Application of a Multi-criteria Approach to Road Safety Evaluation in the Bushehr Province, Iran

Road safety is one of the influential factors in reducing road accidents and the resulting injuries and fatalities. The aim of this study is to determine the safety position of the roads of the Bushehr province based on various quantitative and qualitative criteria. For this purpose, a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach has been utilized. In this approach, first all criteria influencing road safety in the Bushehr province were classified into main and sub-criteria groups and their weights were obtained using Group Analytic Hierarchy Process (GAHP). Then, the rankings of the Bushehr province roads were calculated through the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The results indicate that during the period of investigation, the roads of Bushehr-Borazjan and Borazjan-Genaveh were the best with minor difference and Deylem-Behbahan road was the worst road of this province. In this regard, the criteria of violations/traffic and road facilities contribute more to the results due to their weights. It is clear that continuous evaluation of road safety will have significant effect on governmental policy-makings for improving roads and safety-related actions. KEY WORDS: Roads Safety Coefficient, quantitative and qualitative criteria, Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM), GAHP Technique, TOPSIS Method