Hesitant fuzzy linguistic TOPSIS method for the electric vehicles' charging stations location selection problem and an application for Istanbul

Abstract

The prevalence of environmental studies in the academy has increased in recent years, depending on the adverse effects of global warming on natural resources. Besides various environmentally benign applications, one of the most important instruments on eliminating the negative environmental effects of an increasing population is electric vehicles. There are various topics within the concept of electric vehicles, including the determination of electric vehicle type, routing, network design, and so on. However, in this study, determining the locations of electric charging stations is the main focus. The problem is handled as a multi-criteria decision-making problem with the consideration of the uncertainties in the decision-making environment. Specifically, the judgments of decision-makers play a critical role in the success of decisions, but for a decision-maker, it is usually difficult to express his/her preferences by using only one linguistic term due to the structure of some criteria type. Hence, with the proposed methodology, in this study, criteria are firstly classified as fuzzy and crisp according to their objective or subjective characteristics. Afterwards, besides the utilization of classic techniques for crisp type criteria, probabilistic linguistic terms sets are utilized for fuzzy type criteria with an extended version of TOPSIS. The proposed methodology is used for the comparison of 39 alternative electric charging locations in Istanbul, which is one of the most crowded cities in Europe.