Multi-criteria decision making: AHP method applied for network bridge prioritization

In bridge management systems, multi-objective decision-making has emerged as a decision support technique to integrate various technical information and stakeholder values. Different multicriteria decision making techniques and tools have been developed in the last three decades. This paper presents an overview of different approaches to multi-objective decision making at the object and network level, with the purpose of incorporating different aspects of bridge performance goals, which may vary according to technical, environmental, economic and social factors. The example of application of analytic hierarchy process (AHP), as one of the multi criteria decision making method, to a illustrative case study is presented in the paper