Utilizing Fuzzy TOPSIS for Sustainable Development: A Case Study in Selection of Airport Location

In recent years, most countries have seen an increased focus on the concept of sustainable development in decisions regarding transportation infrastructure where environmental and social criteria are considered on par with economic criteria. This is particularly important in decisions to build new airports or expand their capacity with long-term implications for economic growth, welfare and regional development processes.The fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution) method is distinguished from the other methods of the multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) in that it arranges the available alternatives according to their proximity to the optimal solution. In real life, alternatives are observed in relation to the criteria and the weights of the criteria with fuzzy numbers. In such a case, the crisp traditional methods that solve the problems of multi-criteria decision-making are considered to be of weak effectiveness. The aim of this paper is to solve the problem of choosing a new hub airport for a hypothetical European Union airline, by applying the fuzzy TOPSIS method based on alpha level sets as it was applied to a selected data set from the available alternatives (candidate airports). The criteria for expressing the performance of these airports are defined and evaluated by the decision maker. The objective of the practical application of the studied problem is to show the usefulness of the method used as a tool that helps the decision maker to determine which of the alternatives represents the best solution in an environment with fuzzy data.