Citation

Dodd FJ, Donegan HA. Fire Technol. 1994; 30(2): 232-249.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF01040004

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Many complex problems in commercial settings can be broken down into elements that can be arranged in a hierarchical network with a supreme policy level and subsequent lower levels. Several techniques can be used to quantify the relative importance of the lowest level components subject to the policy. In this paper, we compare three methodologies that have been used in fire safety evaluation (FSE) research and show how some of the problems in these can be overcome. Of particular interest is a modification to Saaty's analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which improves its consistency and robustness to enable more confident application of the method in the fuzzy environment. The comparative results for a practical example are provided as an illustration.