form and then compared.