Evaluation of environmental indicators for transport with ELECTRE III

Abstract

This paper briefly explores to what extent the ordinal multi-criteria decision aid method ELECTRE III can help to assess the transport’s environmental performance (Borken 2005). For illustration and as test case we use the indicator set TERM of the European Environment Agency (EEA 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004). Its key indicators are identified, their reliability is assessed, and the overall environmental performance of Europe’s road transport, as measured by these indicators, is evaluated. We apply ELECTRE III for both an ex-post evaluation of the past environmental performance of road transport in Europe as well as to assess its expected development. We propose to consider this approach for a first ranking of – here – environmental issues or planning alternatives, e.g. in the context of Strategic Environmental Assessments, to identify issues and options that merit detailed investigations.