Ranking of the road transport in the provinces of Iran

Movements of people, freight and information have always been fundamental components of the economic and social life of societies. The goal of transportation systems is to fill the gap between geographical locations, region that generate travel and areas that attract travels (passenger or freight). Iran is a vast country that urban and rural centers, centers of production and consumption have been dispersed unequally. The road transport system linkages them. On the other hand, Iran is bridge between west and east of the world through which international transit (freight and passengers) carry out. On the other hand, Iran is on the international highway east and west of the world through which international transit of goods and passengers is made. Therefore, road transportation has a great potential for the development of the provinces and the reduction of spatial inequalities. In this paper, we use the ELECTRE III for ranking the provinces. The family of ELECTRE methods apply the outranking concept and ELECTRE III has concepts of outranking and the use of indifference and preference thresholds. The ELECTRE III is explained and applied to Ranking of the road transport in the provinces of Iran. In this article, we provide 5 indicators (safety and traffic affairs, planning of smart transport, technical and infrastructure affairs, passenger and freight transport) for ranking. At first, weights of the indicators were calculated using the paired comparison method. Next, decision matrix created as input of ELECTRE III model. We used DIVIZ software to run the model. results show Tehran ranked first, Qazvin ranked as second order, Alborz ,Kermanshah and Markazy placed in third position. The provinces of Kerman and Sistan-O-Baluchistan are at the bottom of the list.