Siti Zubaidah binti Mohamad

2014440908
Decision Making Methods and Analysis (UDM 713)
Master of Science in Urban Development and Management
Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying

INTRODUCTION
Originally developed by Professor Thomas L. Saaty in 1970s when he was a professor at
Wharton Business School
involves evaluating all possible qualitative and quantitative criteria/factors in choosing the best
alternatives
widely applied to human fields such as resources allocation, project design,
planning for urban development, maintenance management, policy
evaluation etc
Decompose decision making problem into hierarchy of criteria and alternatives. From more
general to more detailed and specific (top to bottom)
Develop scale or weightage for pair wise comparison (assigning judgement on scale)
Pair wise comparison to determine the relative importance of one criteria over the other criteria.

BASIC ELEMENTS OF AHP: Scale

Scale or weightage is develop

to enable decision maker to
assign judgement for pair
wise comparison between
criteria or alternatives

BASIC ELEMENTS OF AHP: Hierarchical

Decision making problem is decompose into a hierarchy of

criteria and alternatives. From more general to more detailed
and specific (top to bottom)

BASIC ELEMENTS OF AHP: Pair wise comparison

Pair wise comparison to determine the relative importance of one criteria

over the other criteria. Judgement given by using the scale will determine the
ranking of each criteria or alternatives

BASIC ELEMENTS OF AHP: Test for Consistency

Saaty has constructed the Ratio Index which is assigned according to the
number of criteria or alternatives under consideration

PROCEDURES OF AHP

The process involves a

systematic and subjective
judgement which in the end
will provide an objective
result that makes it easier for
decision maker to decide

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

CHOOSING THE BEST LOCATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING
1

Construct a hierarchy of criteria and alternatives

Objective

Criteria

Alternatives

Set up a scale

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

3

Public Transport is 3 times

more
important
than
employment opportunity

Conduct pairwise comparison

Facilities and amenities is 2

times more important than
public school

Normalize and find average/priority factor

Convert to decimal number

1 3 = 0.333

2 + 0.500 + 0.500 + 1 = 4.000

Conduct Consistency Ratio

+
n = 4 criteria being evaluated
(0.429 + 0.375 + 0.364 + 0.500) 4 = 0.333

< than 0.1, judgement

is consistent

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

CHOOSING THE BEST LOCATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Location for Affordable

Housing

Objective

1.000

Criteria

Alternatives

Public
Transport
0.417

Location A
Location B
Location C

Employment
Opportunity
0.121

Public School
0.193

Location A
Location B
Location C

Location A
Location B
Location C

Facilities &
Amenities
0.269

Location A
Location B
Location C

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

3

Conduct pairwise comparison

Convert to decimal number

Location A is 3 times better

than Location B

Location C is 3 times better

than Location A

Normalize and find average/priority factor

Find the principal Eigenvector & Consistency Ratio

(0.652 + 0.692 + 0.556) 3 = 0.633

n = 3 alternatives being evaluated

< than 0.1, judgement
is consistent

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

3

Conduct pairwise comparison

Convert to decimal number

Location A is 2 times better

than Location B

Location C is 3 times better

than Location A

Normalize and find average/priority factor

Find the principal Eigenvector & Consistency Ratio

(0.546 + 0.571 + 0.500) 3 = 0.539

n = 3 alternatives being evaluated

< than 0.1, judgement
is consistent

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

3

Conduct pairwise comparison

Convert to decimal number

+
Location A is 2 times
better than Location B

Location A is 5 times
better than Location C

Normalize and find average/priority factor

Find the principal Eigenvector & Consistency Ratio

(0.118 + 0.143 + 0.125) 3 = 0.595

n = 3 alternatives being evaluated

< than 0.1, judgement
is consistent

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

3

Conduct pairwise comparison

Convert to decimal number

+
Location A is 3 times
better than Location C

Location B is 2 times
better than Location C

Normalize and find average/priority factor

Find the principal Eigenvector & Consistency Ratio

n = 3 alternatives being evaluated

(0.200 + 0.222 + 0.333) 3 = 0.252

< than 0.1, judgement is consistent

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

CHOOSING THE BEST LOCATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Location for Affordable

Housing

Objective

1.000

Criteria
Public
Transport
0.417
Alternatives
Location A: 0.633
Location B: 0.260
Location C: 0.106

Employment
Opportunity
0.121

Location A: 0.500
Location B: 0.297
Location C: 0.164

Facilities &
Amenities
0.269

Public School
0.193

Location A: 0.595
Location B: 0.277
Location C: 0.129

Location A: 0.589
Location B: 0.252
Location C: 0.159

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

CHOOSING THE BEST LOCATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING
7

Transfer figures from the hierarchy into matrix form and get overall ranking

Public
Transport

Employment
Opportunities

Public
Schools

Facilities &
Amenities

Criteria
Ranking
Eigenvector

Location A

0.633

0.539

0.595

0.589

0.417

0.602

Location B

0.260

0.297

0.276

0.252

0.121

0.265

Location C

0.107

0.164

0.119

0.159

0.193

0.132

0.269

1.000

CONCLUSION: Location A is
the best location to be
considered
for
the
development of affordable
housing since it obtains
highest
ranking
after
considering all criteria.

Overall Ranking

1.000
= (0.633 x 0.417) + (0.539 x 0.121) + (0.595 x 0.193) + (0.589 x 0.269)
= 0.602

* Priority Factor for Criteria = Criteria Ranking Eigenvector

ILLUSTRATION AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

COST TO BENEFIT RATIO
AHP also allows the cost to benefit ratio to be included in the decision making
Cost of
Land (RM)

Normalized Cost

Overall
Ranking/Normalized Cost
= Cost To Benefit Ratio

Location A

15,000,000

0.288

0.602 / 0.288 = 2.088

Location B

25,000,000

0.481

0.265 / 0.481 = 0.557

Location C

12,000,000

0.231

0.132 / 0.231 = 0.573

52,000,000

1.0000

CONCLUSION: Location A is the best location after considering the cost benefit ratio
i.e. the highest cost to benefit ratio is the best option in decision making

APPLICATION OF AHP IN URBAN PLANNING

ASSESSMENT OF URBAN RENEWAL PROPOSAL

Hong Kong has experienced and numbers of urban

renewal projects have been conducted but many of them
fail to achieve their goals and in return generate
environmental and social problems in the community.
Hong Kong Government and the concerned parties in the
territory attempt to improve the design of the renewal
proposals by promoting sustainability concept
Determining a sustainable renewal proposal is a difcult
and complicated process because a lot of tradeoff
decisions have to be made

Extracted after a review of the foreign literature and the urban design guidelines published by the
local government for achieving sustainable development
Its validity and reliability have been verified and confirmed by more than 70 scholars in a
discussion forum
Source: The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) Approach
for Assessment of Urban Renewal Proposals
Grace K. L. Lee Edwin H. W. Chan

ASSESSMENT OF URBAN RENEWAL PROPOSAL

Source: The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) Approach

for Assessment of Urban Renewal Proposals
Grace K. L. Lee Edwin H. W. Chan

Identify principles for sustainable urban renewal

Identify goals and criteria
develop hierarchical decision model
Data collection
40 experts are invited for judgements process
Group 1 consists of experts in urban design
(architect, town planners, property developers >10
years experience in construction)
Group 2 consist of people who are impartial and
usually deals with affected parties in urban renewal
(local scholars, people from the NGO and district
councilors)
Make judgement on relative standings of each criterion
at different level of the hierarchy using a 9 point scale
Judgements made through interviews and data process
using Expert Choice
Decision whether to combine judgement of both groups
is made through Kendalls W
Difficulties: to gather 40 experts in single occasion &
reach consensus n short period of time
Advantages: avoid bias, group decision more reliable

ASSESSMENT OF URBAN QUALITY OF LIFE

create a framework on the base of AHP for

objective measuring of urban quality of life and
then it would be applied for a comparative study of
two northern cities of Iran.
conducted in the north of Iran by selecting two
cities of Babol (commercial regional metropole)
and Sari (administrative center)
participation of local urban authorities and 50
experts in the judgment process

Source: An assessment of Urban Quality of Life by Using Analytic

Hierarchy Process Approach (Case study: Comparative Study of Quality
of Life in the North of Iran) by Sedigheh Lotfi and Karim Solaimani

Group 1 is experienced urban planning and design

practitioners (e.g, architects, urban planners and
property development managers having more than
15 years working experiences in the construction
in cases studies)
Group 2 consist of citizen who had no professional
knowledge and were impartial, but were involved
with the city constrains due to their social position
(e.g, local mosques clergies or the members of
nongovernmental agencies.

ASSESSMENT OF URBAN QUALITY OF LIFE

ASSESSMENT OF URBAN QUALITY OF LIFE

Source: An assessment of Urban Quality of Life by Using Analytic

Hierarchy Process Approach (Case study: Comparative Study of Quality
of Life in the North of Iran) by Sedigheh Lotfi and Karim Solaimani

ASSESSMENT OF URBAN QUALITY OF LIFE

FINDINGS

The final weight was computed by Expert Choice and the

final score of quality of life for Sari was 0.284 and for Babol
the figure was 0.716.
despite the general expectation, urban quality of life was
better in the smaller city of Babol compared to the
administrative center of the province i.e., Sari
dictates the urban authorities to examine their plans and
projects to promote the level of urban quality of life

Source: An assessment of Urban Quality of Life by Using Analytic

Hierarchy Process Approach (Case study: Comparative Study of Quality
of Life in the North of Iran) by Sedigheh Lotfi and Karim Solaimani

AHP IN DECISION MAKING

Advantages

Able to see the whole picture of the problems

through hierarchical structure

Test for consistency

Versatility (calculate using formula, square

matrix etc)

Use for both qualitative and quantitative data

Data can be use for cost benefit

Allows to make objective decision

Disadvantages

Tedious when there is large number of

criteria and alternatives, therefore easy
to make error

THE END