Applying Group Fuzzy AHP for Selecting Best Fleet Supplier

In recent years, rail transportation industry has been receiving considerable and ever- growingattention both in theory and practice. Such attentions in our country has led to setting several particular targets in the Fifth Development Plan (e.g. constructing over 1000 kilometers of new lines per year). On the other hand, increasing the length of railways logically demands for further fleets. Presently, such fleets are supplied through other developed countries. This requires a comprehensive and regulated (effective or trustworthy) method to properly select the supplier(s). This paper is aimed at developing an approach based on Fuzzy AHP for selecting the best fleet supplier(s). In this regard, relevant criteria and options have been extracted the experts in the field. Then, the pair comparisons between criteria and between options (based on each criterion) have been performed by using experts’ comments. These comparisons are transferred into fuzzy structure and a confidence level is also considered on the decision made by each expert. Finally, following a four-step procedure, the priority of options were concluded. In the first step, the weights of criteria and options are extracted. Subsequently, the weights of decision makers are computed and then, the final weights are achieved by combining first and second steps. Finally, the priority of options is driven. The result indicates that Germany has the highest priority among other countries and there is an obvious need for modifying the current selection policies.