An Application of the Analytic Network Process for Assessing the Sustainability of Different Transport Infrastructures

The paper addresses the problem of sustainability assessment of territorial transformations making use of the ANP. Particularly, the case of a new transport infrastructure in a city located in Northern Italy has been considered in the work. The project refers to the implementation of the ring road of the city which will lead to a radically new multifunctional design of the urban area. In the application, four alternative scenarios have been identified and compared in order to select the most sustainable one. In more details, the model takes into consideration the different aspects of the decision problem (namely, economic aspects, environmental aspects, social aspects, transport aspects and urban planning aspects) that have been organized according to the Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks (BOCR) categories. In the present study a focus group has been organized with actors coming from Public Authorities in order to discuss the general aspects of the problem. Moreover, different questionnaires have been submitted to several experts in order to elicitate the priorities of the elements being considered. The application of the ANP technique, which has been performed through the software Super Decisions, allows the most important elements of the decision problem to be highlighted.