1

The multi-actor, multi-criteria analysis methodology (MAMCA) for

the evaluation of transport projects: theory and practice

Cathy Macharis, Astrid De Witte, Jeroen Ampe••••

1 Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department MOSI-T, Belgium

Abstract

In this paper the multi-actor multi-criteria analysis (MAMCA) method to evaluate transport

projects is presented. This evaluation method specifically focuses on the inclusion of qualitative

as well as quantitative criteria with their relative importance, defined by the multiple

stakeholders, into one comprehensive evaluation process in order to facilitate the decision

making process by the different stakeholders. The MAMCA methodology is introduced by an

overview of other evaluation methods for transport projects in the past and is illustrated by

means of two practical cases. The introduction will lead us to the theoretical conception of the

MAMCA method where we draw the attention to the proven usefulness of the MAMCA for the

evaluation of transport projects and the inclusion of different kinds of stakeholders, individuals

as well as groups, into the evaluation process.

Keywords: Evaluation methods, Stakeholders approach, Multi-criteria analysis; transport projects.

1. Introduction

Several types of appraisal methods can be used for the evaluation of transport projects. The

most common methods are the private investment analysis, the cost-effectiveness analysis

(CEA), the economic-effects analysis (EEA), the social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA) and the

• Corresponding author: C. Macharis (Cathy.Macharis@vub.ac.be)

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multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Nowadays, next to economical effects, the ecological,

spatial and social impacts of a project are increasingly gaining importance in light of a more

sustainable solution (Tzeng and Shiau, 1988; Zak and Thiel 2001; Macharis and Ampe 2007;

Ampe and Macharis, 2008). As the first three methods are only taking economic effects into

account or are only validating a single goal in function of its financial cost, the last two ones -

SCBA and MCDA - are gaining more and more interest and are more frequently being used,

because they allow other aspects besides the economical ones.

In some countries, the use of a social cost-benefit analysis for large transport investments

infrastructure has been advocated by the public sector and, for the sake of comparability, has

also been harmonised in terms of parameters such as the discount rates to be used (see the

Overzicht Effecten Infrastructuur (OEI) guiding principles in the Netherlands and in Flanders

for port infrastructure projects). In a social cost-benefit analysis, which is grounded in the

principle of Welfare Theory, the classical criterion of financial gain is being broadened by

considering the market effects as well as the non-market effects of decisions. A discount rate is

used to calculate the net present value and the internal rate of return of the project. The

cost/benefit ratio is a third common used indicator. In theory, all relevant effects are taken into

account and monetarised. In practice, this monetarisation is often problematic and some effects

remain presented as pro memory or as very uncertain in the analysis (see also Ferreira and Lake,

2002). In that case, the results of a SCBA will not fully capture all the externalities and

intangible benefits: it may give an idea on the efficiency of a measure at a certain moment, but it

cannot decide on whether the project is justifiable from a societal point of view.

This is where the use of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) comes in. Multi-criteria

decision aid, which stems from a quite different tradition, namely from operation research,

makes it possible to evaluate several alternative projects or variants on various quantitative and

qualitative criteria (Vincke, 1992). Consequently, all effects arising from a policy can be taken

into account.

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The application of multi-criteria analysis in the transport sector has a very broad scope,

ranging from the evaluation of policy measures in passenger transport (Bouwman and Moll,

2002), to strategic decisions (Vreeker et al., 2002; Dooms and Macharis, 2006), technologies

(Macharis et al., 2004; Tzeng et al., 2005), locations (Macharis, 2000; Sirikijpanichkul and

Ferreira, 2005), and finally infrastructure projects (De Brucker et al., 1998). Furthermore the

methods, conceptions and approaches show a large variety ranging from methods arising from

the « American school » like the Analytical Hierarchy Process method, to methods developed

by the « European school » like the ELECTRE methods and the PROMETHEE method. For an

overview of different types of MCDA methods see Vincke, 1992; Roy and Bouyssou, 1993;

Belton and Stewart, 2002; and Figueira, 2005. Zak (2005) gives a comparison of several MCDA

methods to solve mass transit systems’ decision problems. For a recent overview of transport

applications and applied MCDA methods see Ampe and Macharis (2008).

The geographical scope is quite large too. For the appraisal of infrastructure development

projects, multi-criteria analysis is being used in Austria, Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands

(Bristow and Nellthorp, 2000). In the UK, there has recently been a shift towards a New

Approach to Appraisal (NATA) for infrastructure projects, including several new criteria which

were not included in the standard cost benefit analysis. A multi-criteria approach is now applied

in order to include the different aspects. In France, on the other hand, there has been a shift

away from using multi-criteria analysis after an extensive use during the 1980’s, because the

weights were not allocated in a satisfying nor transparent way (Sayers et al., 2003). We will

come back to the weighting problem in section 2. Japan uses a kind of MCDA supplemented by

CBA without an explicit formula or weights for various impacts. In addition, the CBA includes

the evaluation of regional economic impacts, global and local environmental effects and the

contribution to achieving minimum impact on living standards. In the USA, the cost-benefit

analysis is recommended, but on a regional level MCDA is used (Hayashi et al., 2000).

Several authors recommend using both methods in combination (De Brucker and Saitua,

2006; Bekeffi et al., 2003 and Vertonghen, 1992) as they might give complementary insights.

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For the evaluation of transport projects, the eclectic multi-criteria analysis method developed by

De Brucker et al. (1998) enables to integrate different types of analysis tools used in transport

project evaluation, such as the cost-benefit analysis, the environmental effect analysis, the

economic impact analysis, and so on.

A further step in the evolution of appraisal methods is the explicit introduction of a

stakeholdernotion in the analysis. A stakeholder is by definition any individual or group of

individuals that can influence or are influenced by the achievement of the organisation’s

objectives (Freeman, 1984). For the transport sector many different stakeholders are often

involved (Zak, 2002; Zak and Thiel 2001). Stakeholder groups can be for example the users, the

investors/operators, the society as a whole and the government. Including them in the decision-

making process is, certainly in the transport sector, a crucial element in the successful

implementation of the measure. Citizens, private companies and different policy levels will have

a large impact on the implementation of a project. Consequently, it is very important to identify

them and to be aware of their stakes and objectives. If the interests of the stakeholders are not

taken into account, the study or analysis will be ignored by the policymakers or be attacked by

the stakeholders (Walker, 2000). A well known syndrome for investments in transport projects

is the NIMBY syndrome (Not in My backyard). Taking into account the goals of the local

citizens is crucial ex-ante in order to cope with these goals and to compensate if necessary. As

denoted by Banville et al. (1998) multi-criteria analysis is useful for the introduction of the

stakeholder concept. In their paper, a first framework for the introduction of the concept of

stakeholders is introduced. They argue that, certainly in the first three stages of a multi-criteria

analysis (the problem analysis and the identification of alternatives and criteria), the concept of

stakeholders can enrich the analysis, but they do not include the stakeholders within the

methodology further on. The methodology we propose in this paper makes these stakeholders

explicit in the appraisal methodology. We call this approach a multi actor, multi-criteria

approach, or short MAMCA methodology, for the evaluation of transport projects. This

methodology is suited for the evaluation of infrastructure projects, but it can also be applied for

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the evaluation of transport technologies and of policy measures in general, as will be shown in

the cases in section 3. In the next section, the MAMCA methodology is presented.

2. The multi-stakeholder, multi-criteria analysis evaluation framework

In a classical MCDA approach the following steps are taken: problem definition, developing

the alternatives, developing a set of criteria and an evaluation matrix, the general evaluation of

the alternatives, and finally the implementation (Nijkamp et al. 1990; De Brucker et al. 1998).

The first step in the MAMCA approach is the definition of the problem and the identification of

the alternatives (step 1). The methodology differs from the classical approach of MCDA in the

explicit introduction of stakeholders in a very early stage (step 2). These stakeholders will be

key to identify the criteria, which are here equal to the objectives of the stakeholders. The

weights that have to be given, are representing the importance the stakeholders are attaching to

these objectives (step 3). The stakeholders will also get the opportunity to discuss the

alternatives. New alternatives can be entered as requested by the stakeholders (step 1). In the

fourth step, for each criterion, one or more indicators are constructed (e.g., direct quantitative

indicators such as money spent, number of lives saved, reductions in CO2 emissions achieved,

etc. or scores on an ordinal indicator such as high/medium/low for criteria with values that are

difficult to express in quantitative terms, and so on) (step 4). The measurement method for each

indicator is also made explicit (for instance, willingness to pay, quantitative scores based on

macroscopic computer simulation, and so on.). This allows measuring the performance of each

alternative in terms of its contribution to the objectives of specific stakeholder groups. Steps 1 to

4 can be considered as mainly analytical, and they precede the ‘overall analysis’, which takes

into account the objectives of all stakeholder groups simultaneously and is more ‘synthetic’ in

nature. The fifth step is the construction of an evaluation matrix, aggregating each alternative

contribution to the objectives of all stakeholders. Next, the MCDA yields a ranking of the

various alternatives and reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed alternatives (step

6). The stability of this ranking can be assessed through a sensitivity analysis. The last stage of

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the methodology (step 7) includes the actual implementation. The overall methodology of the

MAMCA is shown in figure 1. The various steps are discussed in more detail below.

Stakeholder analysisStakeholder analysis

Stake-holder 1Stake-

holder 1

C11C11 CCAlternativesAlternatives Cn1Cn1 Cnm

Cnm

Stake-holder mStake-

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Ref.Ref.

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C11C11 Results

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Implemen-tation

scenariosscenarios

resultresult

resultresult

CnmCnm

resultresult

resultresult

IndicatorsIndicators Measurementmethods

Measurementmethods

C11C11

CnmCnm

MitigationstrategiesMitigationstrategies

C11C11 CCWn1Wn1 Wnm

Wnm

W11W11 Wnm

WnmOverall analyses

(MCA)

+/0/-+/0/-Deploymentscenarios

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1122

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33

77

Figure 1: Methodology for a multi-stakeholder, multi-criteria analysis (MAMCA). Source: Macharis et al., 2004

Step 1: Define alternatives

The first stage of the methodology consists in identifying and classifying the possible

alternatives submitted for evaluation. These alternatives can take various forms according to the

problem situation. They can differ for infrastructure investments, technological solutions,

possible future scenarios together with a base scenario, different policy measures, long term

strategic options, and so on.

Step 2: Stakeholder analysis

The stakeholders are identified in the stakeholder analysis. Stakeholders are people who have

an interest, financial or otherwise, in the consequences of any decisions taken. An in-depth

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understanding of each stakeholder group’s objectives is critical in order to appropriately assess

the different alternatives. Stakeholder analysis should be viewed as an aid to properly identify

the range of stakeholders which need to be consulted and whose views should be taken into

account in the evaluation process. Once identified, they might also provide new ideas on the

alternatives that have to be taken into account.

Step 3: Define criteria and weights

The choice and definition of evaluation criteria are primarily based on the identified

stakeholder objectives and the purposes of the alternatives considered. A hierarchical decision

tree can be set up. In the MAMCA methodology, the criteria for the evaluation are the goals and

objectives of the stakeholders, and not the effects or impacts of the actions per se as is usually

done in a multi-criteria analysis. In a natural way, these impacts will be reflected in the goals of

the stakeholders (if all relevant stakeholders are included). The weights are then determined by

the importance the stakeholder is attaching to each of his or her objectives. For the

determination of the weights, the existing methods can be used such as the allocation of 100

points, direct allocation, and so on (for an overview see Nijkamp et al. (1990) and Eckenrode

(1965)). The approach followed here for the identification of the criteria and the weights, by

approaching it from a stakeholder perspective, also solves one of the main problems in multi-

criteria analysis, namely the (in)dependency of the criteria. In MCDA-theory, methods can only

be used if the general assumption of independency between criteria is fulfilled. In the literature

it is widely recognised that in many decision problems (and certainly in transport related

problems) an interdependency between the criteria exists (Öztürk, 2006; Carlsson and Fuller,

1997). By defining the weights as the importance the stakeholder attaches to his/her goal, there

might be an interdependence between the criteria, as long as the stakeholder wants to give it the

(summed) weight he or she is attaching to it.

A new problem occurs however. When creating an extra layer of different stakeholders in the

analysis, it is often felt necessary to also give a weight to the stakeholders. In order to show that

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the points of view of all stakeholders are equally important, the weights are usually set equal for

every stakeholder (group). Performing a sensitivity analysis on these weights can lead to new

insights. When the government is one of the stakeholders, which is usually the case in the

evaluation of transport projects, one could say that this stakeholder represents the society’s point

of view and therefore this should be the one to follow. Analysis of the points of view of the

other stakeholders, like users, local population, manufacturers, and so on, will then show if a

certain measure will possibly be adopted or rejected by these groups.

Step 4: Criteria, indicators and measurement methods

At this stage, the previously identified stakeholder criteria are ‘operationalised’ by

constructing indicators (also called metrics or variables) that can be used to measure whether, or

to what extent, an alternative contributes to each individual criterion. Indicators provide a

‘scale’ against which a project’s contribution to the criteria can be judged. Indicators are

usually, but not always, quantitative in nature. More than one indicator may be required to

measure a project’s contribution to a criterion and indicators themselves may measure

contributions to multiple criteria.

Step 5: Overall analysis and ranking

Any MCDA-method can be used to assess the different strategic alternatives. In fact, the

second generation multi-criteria analysis methods, the Group decision support methods

(GDSM), are well suited for use in the MAMCA methodology as they are able to cope with the

stakeholder concept. The PROMETHEE method has, for example, been extended in Macharis,

Brans and Mareschal (1998), the Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method in Saaty (1989)

and ELECTRE in Leyva-Lpez and Fernández-González (2003). These GDSM methods give

each stakeholder group the liberty of having their own criteria, weights and preference structure

and only at the end of the analysis the different points of view are being confronted.

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In this step, the evaluation of the different alternatives should be inserted in the evaluation

table. Depending on the method, these evaluations have to be given in a cardinal, ordinal or

ratio scale (De Brucker et al., 1998). In the AHP method, a similar pair-wise comparison

procedure is followed for the determination of the weights. An intermediate step can be

introduced in the form of a profile chart in case there are a large number of criteria making it

more difficult to work with the pair-wise comparisons. In the profile chart, the alternatives are

being directly evaluated in terms of very good (+++) to very bad (---) and later on translated

towards the Saaty scale (see Dooms et al., 2004). In the GDSS-Promethee procedure the

evaluations can directly be completed in the evaluation table on a cardinal scale.

Step 6: Results

The multi-criteria analysis developed in the previous step eventually leads to a classification

of the proposed alternatives. A sensitivity analysis is in this stage performed in order to see if

the result changes when the weights are modified. More important than the ranking, the multi-

criteria analysis reveals the critical stakeholders and their criteria. The multi-actor, multi-criteria

analysis provides a comparison of different strategic alternatives, and supports the decision-

maker in making his final decision by pointing out for each stakeholder which elements have a

clearly positive or a clearly negative impact on the sustainability of the considered alternatives.

Step 7: Implementation

When the decision is made, steps have to be taken to implement the chosen alternative by

creating deployment schemes. The information on the points of view of each stakeholder,

received from the previous steps, tremendously helps to define the implementation paths.

Possibly new alternatives or modified ones are being proposed for further analysis as more

insight into the advantages and disadvantages of a certain alternative for each stakeholder is

generated. This would then create a feedback-loop towards the beginning of the procedure.

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3. Case studies

The MAMCA methodology has been applied in a very broad range of applications. In the

area of transport it was used for the evaluation of transport policy measures (such as the

evaluation of mobility rights (Crals et al., 2004)), transport technologies (such as the evaluation

of advanced driver assistance systems, see Macharis et al., 2004; or the determination of

sustainable traction battery technologies, see Macharis et al., 2005), the choice of the best

alternative for a possible modal shift of waste transport in the Brussels region (BRUGARWAT:

Brussels Garbage by water) (Macharis and Boel, 2004) and the location of a new HST-terminal

in Brussels (Meeus et al., 2004). For the development of a port master plan, in this case the Port

of Brussels, the methodology proved also to be very helpful (Dooms, Macharis and Verbeke,

2004). In this case the methodology was used in two types of applications. A first type of

application was for a location analysis and planning of a separate port site (i.e. the site of

Carcoke and Béco). The second type of application was for the long-term strategic planning for

the whole port area. For each port area the possible strategic development options were

compared.

In this section, two applications of the methodology will be discussed in more detail to

illustrate the different steps of the MAMCA methodology. As discussed above, different types

of multi-criteria analysis methods can be used within the evaluation framework according to the

context and appropriateness of a certain method for a certain decision problem (for guidelines

deciding between MCDA methods see: Guitouni and Martel, 1998 and Tsamboulas et al. 1999).

In order to show the kind of graphical support that can be obtained for the multi actor analysis,

we will use two very common used MCDA methods, namely the PROMETHEE method

(developed by Brans, 1982 and extended towards a GDSS environment by Macharis, Brans and

Mareschal, 1998) and the Analytical Hierarchy Process method (AHP), developed by Saaty

(1988). For a description and comparison of these two methods, see Macharis et al. 2003.

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The first application of the MAMCA methodology is the choice of location for intermodal

terminals. The so called LAMBIT-model (Location Analysis Model for Belgian Intermodal

Terminals) provided the framework for the decision-making process on the location of new

intermodal terminals (Macharis, 2000 and Macharis, 2004). In a preliminary phase the traffic

potential of each terminal project is determined. In order to have a sustainable terminal, the

traffic potential in the surrounding area of the terminal must be large enough to support it.

Furthermore, the impact of the new projects on the market area of the existing terminals must be

analysed. A network model allowed the determination of the traffic potential and the impact on

the existing terminals. In the next phase a more comprehensive evaluation on a discrete set of

terminal projects was applied (step 1). In the second step, the stakeholders were identified. In

this case these were the users of the terminal, the operators/investors and the community as a

whole. In Figure 2 the decision tree is given, showing the three stakeholders with their

respective criteria and sub-criteria (step 3). In this case the analyst proposed the decision tree. It

was later validated by the stakeholders. In order to assess the importance of each criteria,

different approaches were followed. For the users, the assessment was based on the results of a

large scale survey on the importance of the modal choice variables. For the operator / investors,

the weights were acquired directly from the limited amount of involved actors. For the society

as a whole, the analyst proposed certain weights which were validated by a steering group. A

sensitivity analysis in the end further confirmed the robustness of the results. For every criterion

and sub-criterion used in the model indicators have to be chosen in order to make it possible to

evaluate the alternatives on these criteria (step 4). For the criteria of the operator/investor and

more in particular the maximization of the net present value, a cost-benefit analysis was

performed.

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Figure 2: Decision Tree in the LAMBIT-model. Source: own setup.

In order to complete the evaluation table (step 5), the different indicators were used and

calculated. In this case, the PROMETHEE GDSS method was applied to further analyze the

data. In step 6, the results from the model are presented and analyzed. For each stakeholder a

multi-criteria analysis is shown. This first uni-actor analysis shows the particular points of

interests of a specific stakeholder. See for example Figure 3 which demonstrates the analysis for

the users in the GAIA-plane The GAIA-plane (Geometrical Analysis for Interactive Aid)

displays graphically the relative position of the alternatives with regard to the criteria and the

conflicts between the criteria according to the principal component analysis (Mareschal, 1988;

Macharis et al. 1998).

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Figure 3: GAIA plane of the user model. Source: own setup

The points on the graph represent the six criteria. The direction of the lines indicates in which

area of the plane the best actions will be located. For example, B obtained good scores on the

criteria ‘connections’ and ‘reliability’, but poor scores on ‘transportation cost’, ‘transportation

time’ and ‘frequency’ (these two last criteria are subject to an identical projection, which makes

the figure less readable). A distinction is made between the reference terminals (A and B,

denoted by a square) and the terminal projects (C and D denoted by a triangle). It is also

possible to establish the conflicting or non-conflicting nature of the criteria. The criteria

‘transportation time’ and ‘frequency’ coincide, suggesting that these two criteria are positively

related to each other. The pi-decision marker points to the project which obtains high scores

from an overall perspective according to the weights of the criteria. In this application, terminal

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A seems to be the most preferred according to all the criteria of the users and the relative

importance they attach to it.

In order to obtain the multi-actor analysis, the GAIA plane can again be used but this time the

axes are representing the points of view of the stakeholders (see Figure 4). Terminal B obtains

favourable scores on the goals of the investors/operators and on the goals of the community.

The goals of the user conflict with the goals of the community (the two criteria are on opposite

sides of the axis). Project C obtains favourable scores on the goals of the users. The pi-decision

marker, i.e. the overall decision, points to project B. The multi-actor analysis presents a first

view on the positions of the actors for a specific decision problem. If one observes that there is a

specific opposition between stakeholders, like it is the case here between the users and the

community, one can further analyse this conflict in the uni-actor analysis. The different

stakeholders can directly distinguish the various points of view and see why certain alternatives

are preferred.

Figure 4: GAIA plane of the global problem. Source: own setup

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A sensitivity analysis can be used to examine how robust the results are, i.e. with the

stability intervals and the walking weights of Decision Lab. The main aim is not to get a

ranking for the different alternatives but to gain insight in the advantages and

disadvantages of a certain option.

The second case we will describe in this paper is the strategic evaluation of the possible

extension of DHL at Zaventem International Airport, which was a hard to tackle (political)

problem in the year 2005 (Dooms and Macharis, 2006). The definition of the alternatives (step

1) was driven by DHL’s strategy regarding the choice of a new super-hub in Europe, namely the

‘super-hub’ choice, which meant the concentration of all European traffic at Brussels Airport,

the ‘multi-hub’ choice, which meant the concentration of all intercontinental traffic at Brussels

Airport, but with the continuous existence of capacity in other regional sub-hubs in Europe.

And finally, the ‘external super-hub’ choice, which meant the relocation of the DHL hub from

Brussels Airport. The main stakeholders in this case are the Government (as a hypothetical,

‘constructed’ stakeholder), DHL, the airport operating company BAC and the local community

(as night flights cause noise, leading to a possible decrease in quality of life). Figure 5 shows

the decision tree of the MAMCA with all stakeholders and their criteria (step 3):

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Figure 5: Decision tree. Source: Dooms and Macharis (2006), own setup.

These criteria had to be operationalised and the evaluations had to be integrated in the

evaluation table (step 4 and 5). In this case-study, the AHP method (Saaty, 1982) was used to

perform the analysis and rank the alternative strategies. Pair-wise comparisons were performed

based on the above-mentioned criteria. For the stakeholders DHL and BAC, stakeholder

representatives made the pair-wise comparisons themselves, as a substantial amount of

commercially sensitive and confidential information was involved. In the case of the

Government and the local community, the pair-wise comparisons were performed by the

research team itself, based on an economic impact study and a study on health costs included in

the project (Dooms et. al. 2006).

In step 6, these pair-wise comparisons were used as an input for Expert Choice, which

reworks the pair-wise comparisons into clear graphs and figures. In Figure 6 the results

are shown for the multi actor analysis. Each stakeholder received an equal weight, as

shown by the vertical bars, corresponding with the axe on the left.

Figure 6: Overall result – horizon 2012. Source: Dooms and Macharis (2006), own setup.

,00

,10

,20

,30

,40

,50

,60

,70

,80

,90

,00

,10

,20

,30

,40

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,60

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,80Obj%

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External superhub

superhubmultihub

DHL BAC Government Local OVERALL

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The results of the analysis with equal weights for all stakeholders showed that on horizon

2012, a multi-hub strategy is the preferred choice (see figure 6). On the other hand, the

difference between the alternatives “multihub” and “superhub” is very small and the ‘superhub’

option would be more preferable as at that moment BAC would also be more in favour of a

balanced expansion. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis showed that the results were very sensitive

to changes in the weights given to each of the stakeholders which showed how complex the

decision problem was. You can also remark that for the government the choice between the

three options was extremely difficult as economical factors had to be compared against health

issues. The analysis proved to be very valuable in order to understand the points of view of each

stakeholder (This case is discussed along with the associated political debate in Dooms et al.,

2006).

4. Conclusion

Several stakeholders are involved and several criteria have to be included for the evaluation of

transport projects. The proposed methodology allows the incorporation of these points of view

and several criteria in the analysis. The methodology has been applied in a variety of projects,

ranging from the evaluation of infrastructure projects to the evaluation of new technologies.

The MAMCA method makes the objectives of the various relevant stakeholders

explicit, thereby leading to a better understanding of the objectives of these stakeholders

by all parties concerned. Allowing the stakeholders (be it representatives of business

firms or government agencies) to reflect on their own objectives and involving them in

the pair-wise comparisons, also provides added value in the individual stakeholders’

internal decision-making processes. It expresses the concerns of the individual

stakeholder. The MAMCA approach forces them to reflect on what they really want and

on the rationale for these wants. Moreover, the fact that the stakeholders know they are

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included in a comprehensive evaluation, alters their way of thinking, and motivates

them to make proper assessments.

Second, the MAMCA method shows the essential trade-offs made by all stakeholders, and

makes these stakeholders more aware of the dynamic and spatial aspects of the societal

decision-making process. Including stakeholders into the analysis takes more time in the

beginning, but it improves the likelihood of acceptance of the proposed solution at the end of

the day.

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