Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420

DOI 10.1007/s13369-014-1070-2

RESEARCH ARTICLE - CIVIL ENGINEERING

Selection of a Bridge Construction Site Using Fuzzy Analytical

Hierarchy Process in Geographic Information System
Abdollah Ardeshir · Nasir Mohseni ·
Kourosh Behzadian · Mark Errington

Received: 14 January 2013 / Accepted: 15 May 2013 / Published online: 4 April 2014
© King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals 2014

Abstract Selection of bridge construction sites over rivers Keywords Site location · Bridge construction · Analytical
is one of the most important tasks in construction feasibility hierarchy process · Fuzzy · GIS
studies. In this paper, potential sites for the construction of a
river bridge are ranked for suitability using analytical hierar-
chy process for a river in the northern part of Iran. Fuzzy logic
is used to incorporate the uncertainty associated with deci-
sion making into the model. Geographic information system
is used to facilitate the decision-making process by determin-
ing alternative sites and evaluating the selection criteria. A
floodplain is determined by the river reach using a hydraulic
simulation. This is done to identify the length and height of
potential bridges for each site. Two scenarios are analyzed
in this paper: the first ranks bridge construction sites regard-
less of the location of an existing bridge and the second ranks
bridge construction sites considering the existing bridge. The
result of this analysis shows that the existing bridge is one of
the best locations but not the best one.

A. Ardeshir · N. Mohseni
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Amirkabir University of Technology, P.O. Box: 15875-4413, 424,
Hafez Ave., Tehran, Iran 1 Introduction
e-mail: ardeshir@aut.ac.ir
River bridges play a fundamental role in road construction
K. Behzadian (B)
Environmental Research Centre, Amirkabir University
projects. This is due to the following reasons: (1) they facili-
of Technology, P.O. Box: 15875-4413, 424, Hafez Ave., tate transportation and establish vital routes between com-
Tehran, Iran munities located on both sides of the river; (2) there are
e-mail: k.behzadian-moghadam@exeter.ac.uk high fluctuations of construction costs for a river bridge from
K. Behzadian
one point to another; (3) excessively high maintenance costs
Centre for Water Systems, College of Engineering, Mathematics can occur in the future if a river bridge site is improperly
and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK selected. Bridges may be the most expensive item on a road
construction project and selection of an appropriate location
M. Errington
for bridge construction may lead to a huge saving in project
College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences,
University of Exeter, UK expenditure. The location of the bridge also has an impact
e-mail: M.errington@exeter.ac.uk on the costs of fixing or replacing a bridge at a later date.

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4406
In feasibility studies selecting the most appropriate location
for river bridges can be as important as the design charac-
teristics of the bridges themselves. The process of locating a
river bridge consists of a comprehensive study of preliminary
engineering, hydrology and hydraulics, roadway alignment,
along with environmental and geological surveys [1].
The first step for locating a river bridge site is to iden-
tify the main factors that affect the site location. Hydraulic,
hydrological and morphological criteria are identified as pri-
mary factors as well as the construction cost of a project,
transportation of regional residents around the bridge, envi-
ronmental and aesthetic factors. Due to the fact that effec-
tive factors have different levels of importance, a bridge
site location needs a systematic method to deal with this
multi-variable problem. A multiple criteria decision mak-
ing (MCDM) approach is best used to solve this variety
of decision-making, ranking facility site selection problems
influenced by some different criteria. This approach often
requires the decision-makers to provide qualitative and/or
quantitative assessments for determining the performance
of each alternative with respect to each criterion [2]. The
MCDM technique is, therefore, a useful tool to rank the best
locations of bridge construction sites with respect to differ-
ent criteria. Some researchers detail their methods for optimal
site selection in the literature. Soroudi and Ehsan [3] define
a new model for distributed generation planning and solve
it using a modified NSGA method (Non-dominated Sorting
Genetic Algorithm). They go on to state that this method
can be used in wide range of solutions of optimal location
problems.
Analytic hierarchy process (AHP), initially proposed by
Saaty [4], has been widely used as a MCDM tool for locating
optimum construction sites in different applications such as
commercial centers [5], factories [6,7], railway stations [8],
lime stone mines [9],and also for bridge risk assessments
[10]. The traditional AHP method requires decision-makers
to explicitly state the exact value of their opinion in a pair-
wise comparison of alternatives [11]. This requirement is
hard to achieve in practice due the inherent uncertainty and
imprecision of the pair-wise comparison process [12]. To
overcome this, fuzzy AHP was presented to solve such hierar-
chical problems [13,14]. Examples of construction site selec-
tion problems where the fuzzy AHP method has been used
are the location of fire stations within an international air-
port [15], factories [16], shopping centers [17], convenience
stores [18] and mill location of a Textile Company [19].
Fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making methods need to
integrate various linguistic assessments and weights to evalu-
ate the suitability of a given location to determine an optimal
selection [20]. Ashrafi et al. [21] propose a model for per-
sonnel selection using fuzzy linguistic variables with multi-
criteria decision making. They also developed their model by
defining a new linguistic extension of the fuzzy measure and
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Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420
fuzzy integral. Considering the uncertainty associated with
input data can significantly improve the confidence of evalu-
ators in giving their judgments and the accuracy of selecting
an optimal site for bridge construction.
Geographic information system (GIS) can be used as a tool
for assessing the suitability of facility locations. They enable
decision-makers to manage large volumes of spatial data
from a variety of sources and also facilitate the process of sep-
aration into suitable and unsuitable areas, and consequently,
identify potential site locations. Due to the increasing in
the accuracy of spatial data gathering, GIS has been widely
used for facility site locations in recent decades. Cheng and
O’Connor [21] investigated how to develop an automated
site layout system for temporary construction facilities using
GIS. The potential advantage of a GIS-based approach for
site location is not only to reduce the time and cost of site
selection but also to provide a digital data bank for long-
term monitoring of the site [22]. GIS may, in turn, enable the
decision-maker to comprehensively evaluate a study area to
identify other optimal alternatives.
Integration of GIS and multi-criteria decision analysis
(MCDA) can incorporate and transform geographic data
(map criteria) and value judgments (decision-maker’s pref-
erences and uncertainties) to obtain an overall assessment of
the decision alternatives [23,24]. At the time of writing, the
majority of GIS applications for construction site location
used the integration between GIS and MCDA [25]. Mal-
czewski [25] showed in a comprehensive review that dur-
ing past two decades, there has been a significant interest
in developing GIS-based MCDA in different fields. These
include ecological sciences, urban-regional planning, waste
management, hydrology and water resources, agriculture,
forestry, natural hazards, recreation/tourism, housing/real
estate, geological sciences, manufacturing and cartography.
Recent applications of GIS-based MCDA for landfill con-
struction site selection were presented by Guiqin et al. [26],
Sharifi et al. [27], Moeinaddini et al. [22] and Geneletti
[28]. GIS–MCDA systems can potentially enhance group
decision-making processes by providing a flexible problem-
solving framework where participants can explore, under-
stand and redefine a decision making problem [29].
Despite the large number of studies in facility construction
site locations using GIS or MCDM, only few studies exist
that relate to bridge construction. Hammad et al. [30] pro-
posed a methodology for bridge site and type selection using
GIS and an expert system in the early stage of road alignment
planning. They used GIS to extract the geographical data of
possible sites and analyze them by the expert system to select
possible span arrangements suitable for the site and the pos-
sible bridge types. Finally, the overall assessment among the
sites is carried out based on the scaled total cost, driving com-
fort and landscape. Although this assessment is very useful
for road planners for rational decisions, this approach only
Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420
gives a rough idea of suitable bridge sites and types. The
model does not include the hydraulic and hydrologic crite-
ria of the river which can have a major impact on bridge
construction costs and the suitability of different designs.
GangaRao et al. [31] used value engineering principles to
develop parameters for evaluation of different design scenar-
ios in low-volume bridge selection. In their study they fail
to address the issue of where to actually locate the bridges.
Ostenfeld and Andersen [32] investigated the main crite-
ria used to select bridge sites and types in major bridge
projects. The bridge selection was more focused on the bridge
type and site location. In their case studies this was done
by applying specified criteria locally for some pre-specified
locations.
A number of studies were observed in bridge construc-
tion methods and bridge management using MCDA tech-
niques. For instance, Sasmal and Ramanjaneyulu [33] used
a fuzzy AHP to evaluate the condition of existing rein-
forced concrete bridges. They claim that this methodology
helps the engineers and policy makers concerned with bridge
management to overcome the problems related to prioriti-
zation and to make decisions on funding related to reha-
bilitation of bridges. In addition, Pan [34] analyzed fuzzy
AHP approach for choosing the best bridge construction
method among three available methods. In addition, Zhao
and Chen [35] presented a fuzzy rule-based inference sys-
tem for bridge damage diagnosis and prediction. This aimed
to provide bridge designers with valuable information about
the impacts of design factors on bridge deterioration, which
is an essential part of the efficient bridge management sys-
tem. In addition, Wang and Elhag [36] proposed a fuzzy
group decision-making approach for bridge risk assessment
to evaluate bridge risk factors using linguistic terms rather
than precise numerical values. These are Certain, Very High,
High, Slightly High, Medium, Slightly Low, Low, Very Low
or None.
At the time writing, the authors could not find any other
systematic approach in the literature review for the bridge
site location. Fuzzy-AHP is a proven technique for facility
selection problems which appears to be promising for use in
this application. This MCDA technique coupled with GIS is
able to create an organized framework to achieve a substan-
tially precise method in the site location of the river bridge.
In other words, GIS environment reinforces the MCDA tech-
nique through extracting some morphological and geotechni-
cal specifications related to hydrologic and hydrologic analy-
sis of the potential sites, thus leading to a more careful and
detailed analysis of the model. Consequently, we believe
that the innovative integration of fuzzy AHP and GIS is
able to enhance the procedure of site selection for river
bridges.
In this paper, a fuzzy AHP technique is applied to rank
bridge construction site alternatives in a river located in the
4407
northern part of Iran. The methodology including the eval-
uation criteria, alternatives and the proposed fuzzy AHP is
described in the following section. Following this, the result
of the proposed methodology application is presented and
discussed. Finally, the relevant conclusions are drawn.
2 Methodology
Figure 1 shows the flowchart of the proposed method for
ranking bridge construction sites using MCDM. As shown
in the figure, the required stages for bridge site selection
are divided into three main categories. The first stage is
the development of AHP structure. This consists of defin-
ing criteria and specifying alternatives. In the second stage, a
river hydraulic model is developed by HEC-RAS1 hydraulic
simulation model. HEC-RAS is public domain software by
USACE and is used for hydraulic analysis of river flow [37].
In the present analysis, HEC-RAS was used to model the sur-
face profile of river. The required layers in GIS based on the
defined criteria are defined and provided. Fuzzy analytical
hierarchy process is performed in the final stage.
2.1 Main Criteria
The main criteria are those which play a fundamental role
in the selection of a bridge construction site. Groenier and
Gubernick [1] conducted a comprehensive study about sig-
nificant factors for choosing the best bridge construction
site. These factors were preliminary studies, river hydraulics,
hydrology, geomorphology of river, environmental issues
and the effect of road alignment around a bridge construction
site. In our case, considering the regional conditions of the
case study (which will be introduced later), three main cri-
teria are taken into account: (1) transportation criterion; (2)
economic criterion; (3) morphology criterion. These criteria
are described in more details in the following section. It is
important to note that the importance of the other criteria with
regard to cost have been assumed to be negligible compared
to the main criteria listed above (Road Safety Manual 2005).
They have, therefore, been discarded for the purposes of this
study.
2.1.1 Transportation Criterion
It is assumed that a bridge construction site is appropriate if it
minimizes the total distance traveled by the regional residents
crossing the river. For this reason for each bridge construction
alternative, the total distance traveled from each residential
area of one river side to all public centers of another river side
1 Hydrologic Engineering Centers-River Analysis System.
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4408 Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420

Start

11- Performing 2- Developing hydraulic simulation model 1- Developing AHP

fuzzy-AHP in GIS structure

Transportation
3- Gathering data criterion
12- Weighting alternatives
with respect to each criteria
Economic 1-1- Defining
4- Providing required layers criterion criteria
according to the criteria
13- Performing fuzzy pair-wise
Morphology
comparison of the criteria by
criterion
linguistic terms
8- Preparing imput file for 1-2- Specifying
hydraulic model simulation alternatives
(PRE-RAS)

14- Determining overall weights of 5- Dividing the

alternatives (ranking best sites for 9- Runing hydraulic model river reaches
bridge construction) simulation (HEC-RAS)
6- Removing restricted divisions
(infeasible alternatives)

End 10- Determining the length

and the height of bridge for
each divisions (alternatives) 7- Identifing final divisions
(select alternatives)

Fig. 1 The flowchart of the proposed method

are calculated, and their sum is considered as the transporta-
tion criterion of that alternative. The transportation criterion
for each bridge site alternative can, therefore, be written as

N1 
M1 
N2 
M2
Dk = di jk × βi j + di jk × βi j ,
j=1 i=1 j=1 i=1
where Dk = weight of bridge construction site k for trans-
portation criterion; di jk = the shortest road distance between
residential area i at the southern side of the river and pub-
lic center j at the northern side of the river through bridge
construction site k; di jk = the shortest road distance between
residential area i at the northern side of the river and public
center j at the southern side of the river through bridge con-
struction site k; βi j = coefficient indicating the population
of residential area i at the southern side of the river and the
importance of public center j at the northern side of the river;
βi j = coefficient indicating the population of residential area
i at the northern side of the river and the importance of public
center j at the southern side of the river; M1 = the number
of residential areas located at the southern side of the river;
M2 = the number of residential areas located at the northern
side of the river; N1 = the number of public centers located
at the northern side of the river; N2 = the number of public
centers located at the southern side of the river. Also, the
coefficient βi j is calculated as
(1)
Pi Wj
βi j =  M × N , (2)
1 1
k=1 Pk l=1 Wl
where Pi = population of residential area i at the southern side
 M1
of the river; k=1 Pk = population of all residential areas at
the southern side of the river; W j = importance weight of
 N1
public center j at the northern side of the river; l=1 Wl =
sum of importance weights of public centers at the northern
side of the river. Note that these weights are specified by a
transportation expert with respect to the type of public center.
Thus, coefficient βi j is calculated the same as in (2) taking
into account the population of residential areas at the northern
side of the river and public centers at the southern side of the
river. Obviously, the alternatives with lower weights (Dk )
provide shorter daily transportation trips for residents of one
river side to have access to public centers of another river side,

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thereby giving higher priority from transportation criterion
perspective.
2.1.2 Economic Criterion
The most significant issues available in economic criterion
include the cost of purchasing the land beside the river at the
bridge site, the construction cost of the bridge and the con-
struction cost of the required access roads from the nearest
main roads to the bridge. As most of these costs are simi-
lar for all potential bridge sites, only the construction cost
of a bridge and access road is considered as the economic
criterion.
In order to calculate the total cost of bridge and access
road construction, the characteristics of the road and the
bridge need to be estimated. In order to approximately esti-
mate the construction cost of the bridge, the height and the
length of the bridge need to be specified. Feasible and practi-
cally acceptable steps for obtaining these data are as follows
[1]: (1) carrying out hydrological analyses including the fre-
quency analysis of flood and consequently, determining a
design flood with a specified return period; (2) developing
a hydraulic simulation model to calculate the floodplain and
therefore, estimating the height and length of the bridge. The
HEC-RAS model was used as the hydraulic simulation model
in conjunction with GIS environment to better estimate the
river floodplain [37]. The result of hydraulic analysis and
floodplain determination is the estimation of the height and
length of the bridge for each alternative. The construction
cost of the access road on both sides of the river can be
estimated based on the preliminary design of the road with
respect to the local road network code [38].
In order to take into account the soil effect of the bridge
foundation, two types of foundations are assumed in the
analysis: (1) a shallow foundation for the sites with strong
soils; (2) a deep foundation for the site with loose and muddy
soils. The cost of bridge building will, therefore, vary with
respect to the soil type beneath the bridge foundations.
2.1.3 Morphology Criterion
Where a section of a river meanders, bridge building is more
difficult. Most rivers usually meander within their route; how-
ever, bridge sites should be located in the sections with less
meandering [1]. In order to consider meandering conditions
in our model, a sinus coefficient between two points of the
river is defined as the ratio of meandering distance (i.e. nat-
ural river route) to non-meandering distance. It is assumed
that the two points are the start and the end of the site loca-
tion. The coefficient, therefore, always takes a value of 1 or
greater. The larger the coefficient is for a possible site loca-
tion, the less favorable the site location is from morphology
4409
perspective. This is due to that fact that the river course is
liable to change over time in these sections. When the coef-
ficient is equal to 1, this means that the relevant section has
no meandering and bending. The natural river route is in
a straight line which is an ideal site location. In situations
where the value of the coefficient is a lot greater than one
the meandering of river is larger and the site is less suitable
for bridge construction. The sinus coefficient of each alter-
native is calculated for the arch of the river where the bridge
is more likely to be built. Finally, the coefficients are normal-
ized with respect to each other to generate weightings for this
criterion.
2.2 Alternatives
To specify potential bridge construction sites, the river needs
to be divided into smaller divisions called alternatives. Two
main factors directly effective in making divisions are (1)
equality and/or similarity in the characteristics of geomor-
phology, topography and geology aspects; (2) land use
around the river. Each alternative is therefore made up of
a part of the river, in which an individual bridge site is avail-
able and where every other point through that part has the
same criteria values.
In addition to this, alternatives failing to meet minimum
technical requirements for access road and bridge construc-
tion are removed from the pool of available alternatives. The
main decision factors at this stage are the minimum techni-
cal conditions which consist of the limitations of the con-
struction project. These are as follows: (1) large heights of
the bridge column above the river leading to high construc-
tion cost; (2) cross sections which require a large amount
of cut and fill tunnels to reach the proposed bridge site; (3)
cliffs with steep slopes on one or both sides of the river;
(4) long bridge span with respect to standard slope in the
roads reaching the bridge or the existence of multiple val-
leys in the waterway cross section of the proposed site.
When removing constrained and unfeasible alternatives for
bridge construction, final alternatives (select divisions) are
extracted as potential options and are taken forward for final
screening.
2.3 Required Layers in GIS and Hydraulic Analysis
After defining the criteria and specifying the alternatives, the
required data for assigning weights to the alternatives needs
to be collected and analyzed. As the data and their analysis are
mostly spatial, GIS is used to manage and process the data.
The data required are topographical maps, the population and
their distribution in residential areas, the distribution of res-
idential areas and public centers, main and secondary roads
maps, river maps and geology and land use map. These data
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Table 1 Linguistic terms for fuzzy pair-wise comparisons of the criteria

Verbal judgment of preference Description Fuzzy number

Very unimportant (VU) Criterion A is very unimportant compared with criterion B (0, 0, 1, 2)
Less important (LI) Criterion A is less important than criterion B (1, 2.5, 4)
Equal important (EI) Criterion A is as important as criterion B (3, 5, 7)
More important (MI) Criterion A is more important than criterion B (6, 7.5, 9)
Very important (VI) Criterion A is very important compared with criterion B (8, 9, 10, 10)

need to be entered as different layers in the GIS environment. functions varying between 0 and 10 [16]. Note that except
In addition, hydraulic analysis is performed through the river for the statement of “Equal Importance”, the other statements
reach using a HEC-RAS hydraulic simulation model [37]. are converse in pairs. Two steps are required when dealing
This is also carried out within the GIS environment and has with fuzzy attributes: first converting linguistic terms to fuzzy
the aim of identifying the height and length of the proposed numbers; and second, assigning crisp scores to fuzzy num-
bridge for each alternative site. bers [39]. Thus, after comparing the criteria with linguistic
terms by evaluators, the first step is taken by replacing fuzzy
numbers for subsequent calculations.
2.4 Fuzzy AHP To investigate different levels of imprecision associated
with fuzzy numbers of evaluators’ opinions, three α-cut
The base method of fuzzy AHP used for this work has been values equal to α=0, 0.5 and 1 are used to represent pes-
extracted from Buckley’s study [14]. Certain improvements simistic, moderate, and optimistic opinions of the evaluators,
have been made to some parts of Buckley’s approach. These respectively. Note that α=0 and 1 indicate that maximum
will be described in more detail later in this paper. In order and minimum fuzzy (no fuzzy) membership functions are
to incorporate the uncertainty associated with the experts’ used, respectively. Five aforementioned membership func-
judgments, triangular and trapezoidal fuzzy numbers are tions considering the α-cut concept can be written by math-
used. ematical Eqs. (3)–(7):
When comparing alternatives with respect to the criteria ⎧
discussed in the previous section, the crisp value is calcu- ⎨ X α,L = 0
⎪
0.5+0.5×(X α,R −1)[1+0.33×(X α,R −1)]
lated as the weight of alternatives for each criterion. There X (α)V U = X α,M = 0.5X α,R +0.5
⎪
⎩
is, therefore, no need to use a ‘fuzzy’ value. When perform- X α,R = 2 − α
ing pair-wise comparisons of the criteria with respect to the (3)
main objective, however, the following fuzzy values need to ⎧
be defined. ⎨ X α,L = 1 + 1.5α
Five linguistic terms were used to represent fuzzy pair- X (α) L I = X α,M = 2.5 (4)
⎩
wise comparisons of the criteria. These terms are given in X α,R = 4 − 1.5α
Table 1 along with the relevant description and the associated ⎧
fuzzy numbers. Figure 2 represents the defined membership ⎨ X α,L = 3 + 2α
X (α) E I = X α,M = 5 (5)
⎩
X α,R = 7 − 2α
⎧
1 ⎨ X α,L = 6 + 1.5α
0.9
X (α) M I = X α,M = 7.5 (6)
0.8 ⎩
0.7
VU X α,R = 9 − 1.5α
LI
0.6
EI
µ(x)

0.5 MI ⎧
0.4 VI
⎪
⎨ X α,L = 8 + α
1.5+0.67×(4.5−0.5X α,L )(9−X α,L )
0.3
X (α)V I = X α,M = 8 +
0.2 ⎪
⎩X
5.5−0.5X α,L
0.1 α,R = 10
0 (7)
0 2 4 6 8 10
x In fuzzy AHP, each element of the pair-wise comparison
matrix is presented as fuzzy numbers. Equation (8) shows a
Fig. 2 Fuzzy numbers for different linguistic terms typical matrix of fuzzy pair-wise comparison. For instance,

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Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420 4411

in this Eq. x 12,U , x 12,M and x 12,L indicate up, middle and where wi j = normalised weight of alternative j with respect
low limits of pair-wise comparison between element 1 and to criterion i; n= the number of criteria and OW j = overall
element 2, respectively. weight of alternative j.

⎡ ⎤
1 (x12,L , x12,M L , x12,MU , x12,U ) ······ (x1n,L , x1n,M L , x1n,MU , x1n,U )
⎢ (x21,L , x21,M L , x21,MU , x21,U ) ······ (x2n,L , x2n,M L , x2n,MU , x2n,U ) ⎥
Ãn×n = ⎢
⎣
⎥
⎦
······ ······ ······ ······
(xn1,L , xn1,M L , xn1,MU , x21,U ) ······ ······ 1
(8)

To normalize fuzzy numbers in the fuzzy pair-wise com- 3 Results and Discussion
parison matrix of the criteria, the geometric mean of the data
is calculated as follows: given a fuzzy number (a, b, c, d) for The case study is a reach of Dough River, which belongs
each element of the matrix, the normalized fuzzy number of to the river basin of Banial in Golestan Province located in
each criterion is calculated through Eqs. (9)–(11): the north of Iran (Fig. 3). The river is the longest tributary
⎛ ⎞1/n of Gorganrud River located in Golestan and North Khorasan
n Provinces. The river reach is approximately 15 km long and
ai = ⎝ ai j ⎠ for all i = 1, 2, . . . , n (9) located at the longitude between 55◦ 26 and 55◦ 32 east and
j=1 latitude between 37◦ 21 and 37◦22 north. Figure 3 shows

n the area map with the scale of 1:50,000.
a= ai (10) To specify the alternatives, the river reach was first divided
i=1 into 30 parts with respect to the factors for divisions discussed
bi , b, ci , c, di and d, are similarly defined for other earlier in the paper. These include similar physiographic and
fuzzy numbers. geomorphologic data (see Fig. 4). It would seem appropriate
  to take into consideration all river divisions over the entire
ai bi ci di river reach. This was not done as based on the road and bridge
μi (z) = , , , for all i = 1, 2, . . . , n (11)
d c b a code [38]; the construction of bridges is infeasible for some of
the divisions. This is due to the main requirements specified
where ai = geometric mean of the first elements of fuzzy in the code such as maximum road slope approaching the
numbers related to the comparison of criterion i to other bridge and the maximum meandering of river at bridge site.
criteria j = 1, . . . , n; ai j = first element of the fuzzy number As a result, as a preliminary refining stage, the alternatives
related to the comparison of criterion i to criterion j; and not meeting the minimum requirements of the code were
μi (z)= normalized fuzzy value of criterion i. Other elements removed from the possible alternatives before moving to the
are defined using a similar method. next step. This had the effect of eliminating 16 divisions from
After normalizing fuzzy numbers, the second step (i.e. 30 primary divisions. The remaining 14 divisions are shown
assigning crisp scores to fuzzy numbers) must be performed. in Fig. 5. If this had not been done, retaining the eliminated
For fuzzy group decision-makings, the judgment of all divisions may have led to high ranks for unfeasible bridge
experts need to be aggregated and converted into one crisp construction sites.
score (defuzzification) [40]. The center of gravity (COG) As an existing bridge, known as Kouseh Bridge, is present
technique was used to assign a crisp score to each crite- in the river reach and is located in division 20, two different
rion considering the group decision making process. This scenarios are analyzed here: (scenario 1) ranking bridge con-
is shown as follows [36]: struction sites regardless of the existing bridge and (scenario
K  2) ranking bridge construction sites considering the exist-
k=1 ( μi (z).zdz)k
z i∗ = K  for all i = 1, 2, . . . , n (12) ing bridge. The difference between the two scenarios is in
k=1 ( μi (z)dz)k the calculation of the transportation criterion. In scenario 2,
when finding the shortest route for each bridge construction
where K = the number of experts and z i∗ = weighted average alternative, the route passing from each bridge construction
(crisp score) of criterion i. Finally, overall weight of alterna- alternative must always be compared with the route passing
tive j can be written as from the existing bridge.
Figure 6 depicts residential areas and public centers in the

n
OW j = z i∗ × wi j , (13) study area as well as main access road around the river. As
i=1 it can be seen, the number of residential areas located at the

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4412 Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420

Fig. 3 Layout of case study of

Dough River

Fig. 4 Primary divisions of the

river reach

northern and southern sides of the river is M2 = 8 and M1 = 9,
respectively. The public centers include one sport complex
located at the northern side of the river (N1 = 1) and two
primary schools, one secondary school, one shopping center
(store), two clinics and one pharmacy at the southern side of
the river (N2 = 7). The population of these residential areas
(Pi ) and the importance weight of the public centers (W j ) in
Eq. (2) are given in Tables 2 and 3, respectively. Note that
the importance weights are based on the ranking on a scale
of 1–10 specified with the aid of a sociology expert. Given
the data in Tables 2 and 3, coefficients βi j and βi j can be
calculated for each residential area i and public center j.

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Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420 4413

Fig. 5 Select divisions

(alternatives) after removing
unfeasible divisions

Fig. 6 Location of select

cross-sections for bridge
construction, residential areas
and public centers

Thus, Eqs. (1)–(2) are used to calculate the weights of
alternatives for transportation criterion. 14 divisions are com-
pared in scenario 1 while 13 divisions are compared in sce-
nario 2. This is because the existing bridge division is dis-
carded in scenario 2. For each alternative (i.e. bridge con-
struction site), the connecting distance between two points
(i.e. from one residential area on one river side to each public

center on another river side for coefficients di jk and di jk ) is
calculated by measuring the direct route of those points pass-
ing the alternative bridge site. In scenario 2, however, after
measuring the distance of the direct route between two points
passing the alternative, the distance is compared with the
route passing Kouseh Bridge (existing bridge). The shorter
route is then taken into account as the final route of con-

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Table 2 Residential area population

Location Population Location Population

NRA 1 70,600 SRA 1 10,600

NRA 2 23,000 SRA 2 17,800
NRA 3 11,000 SRA 3 33,600
NRA 4 14,000 SRA 4 13,600
NRA 5 60,000 SRA 5 7,900
NRA 6 59,000 SRA 6 55,600
NRA 7 131,600 SRA 7 84,200
NRA 8 93,400 SRA 8 68,300
SRA 9 28,600
NRA northern residential area, SRA southern residential area

Table 3 Importance weight of public centers

Public center Importance weight

School 9
Clinic 5 Fig. 7 A typical bridge assigned for a cross-section of the river in flood
Pharmacy 4 simulation by HEC-RAS model
Shopping center (store) 3
Sport complex 2
necting those two points when calculating Eq. (1) for the
alternative. Thus, the weight of each alternative bridge con-
struction site for transportation criterion is then calculated.
The normalized weights of this criterion are shown in Table
9 for both scenarios.
The weight of alternatives for economic criterion is calcu-
lated based on total construction cost. This consists of (1) the
cost of the road construction from the bridge location to the
nearest main access road around the river and (2) the cost of
bridge construction with respect to the length and the height
of the bridge and the type of the bridge foundation.
In order to calculate the bridge construction cost associ-
ated with a given site of alternative, appropriate dimensions
of a typical bridge which can be fitted against simulated flood-
plain is first identified (Fig. 7). Bridge dimensions are deter-
mined by HEC-RAS hydraulic model which is used for the
simulation of river floodplain. The length and height of the
candidate bridges in each division are, therefore, estimated
based on the simulation of floodplain in the cross section of
each division (Table 4). The bridge foundations constitute
another large part of the total bridge costs. The foundation
type for each division was determined based on the soil type
extracted from GIS for each division. The soil and foundation
types for each division are given in Table 4. The associated
bridge cost for each division was then calculated based on
the bridge specifications collected in Table 4 and based on
recommendations in the road and bridge code [38].
Sinus coefficients were used as the morphology criterion
and were calculated for each division. Starting and finishing
points of the division were considered when calculating the
ratio of meandering distance to non-meandering distance.
The sinus coefficients that were calculated for each division
are shown in the last column of Table 4.
In order to decrease the effect of personal and biased judg-
ments of experts, ten experts with different expertise includ-
ing economics, hydraulics and transportation were invited to
participate in the survey. Table 5 gives a summary of char-
acteristics of the ten experts participating in the survey. The
selection of experts was carried out to cover the whole range
of relevant expertise with various ages, work experiences and
academic degrees. The responses recorded during this survey
are shown in Table 6. The normalized fuzzy values of the cri-
teria for each expert’s judgment were calculated using Eqs.
(9)–(11), which are given in Table 7. These results were con-
verted to crisp scores by using Eq. (12) based on the COG
technique. The resulting scores for the three criteria under
different levels of imprecision are presented in Table 8.
To give an example, the calculations related to the first
expert (EX1) relative to the criteria are described here in
more detail. The pair-wise comparison matrix of the criteria
is as follows based on the linguistic terms of Table 6 and the
opinions of the first expert:
⎡ ⎤
eco trans mor ph
eco EI VI VI
A3×3 = trans ⎣ VU EI EI ⎦ ,
mor ph VU EI EI

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Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420 4415

Table 4 Specification of divisions and the respective potential bridges

Division no. Alternative no. Bridge length (m) Bridge height (m) Soil type Foundation type Sinus coefficient

1 2 214.5 3.34 Marl and silt Deep 1.65

2 3 216 3.15 Marl and silt Deep 1.16
3 5 171.7 3.79 Marl and silt Deep 1
4 11 165.5 4.45 Marl and silt Deep 1
5 18 132.5 3.76 Marl and silt Deep 1
6 19 146.5 5.07 Marl and silt Deep 1.1
7 20 91.3 3.9 Marl and silt Deep 1.46
8 23 206 3.25 Fluvial deposits Shallow 1.06
9 24 117 3.05 Marl and silt, Fluvial deposits Deep 1.18
10 25 223 4.81 Fluvial deposits, quartz Shallow 1.95
11 26 133.5 3.97 Marl and silt, Fluvial deposits Deep 1.49
12 27 131.4 2.57 Fluvial deposits, quartz Shallow 1.3
13 28 215 2.63 Fluvial deposits Shallow 1.7
14 29 175.5 3.08 Fluvial deposits Shallow 1.24

Table 5 Specifications of experts involved in the survey

Expert no. Expertise Age (years) Academic degree Work experience (years)

Ex1 Economic expert 55 BSc 25

Ex2 Project manager 42 MSc 15
Ex3 Bridge engineer 40 MSc 15
Ex4 Project manager 55 BSc 28
Ex5 Transportation engineer 42 MSc 18
Ex6 Traffic expert 38 MSc 10
Ex7 Road and housing expert 35 BSc 12
Ex8 Hydrology engineer 42 PhD 13
Ex9 Hydraulic engineer 40 PhD 12
Ex10 Bridge engineer 45 MSc 20

Table 6 Linguistic terms of experts’ judgments in pair-wise compar- where eco = economic criterion; trans = transportation crite-
isons of the criteria rion; and morph = morphology criterion. Note that, an expert
Expert no. Comparison of the criteria is required to fill either upper or lower diagonal pair-wise
Transportation Transportation Economic comparisons. The other verbal judgments can be completed
to economic to morphology to morphology automatically for this matrix. For instance, each element of
the lower diagonal (e.g. VU in the above matrix) is the oppo-
Ex1 VU EI VI
site of the symmetrical element of the upper diagonal (e.g.
Ex2 LI EI VI VI in the same matrix). For this reason only three elements
Ex3 VU LI MI of these pair-wise comparisons were shown for each expert
Ex4 EI MI VI in Table 6. Full matricides of pair-wise comparisons were
Ex5 MI VI EI shown in this example for descriptive purposes for the rest
Ex6 VI MI LI of the analysis. In the first step, linguistic terms are replaced
Ex7 MI EI LI with fuzzy numbers shown in the following matrix:
Ex8 MI LI VU ⎡ ⎤
Ex9 LI VU LI
(3, 5, 7) (8, 9, 10, 10) (8, 9, 10, 10)
Ex10 EI LI LI
A3×3 = ⎣ (0, 0, 1, 2) (3, 5, 7) (3, 5, 7) ⎦
(0, 0, 1, 2) (3, 5, 7) (3, 5, 7)

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4416 Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420

Table 7 Normalized fuzzy values of the criteria for Experts’ judgments

Expert Criteria
Transportation Economic Morphology

Ex1 (0, 0, 0.399, 0.801) (0.319, 0.535, 1.072, 1.53) (0, 0, 0.399, 0.801)
Ex2 (0.111, 0.282, 0.364, 0.790) (0.277, 0.492, 0.658, 1.162) (0, 0, 0.269, 0.629)
Ex3 (0, 0, 0.204, 0.487) (0.281, 0.493, 0.626, 1.082) (0.141, 0.323, 0.396, 0.800)
Ex4 (0.197, 0.399, 0.485, 0952) (0.216, 0.423, 0.533, 0986) (0, 0, 0.198, 0.482)
Ex5 (0.277, 0.492, 0.658, 1.162) (0.111, 0.282, 0.364, 0.790) (0, 0, 0.269, 0.629)
Ex6 (0.281, 0.493, 0.625, 1.082) (0, 0, 0.204, 0.487) (0.141, 0.323, 0.396, 0.800)
Ex7 (0.190, 0.392, 0.392, 0.838) (0.073, 0.217, 0.217, 0.533) (0.190, 0.392, 0.392, 0.838)
Ex8 (0.141, 0.323, 0.396, 0.800) (0, 0, 0.204, 0.487) (0.281, 0.493, 0.625, 1.082)
Ex9 (0, 0, 0.204, 0.487) (0.141, 0.323, 0.396, 0.800) (0.281, 0.493, 0.625, 1.082)
Ex10 (0.106, 0.274, 0.274, 0.647) (0.106, 0.274, 0.274, 0.647) (0.240, 0.451, 0.451, 0.919)

Table 8 Crisp scores of the criteria (z*) under different levels of impre- fuzzy values of all experts for each criterion are aggregated
cision using Eq. (12) to calculate crisp values. These are shown in
z* Criteria Table 8. It is important to note that to calculate the integral
Transportation Economic Morphology in Eq. (12), the integral needs only to be calculated as a first-
order equation. The final value is then calculated by replacing
α=0 0.397 0.457 0.364 numerical values for the limits of integral solution.
α = 0.5 0.339 0.438 0.318 The weights of each alternative were calculated for both
α=1 0.292 0.428 0.279 scenarios with respect to each criterion as shown in Table 9.
In order to better compare the criteria, dimensionless forms
of absolute weights are used through normalizing by the best
In order to normalize the result, the matrix of up ( AU ), weight for each criterion. As an example, division 20 is the
middle upper ( AMU ), middle lower ( AML ) and low (AL ) lim- best division in scenario 1 with respect to economic crite-
its of pair-wise comparison are first created as follows: rion. Therefore, the weight of this alternative is 1 and the
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤ weights of other alternatives are less than 1. Finally, the over-
3 8 8 5 9 9 all weights of the alternatives can be calculated by Eq. (13)
AL = ⎣ 0 3 3 ⎦ AML = ⎣ 0 5 5 ⎦ in which their elements are calculated. These are shown in
0 3 3 0 5 5 Tables 4 and 5. Table 10 represents the overall weights of the
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
5 10 10 7 10 9 alternatives under different levels of imprecision (α= 0, 0.5
AMU = ⎣ 1 5 5 ⎦ AU = ⎣ 2 7 7 ⎦ and 1) for both scenarios. In this Table, for each scenario, the
1 5 5 2 7 7 alternatives are ranked with respect to their relevant overall
weights. For example, it can be seen that construction sites
The values of ai and a in low limit matrix (AL ) are calcu-
(divisions) no 18 and 5 are the top sites with respect to sce-
lated based on Eqs. (9) and (10) as
narios 1 and 2 respectively.
a1 = (3 × 8 × 8)1/3 = 5.67 a2 = (0 × 3 × 3)1/3 = 0 The following can be noted from the results in scenario
1: (1) division 18 has higher priority for bridge construction
a3 − (0 × 3 × 3)1/3 = 0 a = 5.67 + 0 + 0 = 5.67
compared to other 14 divisions and should be considered
Thus, the values of bi and b for middle lower limit matrix as the best site location for a bridge construction site over
(AML ), ci and c for middle upper limit matrix ( AMU ) and di Dough River; (2) although Kouseh Bridge (Division 20) is in
and d for up limit matrix (AU ) are calculated similarly. The the first rank with respect to both economic and transporta-
fuzzy values μi (z) of the first expert’s opinion are, therefore, tion criteria, division 18 is finally selected as the best one
equal to (0.319, 0.535, 1.072, 1.53), (0, 0, 0.399, 0.801), for bridge construction site among 14 divisions because the
and (0, 0, 0.399, 0.801) for the criteria of economic, trans- weight of division 20 with respect to morphology criterion
portation and morphology, respectively. For instance, 0.319 is very low compared to division 18; (3) divisions 18, 20 and
is equal to ai (5.67) divided by d (17.768). These calculations 19 are the top three sites for bridge construction with a rela-
are repeated for each criterion for all experts. The resulting tively significant improvement compared to other divisions.
values are shown in Table 7. In the next step, the resulting This indicates the superiority of these locations with respect

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Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420 4417

Table 9 Normalized weights of alternative with respect to the criteria in both scenarios
Alternative no. Division no. Weights of alternatives in scenario 1 Weights of alternatives in scenario 2
Economic Transportation Morphology Economic Transportation Morphology

1 2 0.698 0.439 0.606 0.711 0.89 0.606

2 3 0.611 0.445 0.862 0.622 0.902 0.862
3 5 0.892 0.546 1 0.907 0.985 1
4 11 0.745 0.711 1 0.758 1 1
5 18 0.85 0.938 1 0.865 0.917 1
6 19 0.765 0.978 0.909 0.778 0.921 0.909
7 20 1 1 0.684 − − −
8 23 0.592 0.863 0.943 0.602 0.908 0.943
9 24 0.628 0.847 0.847 0.639 0.905 0.847
10 25 0.464 0.780 0.512 0.473 0.901 0671
11 26 0.547 0.768 0.671 0.556 0.9 0.671
12 27 0.69 0.732 0.769 0.702 0.897 0.769
13 28 0.633 0.79 0.588 0.644 0.911 0.588
14 29 0.982 0.665 0.804 1 0.952 0.804

Table 10 Overall weights of 14 alternatives in scenario 1 and 13 alternatives in scenario 2

Alternative no. Division no. Overall weights of the alternatives Overall weights of the alternatives
in scenario 1 in scenario 2
α=0 α = 0.5 α=1 α=0 α = 0.5 α=1

1 2 0.7139 0.6473 0.5961 0.8988 0.8058 0.7332

2 3 0.7697 0.6926 0.6319 0.9561 0.8523 0.7700
3 5 0.9884 0.8938 0.8202 1.1695 1.0492 0.9548
4 11 0.9867 0.8853 0.8055 1.1074 0.9890 0.8954
5 18 1.1248 1.0083 0.9167 1.1234 1.0077 0.9170
6 19 1.0687 0.9557 0.8667 1.0521 0.9420 0.8556
7 20 1.1030 0.9945 0.9108 – – –
8 23 0.9564 0.8517 0.7684 0.9788 0.8714 0.7859
9 24 0.9316 0.8315 0.7524 0.9596 0.8560 0.7740
10 25 0.7081 0.6304 0.5692 0.8181 0.7260 0.6527
11 26 0.7992 0.7133 0.6456 0.8556 0.7620 0.6880
12 27 0.8859 0.7949 0.7236 0.9568 0.8561 0.7769
13 28 0.8169 0.7320 0.6657 0.8700 0.7779 0.7057
14 29 1.0054 0.91122 0.8388 1.1276 1.0164 0.9303

to the criteria; (4) division of Kouseh Bridge (division 20)
is recognized as the second most optimal location in fuzzy
AHP. This implies that this site, which has been selected
in the past, has not been the best location for bridge con-
struction, although its current rank proves that a relatively
good selection was made in the past; (5) among top five divi-
sions, the region containing three divisions 18, 19 and 20
are in close proximity to each other with a distance of 500
m. This signifies relative superiority of this region compared
to other areas in the case study; (6) while the rank of divi-
sion 18 is three with respect to economic criterion, the great
importance of this division with respect to transportation
and morphology criteria caused it to be selected as the best
division.
The following can be noted from the results in scenario
2: (1) division 5, which is 7.5 km far from Kouseh Bridge
(division 20), is in the highest ranking location among 13
divisions and is recognized as the best division for bridge
construction with respect to the existing bridge; (2) although
division 11 is in the highest ranking location with respect to
two out of three criteria. Division 5 holds the highest rank for
bridge site location because its weights for all three criteria

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Table 11 Relative frequency, given as a percentage, of ranking of five top sites in 10,000 times simulation of Fuzzy-AHP considering two different
states of uncertainties for model parameters
Top sites (section number) Frequency (in percentage) of ranking of five top sites in different uncertainty environments

Uncertainty: ±20 % for population of residential Uncertainty: ±20 % for population of residential
areas, ±40 % for relative importance of public centers areas, ±30 % for relative importance of public centers
and ±40 % for weight of defuzzified values of criteria and ±30 % for weight of defuzzified values of criteria

1st rank 2nd rank 3rd rank 4th rank 5th rank 1st rank 2nd rank 3rd rank 4th rank 5th rank

18 88 12 0 0 0 95 5 0 0 0
20 12 60 23 2 2 5 79 16 0 0
19 0 27 69 4 0 0 16 84 0 0
11 0 0 3 66 24 0 0 0 77 23
5 0 1 4 27 65 0 0 0 22 77

Fig. 8 Relative frequency

(percentage) of ranking of five
top sites obtained from 10,000
simulations for uncertainty
conditions: ±20 % for
population of residential areas
(Pi), ±40 % for importance
weight of public centers (Wi)
and ±40 % for weight of
defuzzified values of criteria (z*)

are the highest ones; (3) top four divisions are 5, 29, 18 and
11, respectively. The relative weights of these divisions are
in close proximity and are significantly superior compared to
other divisions. (4) With the exception of divisions 18 and 19,
the top five divisions are almost as far apart from each other.
This implicitly indicates that no prevailing region is observed
in the river reach and that a spread of select divisions are
obtained in the river reach; (5) similar to scenario 1, four
divisions 29, 18, 19 and 5 are the best divisions indicating
the importance of these sites with respect to the criteria. (6)
Except for divisions 24 and 27, the orders of ranking are
identical for all three different levels of imprecision. This
implies that the order of the ranking of the bridge site location
is almost independent of the level of imprecision.
Note that although the result obtained from different level
of imprecision levels (α = 0, 0.5 and 1) makes little differ-
ence however, it is a useful stage in this analysis because
of the following reasons: (1) the utilization of fuzzy logic is
mainly to assist the experts with expressing their judgment
as linguistic terms; (2) it is often difficult for an expert to
state crisp value when comparing different alternatives and
they prefer to use linguistic terms when comparing items; (3)
fuzzy values were used to compare the criteria to determine
their weights which were converted to crisp values. In addi-
tion, as each division has unique characteristics which are
very similar for all points inside it, if the whole length (15
Km) of the river reach was broken into 100 divisions instead
of 30, there would be no difference in the result.
A sensitivity analysis is carried out for the model parame-
ters by using a higher level of uncertainty to assess the ranking
results of site selection. The fuzzy-AHP model is, therefore,
assessed under different uncertainty domains of the model
parameters as follows: The population of residential areas
(Pi ) with uncertainty domain of 10 %; importance weight of
public places (Wi ) with two uncertainty domains of 30 and
40 %; and the weight of defuzzified values of criteria (z∗)
with two uncertainty domains of 30 and 40 %. It is assumed
that all these uncertain parameters follow a Gaussian PDF
with coefficient of variation (CV) equal to their uncertainty
domains and mean equal to their deterministic values.

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Arab J Sci Eng (2014) 39:4405–4420
The uncertainty analysis of the model is carried out using
Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) with the number of sample
sets equal to 10,000. Hence, 10,000 sets of uncertain parame-
ter values are randomly generated from the associated PDFs
using Monte Carlo sampling technique [41,42]. For each set
of randomly generated parameters the fuzzy-AHP presents
a set of site rankings as a result. The relative frequency of
ranking of top five sites in 10,000 simulations is shown in
Table 11 and Fig. 8. For the results are given for two different
states of uncertainties of model parameters. As it can be seen,
the results demonstrate that the ranking of top sites is quite
stable for both input data uncertainty situations. For instance,
the bridge site for section number 18 obtained the top rank
in 88 per cent of states for the worst uncertain situation (i.e.
±40 % for relative importance of public centers and ±40 %
for weight of defuzzified values of criteria) while this site
obtained the second rank in only 12 per cent of the Fuzzy-
AHP simulations in uncertain environment. The same was
observed for the other top five sites for less uncertain envi-
ronment (i.e. ±30 % for relative importance of public centers
and ±30 % for weight of defuzzified values of criteria). As
it can be seen in the Table, the ranking position of each site
in this state is more robust compared to those in uncertain
environment (e.g. site no 18 is 95 per cent in the first rank
in the less uncertainty state compared to 88 per cent in the
previous uncertainty environment).
4 Conclusions
The main purpose of this study was to rank potential river
bridge construction sites using fuzzy AHP. Potential bridge
construction sites were identified in GIS through dividing the
river reach into a number of sections. After removing unfea-
sible sites, those remaining were introduced as alternatives
for fuzzy AHP. Two scenarios, assuming whether or not the
existing bridge is present in the analysis, were considered.
An analytical hierarchy process was created for the alterna-
tives and the criteria. Fuzzy logic was also used in AHP to
incorporate the imprecision of the experts’ judgments. The
application of the proposed method was demonstrated in a
case study of selection of a bridge construction site. This
demonstrated the power of the approach to identify potential
options given a combination of quantitative and qualitative
information and eventually finding best bridge site location.
The results of the sites’ ranking reveal that the superiority
of a division with respect to one criterion or even two cannot
guarantee that the division is selected as the best site. In other
words, all of the relevant criteria must be considered using an
appropriate analytical method such as AHP to select the best
alternative. While applying different levels of imprecision
using the α-cut concept in fuzzy AHP, no difference was
observed in the overall weights of alternatives. Although the
4419
fuzzy application in AHP can be eliminated, it is able to
assist the experts with expressing their judgment as linguistic
terms, which may make them respond to the survey in a more
decisive way. Since fuzzy AHP was successfully applied for
bridge construction site selection in GIS environment, it may
be further demonstrated and validated for other applications
of construction site selection problems.
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