A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach for Hazmat Transportation

Hazardous materials (hazmat) transportation is a niche segment of the transport industry, whereby the cargo imposes risk on the public health, the environment, and the property. A plethora of methodologies have been developed to find optimal routes for hazmat vehicles, which consider hazmat accident risk, population exposure, and cost. While everyone recognizes the relevance of these factors, we are unaware of studies that do not take into consideration all the factors together. In this study, we consider three main factors, and nine sub-factors together for hazmat transportation and propose a practical methodology to find optimal routes. First, we propose finding the factor weights using AHP methodology. In our case study based in Istanbul, Turkey, where we elicited the views of eight international experts on hazmat transportation, the most important main and sub-factors are found as “Consequences” and “Population exposure,” respectively. Next, we propose finding the arcs one composite score for each arc on a road network by combining the data at the sub-factor level using TOPSIS methodology and factor weights found in the first step. Finally, optimal routes between origin–destination (OD) pairs can be identified using ArcGIS network analysis tool, in which total route score is minimized. We compare the optimal routes found using our methodology and the methods used in previous studies. The results are encouraging from the perspective of practical applicability of the three-step procedure we propose in this chapter.