Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis of Road Transportation Fuels and Vehicles: A Systematic Review and Classification of the Literature

Martin Kügemann and Heracles Polatidis
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Martin Kügemann: Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT), United Nations University,Boschstraat 24, 6211 AX Maastricht, The Netherlands
Heracles Polatidis: Department of Earth Sciences, Campus Gotland, Uppsala University, Cramérgatan 3, 621 67 Visby, Sweden

Energies, 2019, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-21

Abstract: Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods help decision makers to consider and weigh diverse criteria that include economic, environmental, social and technological aspects. This characteristic makes them a popular tool to comparatively evaluate road transportation fuels and vehicles (RTFV). The aim of this paper is to systematically classify and analyse the literature applying MCDA methods on the evaluation of RTFV. To this end, 40 relevant papers are pinpointed and discussed. We identified a great number of evaluation criteria employed in the reviewed papers from which we have established a concluding list of 41 criteria, that can serve as a pool for future research. A further analysis of the evaluation criteria reveals that the process of criteria selection partly suffers from a lack of scientific foundation and standardization. We propose to standardize the criteria selection process by using the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) methodology as a guiding reference. In addition, we compared the MCDA results obtained from studies with relatively similar setups and found that the evaluation results are also generally similar and seem not to be influenced by the particular MCDA method employed. Based on the results of the reviewed papers, one may say that electricity and ethanol appear to be good alternatives for light vehicles, whereas gaseous fuels seem more appropriate for heavy vehicles like buses. Striking deviations from these generally observed results are often caused by specific evaluation contexts, particular criteria taken into account and unusual weight sets applied.

Keywords: road transportation fuels and vehicles; multi-criteria decision analysis; life cycle sustainability assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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