Public engagement in strategic transportation planning: An analytic hierarchy process based approach

• AHP is a flexible and powerful tool for understanding and quantifying Public preferences.
• Accessibility, safety and environmental proved to be the most significant criteria.
• Waiting time and monetary cost are the most significant accessibility sub-criteria.
• The Public puts great importance on the infrastructural component of travel safety.
• The Public prefers low congestion and reliable services to ATIS services.

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether and how multiple-criteria decision analysis, based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach, may support the participatory process of the public in the whole transportation planning process, especially in strategic planning and at the initial stages during which planning options are drawn up and the public are rarely involved. The AHP makes it possible to consider the multiple objectives of decision makers and allows public engagement to be deliberative, participatory, dynamic and flexible, which is independent of planning options. The method was specified and calibrated starting from a specific stated preferences survey, and its parameters were calibrated with respect to two scenarios: without any transport options and with real transport options. Different criteria (accessibility, travel safety, comfort, environment, landscape), subcriteria and corresponding indicators (qualitative, quantitative and dichotomous) were considered, and reciprocal weights were calibrated. Finally, a real planning scenario was implemented. Calibration results gave interesting insights into the public desires and expectations, made it possible to rank the different chosen criteria and sub-criteria and to understand the biases between preferences stated with or without transport options. The method can be easily updated and can be easily transferred to any case study.