A comparative bus selection for intercity transportation with an integrated PIPRECIA & COPRAS-G

Abstract

The selection of buses for intercity transportation takes an important place for each stakeholder. Since this selection problem may contain many conflicting criteria and many alternatives, it should be considered a multi-criteria decision-making problem (MCDM). In this study, three brands of bus manufacturer preferred in Turkey are evaluated in terms of ten different criteria by considering both bus drivers' and bus owners' preferences as an MCDM problem. The PIPRECIA method is used to calculate criterion weights, and COPRAS-G is used to rank bus brands. The study was conducted separately for two bus drivers and two bus owners in order to reveal whether there is a preference difference. According to the preferences of bus owners, Maximum Torq is found out as the first criterion with the highest weight (0.153) while for bus drivers, the first criterion is Common Spare Parts with 0.1172 weight. Although the importance levels of the criteria differ according to the results obtained in the criterion evaluation stage, it has been concluded that the rankings of the brands do not make a difference in terms of the evaluation of bus drivers and owners. As a result, the rankings of bus manufacturers are obtained as Mercedes-Benz Travego, Man Lions Coach, Temsa Maraton model respectively. From a general point of view, this study will attract attention in revealing the stakeholder perception among the alternatives in the passenger bus market used in intercity transportation in Turkey from both the bus owner's and the driver's point of view. © 2022 World Conference on Transport Research Society