The Holistic Approach to Urban Mobility Planning with a Modified Focus Group, SWOT, and Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process

Uroš Kramar, Dejan Dragan and Darja Topolšek
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Uroš Kramar: Faculty of Logistics Celje, University of Maribor, 3000 Celje, Slovenia
Dejan Dragan: Faculty of Logistics Celje, University of Maribor, 3000 Celje, Slovenia
Darja Topolšek: Faculty of Logistics Celje, University of Maribor, 3000 Celje, Slovenia

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 23, 1-29

Abstract: The urban mobility system is an important factor in social development and must, therefore, be tackled in a way that enables balanced, sustainable development. The purpose of the present work was to introduce a new holistic approach to urban mobility system (UMS) planning, which involves a strategic decision-making process with a broad involvement of various stakeholders. For this purpose, an innovative model was created by synthesizing the focus group (FG) method with the nominal group technique (NGT), SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis, and the fuzzy analytical hierarchical process (FAHP) method. The fuzzy approach was chosen for its ability to incorporate imprecise and vague information and make a decision-making UMS process more realistic. Accordingly, the objective of the paper was to propose a newly developed model that will (considering the integration of various urban mobility subsystems) enable the detection, identification, and ranking of key priorities required for a more holistic approach to UMS planning. The results revealed that the developed integrated model enables acquired areas to be ranked according to priorities, which further allows the development of scenarios. Moreover, the model allows a better understanding of how to search for compromises when one is faced with multi-criteria decision-making and coordination of frequently contradictory goals. A new integrated urban mobility model, as proposed herein, was also successfully tested in a real-life application, which proves its potential for use in sustainable urban mobility planning in a holistic way.

Keywords: urban mobility system; holistic approach; strategic planning; decision-making; FAHP; focus groups; nominal group technique; SWOT analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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