A distance-based group decision-making methodology for multi-person multi-criteria emergency decision support

In this paper, a distance-based group decision-making (GDM) methodology is proposed to solve unconventional multi-person multi-criteria emergency decision-making problems. In this model, some decision-makers are first identified to formulate a group decision-making framework. Then a standard multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) process is performed on specific decision-making problems and different decision results are obtained from different decision-makers. Finally, these different decision results are aggregated into a group consensus to support the final decision-making. For illustration and verification purposes, a numerical example and a practical unconventional emergency decision case are presented. Experimental results obtained demonstrate that the proposed distance-based multi-criteria GDM methodology can improve decision-making objectivity and emergency management effectiveness. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.