Non-parametric Multi-criteria Optimisation of Park and Ride Facility Locations

摘要

A significant increase in car ownership has been recognised as one of the main reasons for traffic congestion, especially in city centres. Park-and-ride (P&R) facilities are often included as parts of a multimode transportation strategy, featuring car parks where users can switch to public transportation to carry on their journeys; they have thus long been used as an effective solution to mitigating congestion issues without affecting traffic demand. Feasible locations of park-and-ride facilities are thus of crucial importance not only for users, but also local authorities and the environment. Many factors of different importance affect the optimal locations of P&R facilities, which further complicates the process of decision making. In order to systemise the process of criteria weighting, a non-parametric approach is thus used in this paper to test three key aspects of the P&R facility localisation process. These are user coverage, accessibility from major roads, and area availability. An Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to develop a resilient weighting system that can be updated for each case, and the case study used in this research is the Iraqi city of Kerbala. The results show that that the AHP method is a powerful technique for evaluating and comparing the influence of multiple factors on each other and on the final outcome. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings, practical implications, research limitations and future research directions.