Temporal Dimension Evaluation by Fuzzy TOPSIS Method

Subject Areas : Urban Design

Maliheh  Hashemi Tilehnoei ¹ (M.Sc., Architecture and Urbanism Faculty, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran)
Mehdi  Amiri Aref ² (Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, Mazandaran University of Science and Technology, Babol, Iran)

Received: 2013-02-18 Accepted : 2013-03-02 Published : 2013-06-01

Keywords: Urban design, Temporal dimensions, TOPSIS method, Fuzzy numbers,

Abstract :

This paper evaluates and ranks the temporal dimensions, known as fourth dimension of urban design, of anumber of places in a city by TOPSIS method. TOPSIS method is technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution.TOPSIS is one of the renowned methods for classical multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems that defines thepositive ideal solution and negative ideal solution to maximize the benefit criteria and minimize the cost criteria. The bestsolution is a point that has the shortest distance from the positive ideal solution and the farthest distance from the negativeideal solution. Because of the vagueness of the input data, triangular fuzzy numbers are applied. In addition, Euclidian distanceand a new positive and negative ideal solution are used in this paper. This technique is implemented in Marand, Iran to evaluatefifteen important places based on eight criteria of temporal dimensions. Closeness coefficient values verify the ranking orderof fifteen important places, which is a vital decision for the urban managers.