Public transportation users are constantly in search of regular service, fair cost, high safety, and physical and psychological comfort. Creating a system for bus route evaluation (BRE) can be considered to be among the basic requirements for public transportation management in cities. The need for a logical and scientific tool to support the decisions made by the policy makers of public transportation for the purpose of a higher quality of the services, specifically in a developing metropolitan such as Shiraz, Iran, proves the importance of such a system. In this study, firs, six routes among the 71 bus routes of metropolitan Shiraz were chosen. Subsequently, 16 criteria based on the theoretical literature and the data collected in a survey conducted by the Shiraz Public Bus Organization (SPBO) were produced. Then by using a two-stage multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM) model containing hierarchical Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchal Process (Fuzzy AHP) and TOPSIS methods the data was analyzed and the existing situation of the selected bus routes was evaluated. This study and the presented evaluation framework for the analysis of the current situation along with the comparison of the bus routes can help the managers and policy makers of bus transportation on their way to improving the services, developing the routes, merging the routes, and creating new routes.
evaluation; bus routes; Fuzzy AHP; TOPSIS; Shiraz