A novel approach for a sustainability evaluation of developing system interchange: The case study of the sheikhfazolah-yadegar interchange, Tehran, Iran

To resolve environmental and social problems and traffic congestion, a sustainability evaluation of transportation infrastructure should be done for current and proposed situations. The aim of the present investigation is to evaluate the sustainability of infrastructure project on system interchange and assess their results with respect to sustainable development indicators. Based on interviews with experts, intensive observation, and development infrastructure related to the case study, six proposed scenarios are proposed to improve traffic condition of the Sheikhfazolah-Yadegar interchange in Tehran. The proposed scenarios are modeled and calibrated in AIMSUN 8.0, then the value of all indicators are determined through an indirect and direct procedure by AIMSUN results. A technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method is used to integrate the results of proposed indicators. Although the weight of each indicator specifies its effect in sustainability evaluation, changes intensity of indicator value was not applied in sustainability evaluation by the previous methods of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). In this study, for the first time, a simplified approach is defined and used to evaluate sustainable development of all scenarios that can apply the effect of changes intensity in sustainability evaluation. This method is named the applied effect of changes intensity in each indicator (AECIEI). According to the purposes of Tehran vision in 2025, all proposed scenarios are ranked based on TOPSIS results and the simplified approach, and then results of these methods are compared.