Using individual and common reference points to measure the performance of alternatives in multiple criteria evaluation

When evaluating or ordering alternatives concerning given multiple criteria, decision-makers often use aspiration and reservation levels for criteria, which allows them to define some reference alternatives that build a common framework for the evaluation. In this paper, new multiple criteria approach, called distances to aspiration reference points (DARP), is presented, which can be implemented in a specific evaluation or ranking problem when many different aspiration levels should be taken into consideration. One example of such problem is measuring sustainable development of countries or states within the Union. In DARP, to measure the performance of alternative (state), the notion of distances between alternative and individual or common aspiration reference points is used. To manage the problem of different reference points, a modified max-min normalisation technique is proposed. DARP application for measuring smart growth of the EU countries is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.