A Fuzzy AHP-Based Framework for Evaluating Public Transportation Sustainability: A Multi-Dimensional Approach

Evaluating the sustainability of public transportation systems requires a comprehensive framework that can address multiple, often conflicting criteria under uncertainty. Despite the growing importance of sustainable mobility, integrating social and technical dimensions with environmental goals remains challenging, often compounded by the inherent ambiguity in expert judgment. The study provides an FAHP-based indicator-weighting framework that enables the prioritization and comparison of the relative importance of sustainability indicators, providing a structured basis for subsequent public-transport sustainability assessments across four dimensions: social, economic, environmental, and technical. A total of 20 sub-criteria, drawn from a previously validated framework, were evaluated using expert judgments from transportation and sustainability specialists. The results indicate that social criteria emerge as the most influential dimension, followed by economic, technical, and environmental considerations. At the sub-criteria level, factors such as journey type, GDP, and family size were identified as the most critical indicators. The findings reveal a strong dominance of user-oriented and socio-economic factors in shaping public transport sustainability, while environmental considerations receive comparatively lower priority. Sensitivity analysis showed that the highest-ranked indicator, type of journey, remained stable under moderate changes in the weight of the social dimension. This imbalance suggests a potential misalignment between long-term sustainability goals and practical decision-making processes. The proposed FAHP framework provides a structured and interpretable tool for prioritizing sustainability indicators and supports policymakers in developing more balanced, user-centered transport strategies.