Decision-making and expert judgement are two vital parts within safety and risk management, e.g. regarding: analyses of frequencies and consequences in risk analysis; risk tolerability decisions in risk evaluation and decision-making in risk reduction and control. There are a number of formal methodologies to elicit expert judgement and support decision-making. These methodologies contribute to inter-subjectivity, transparency and traceability of performed judgements and decisions, which in turn support continuous improvement and risk reduction. Examples of these methodologies are: Delphi methodology; paired comparison; category ranking and absolute probability judgements. This paper describes an application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to obtain preferences for strategic railway infrastructure criteria, such as safety and punctuality, and for different infrastructure maintenance actions from track managers in Sweden. The application of the AHP methodology was supported by a software tool, which facilitated recording, calculation and presentation of the track managers' preferences. The track managers consider it easy to understand the rationale of the AHP and to enter their preferences with the aid of a computer and the software tool. It is proposed that the preferences are recorded as in this paper, to document the rationale of performed decisions and to facilitate mutual learning among decision-makers and over time.
Godkänd; 2009; 20090630 (peter_s)