Transport policy and climate change: how to decide when experts disagree

Abstract

Transport is the sector with the fastest growth of greenhouse gases emissions in many countries. Accumulation of these emissions may cause uncertain and irreversible adverse climate change impacts. In this context, we use the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to face the question on how to select the best transport policy if the experts have different opinions and beliefs on the occurrence of these impacts. Thus, both the treatment of uncertainty and dissent are examined for the ranking of transport policies. The opinions of experts have been investigated by a means of a survey questionnaire. A sensitivity analysis of the experts’ weights and the criteria’ weights confirms the robustness of the results.