A probabilistic decision-making approach for the sustainable assessment of infrastructures

Sustainable development is a multidimensional concept that usually implies a simultaneous concretization of contradictory aspects. Multi-criteria decision approaches are often used for the management of conflicting perspectives. In life cycle approaches, uncertainties are unavoidable and a decision making approach dealing with life-cycle based criteria cannot disregard the uncertainties associated with the evaluation of criteria. It is the purpose of this paper to introduce a decision-making approach, based on PROMETHEE and AHP, to address both of these important issues. Moreover, the proposed approach aims to address two other types of uncertainties, inherent to the use of PROMETHEE and AHP, which arise from the selection of the generalized criterion functions and the selection of preference values, respectively. The proposed approach enhances the robustness of the decision-making approach and enables decisions to be made on a more reliable base. The approach is applied to a case study: the comparative assessment of alternatives bridges taking into account environmental, economical and social criteria evaluated over the complete life-cycle of the bridges.

► An enhanced decision-making approach is proposed for the sustainable evaluation of infrastructures.
► The approach takes advantage of the synergy between PROMETHEE and AHP.
► A probabilistic analysis is considered in order to address uncertainties in criteria and internal uncertainties.
► The approach is applied to three alternative bridges, considering environmental, economical and social criteria.
► The probabilistic approach enhances the robustness of the decision-making process.