Research ArticleInvestigating Environmentally Sustainable Transport Based on DALY weights and SIR Method

ABSTRACTAccessibility is one of the main causes of well-being and growth in contemporary societies. Transportation is the backbone of accessibility systems that lead to the growth of economic and social networks and spatial dispersion of activities. Unfortunately, the adverse effects of transportation have a great impact on the natural and human environment. Since transportation is associated with fossil fuel combustion, it results in emissions of pollutants that cause damage to human health. To save the global eco-system, sustainable development has become an international priority. To deal with the sustainability of transportation systems is an important issue as testified by a growing number of initiatives framed to define and measure sustainability in transportation planning and infrastructure planning as well. The capability of environmental assessment as a sustainability instrument is well known. This study proposes a new approach to rank countries based on environmental sustainability development applying disability adjusted life year (DALY) weights for transportation sector emissions. DALY weights consider actual impacts of pollutants on human health. By employing SIR method, a superiority and inferiority ranking method is presented for multiple criteria decision making, the sustainability ranking of a number of European countries is presented. Three various ranking methods extracted from SIR ranking method are discussed and the results and the correlation among them are demonstrated.