On Limitations of the Prioritization Methods in Analytic Hierarchy Process : A Study of Transportation Selection Problems Kevin Kam

Abstract— The most appropriate prioritization method is still one of the unsettled issues of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, although many studies have been made and applied. Interestingly, many transportation evaluation and selection models using AHP apply only Saaty’s Eigenvector method. Many theoretical studies have found that this method may produce rank reversals and have proposed various prioritization methods as alternatives. Some methods have been proved to be superior to the Eigenvector method. However, a literature review shows that these methods seem not to attract the attention of researchers in this research area. In this paper, a Prioritization Operator Recommendation Model is proposed to address this issue. Eight important prioritization methods are reviewed. A Mixed Prioritization Operators model is developed to select a vector which has the most appropriate prioritization operators for generic evaluation and selection problems in transportation. To verify this new model, a case study is revised using the proposed model. The contribution is that MPOs are useful for solving prioritization problems in the AHP.