Investment decisions and project

management over Indian railways: a

case of freight corridors
Vinod Bhatia, Seema Sharma and Richa Bhatia

Abstract Vinod Bhatia is based at the

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to provide insights into the process of decision making. Indian Department of Operations
Railways as an organization has to use the available resources based on thorough analysis and proper and Business
application of available evaluation methodologies. Development, Dedicated
Design/methodology/approach – This study uses an integrated group discussion – analytical Freight Corridor
hierarchy process (AHP) to prioritize capital-intensive Indian Railways projects. Corporation of India
Findings – Through an email-based survey, six important criteria for ranking upcoming domestic freight Limited, Ministry of
corridors were selected, and weights for these criteria were calculated through AHP. The sensitivity
Railways, New Delhi, India.
analysis of the decision model suggests that the results of this study are significant, reliable and robust.
Seema Sharma is based at
Originality/value – This study lays a foundation for the decision-makers of Indian Railways to consider a
the Department of
scientific approach while finalizing the big investment projects. This paper provides essential insights on
prioritizing capital-intensive transport projects and is readily applicable to any case study. Management Studies,
Indian Institute of
Keywords Case study, Survey, Infrastructure management, AHP, Railway
Technology Delhi,
Paper type Case study
New Delhi, India.
Richa Bhatia is based at the
Department of Electronics
1. Introduction
and Communication
Business entities face new challenges and issues regularly because of continuous changes Engineering, Netaji Subhas
in market conditions and scenarios. To seize the available business opportunities and fulfil University of Technology,
their strategic objectives, the organizations plan new projects for strategy execution after Delhi, India.

analyzing various problems and opportunities in the business ecosystem for their business
expansion (Hauc, 2002). Availability of loans and financial resources is one of the important
factors in selection of any new project. If more than one project needs financial
commitments, the question arises: the decisions should be based solely on financial
analysis or another criterion (Pinto, 2007). In such situation, the organizations prepare a
priority list as per various vital criteria that are in sync with the organization’s actual needs
and the lending institutions tend to assign significant value to these criteria while
undertaking financial appraisals of these projects (Palcic, 2009).

2. Project selection and organization’s strategic goals

Sometimes, a challenge is there to select projects from basket of many possible projects.
The proper screening models are a must to select the appropriate project. The
management may consider five important issues while evaluating the given screening
models. The model should be based on realism to achieve organizational objectives; Received 24 August 2021
capable of comparing different projects after accommodating new criteria and constraints; Revised 18 March 2022
24 April 2022
flexible to incorporate changes as per requirements; easy to use for all people in the Accepted 22 May 2022

DOI 10.1108/MBE-08-2021-0106 © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1368-3047 j MEASURING BUSINESS EXCELLENCE j
 organization and finally it should be cost-effective (Souder and Sherman, 1994). The project
selection model may be quantitative or qualitative, depending upon the nature of the input.
The input values may be objective or subjective values or a combination of both (Meredith
and Mantel, 2003). The project selection process involves considering risk factors such as
technical and legal; commercial factors such as rate of return and loan repayment period;
internal operations such as training, skills and changes in practices; and other factors such
as company image intellectual property rights. There may be other attributes that are not
measurable in monetary terms, such as service quality, user experience and safety issues,
but these may have significant influence over the costs and benefits of the project.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. After covering the introduction in Section 1
and Section 2, we describe the problem in Section 3, followed by a literature review in
Section 4. The integrated decision framework is stated in Section 5, with the implementation
procedure presented in Section 6. The results are presented in Section 7, and sensitivity
analysis is performed in Section 8 before concluding the study in Section 9.

3. Problem description
In 2005, the Ministry of Railways, Government of India envisaged the capital-intensive
dedicated freight corridor (DFC) rail infrastructure project to regain the market share in the
freight segment and enhance the line capacity along its busy trunk routes. Two dedicated
freight corridors were sanctioned, i.e. Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors
(EDFC and WDFC). The Western DFC (Route length 1504 km) was planned from Jawaharlal
Nehru Port, New Mumbai, to Dadri near Delhi. It was supposed to cater to three major ports
and two large private ports on the Western coast of India while passing through
Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh before terminating at Dadri.
The Eastern DFC (Route length 1856 km) was planned from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni
in West Bengal. It was supposed to bring minerals from eastern India to densely populated
states of Northern India while passing through Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and
Jharkhand before terminating at Dankuni in West Bengal (Figure 1).
These corridors have been planned to support long haul operations with wagons of
high throughput and axle load of 25 tonnes. The sections shall support double stack
container trains and time-tabled freight trains running at a maximum speed of 100 kmph
compared to the average freight train speed of around 30 kmph over a conventional Indian
Railways (IR) network. These two DFC projects are being implemented at cost of $12bn, out
of which $2bn is being funded by the World Bank and Japan International Corporation
Agency is funding $5.5bn. Some part of EDFC from Sonnagar–Dankuni shall be developed
under public–private partnership (PPP) model.
Since 2005, the targets for the commissioning of DFCs have been revised several times.
Several constraints on account of funding arrangements, land acquisition, environment
clearances, forest clearance etc., have been observed. In addition to two under
construction DFCs, the Ministry of Railways has announced the studies/detailed project
reports (DPR) for construction of three new DFCs, i.e. North-South sub corridor (Vijaywada-
Nagpur-Itarsi – Length - 975 Kms); East-West (Bhusawal-Wardha-Nagpur-Rajkharswan-
Kharagpur-Uluberia-Dankuni - Length-1673 Kms and Rajkharswan-Kalipahari-Andal- 195
Kms); East Coast (Kharagpur-Vijayawada) corridor of 1115 km at the estimated construction
cost of $43bn (Figure 1). The fourth DFC from Chennai to Vasco is not yet under
consideration. As the financial resources are limited, IR has to make crucial policy decisions
to execute these critical projects (Bhatia and Sharma, 2021). The excecution process may
involve prioritising scarce resources, and to reach a final decision, there may be divided
opinions among policymakers and stakeholders. In this scenario, we have proposed a
multi-criteria decision model wherein experts’ opinions, and judgments have been used to
assign weights to various criteria. Our goal is to identify the construction order of three new
DFCs to avoid thin distribution of available resources.

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 Figure 1 Existing and proposed DFCs

4. Literature review
In the available literature, multicriteria analysis and other analysis methods have been
applied in several studies to evaluate and rank the projects in the area of transport.
Bonnafous and Jensen (2005) propose a model that considers the partial income of the
project to identify an efficient program for investments. Salling and Leleur (2012) explain risk
analysis and Monte Carlo simulation in the decision-making process to rank the air transport
projects. They mention that the most frequent errors are overestimating the profit and
underestimating the transport project costs. To reduce subjective estimates of the criteria,
Su et al. (2006) use analytical hierarchical process (AHP) method to modify their ranking
model. The ranks of alternatives are defined through Monte Carlo simulations and an
extension of the fundamental matrix of interactions. De Brucker et al. (2011) explain the

j MEASURING BUSINESS EXCELLENCE j

 application of multi-criteria-based models to evaluate transport projects. Macharis et al.
(2009) used a model of multicriteria analysis for the ranking of transport projects.
Tsamboulas et al. (2007) consider the complexity of each criterion in multicriteria analysis to
evaluate traffic infrastructure projects. Iniestra and Gutierrez (2009) evaluate transport
infrastructure projects using five criteria. They apply ELECTRE III in the incorporation of the
management preferences. Longo et al. (2009) select relevant railway infrastructure projects
through combined AHP and ANP methods.
Chang et al. (2009) use multicriteria analysis to establish a model to select an appropriate
solution for revitalizing a historic railway section in Taiwan. The ANP method, goal
programming and fuzzy Delphi method were used for selecting the strategic solution.
Ivanovic et al. (2013) use multicriteria analysis and the ANP method to define a model that
selects road projects in a pedestrian zone as per the transport master plan. La Paix and
Lopez-Lambas (2010) propose evaluating European transport research projects using
multi-criterion analysis. The methodology involved the application of one stage model on 17
roads, multimodal and marine projects. Guhnemann et al. (2012) prioritize projects as per
transport policy under road infrastructure development program through the application of
combined cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and multicriteria analysis (MCA). Tudela et al. (2006)
rank the city transport investment projects by separate application of the cost-benefit
method and AHP method. Hayashi and Morisugi (2000) evaluate road, mass transit and toll
projects using cost-benefit or multicriteria analysis. Bristow and Nellthorp (2000) evaluate
transport infrastructure projects in EU member countries based on cost-benefit analysis.
In literature, studies are available which have applied multicriteria analysis to select the
relevant project from the list of projects falling under one specific type or category (Salling
and Leleur, 2012; Macharis et al., 2009). Storch de Gracia et al. (2019) stated a hierarchy
methodology to select the most promising innovative projects, based on the processes
defined by the successful Project Management Institute. Llamas et al. (2017) used multi-
criteria method to select ideal salt domes as stores for compressed air underground.
Sharma and Bhagwat (2007) developed an integrated balanced scorecard (BSC) analytical
hierarchy process (AHP) approach to measure supply chain management performance
from the four perspectives: finance, customer, internal business process and learning and
growth. Singh et al. (2018) integrated AHP and TOPSIS to solve a multi-criteria vendor
rating problem. Yadav and Sharma (2016) presented a case study of an Indian automobile
company using AHP approach to illustrate and propose a supplier selection model.
Dweiri et al. (2016) proposed a decision support model and performed a sensitivity analysis
for supplier selection based on AHP using a case of automotive industry in a developing
country of Pakistan. Dey et al. (2016) introduced multi objective performance analysis
(MOPA), a novel multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach to solve decision
problems in a supply chain. Padhi et al. (2017) proposed an integrated model for objective
assessment of suppliers for an Indian Heavy Locomotive firm through integrating three
methods, namely, Taguchi loss function, AHP and TOPSIS. Asakereh et al. (2017) used
the AHP technique to weigh the techno-economic and environmental criteria and to draw
the final map of the suitability of lands as solar farms in Khuzestan province of Iran. Çoban
(2020) evaluated alternative solar energy plant projects under the main criteria based on the
knowledge and experience of the experts.
In several studies, projects of different types and category have been evaluated in terms of
criteria such as profitability, costs and safety (Al-Harbi, 2001; Al Khalil, 2002). Moreno-Jiménez
and Vargas (2018) examined the concept, historical evolution and the different schools of
thought regarding multiple criteria decision-making MCDM. Bellahcene et al. (2020) proposed
an integrated AHP and weighted additive fuzzy goal programming (WAFGP) method for the
selection of information system projects that can use all types of linear membership functions
and offer more flexibility. Çelikbilek (2018) proposed G-AHP approach to select a project
manager for a software project of an energy company. Wang et al. (2019) conducted an

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integrated assessment and prioritization of seven bioenergy technologies (BETs) using a
criteria system consisting of four aspects (environmental, technological, economic and social
aspects, in total 15 criteria). Ghimire and Kim (2018) identified the barriers to developing
renewable energy from the Nepalese perspective and attempted to rank them.

5. An integrated decision framework

The DFC are cost-intensive projects; hence, decision process for implementation of these
projects is a complex one. We have provided an integrated decision framework in Figure 2.
The first stage of framework consists of group discussions, organized through electronic
mail surveys and video conferences. After identifying and listing of essential criteria, AHP-
OS tool (Goepel, 2018) has been deployed to select relevant DFC project.
It is understood that our integrated decision model for the selection of projects will provide
improved decisions in contrast to results obtained from traditional assessment methods of
the rate of return, cost-benefit or techno-economic analysis. We have not come across any
study in literature wherein integrated group discussions AHP method has been applied for
implementation of DFC railway projects. Each module of integrated decision framework is
elaborated in following sub-sections.

5.1 Group discussions

The group decision-making through the AHP method involves breaking down a given
problem into a hierarchy. A group for these discussions has to be identified after due
deliberations as the experience, knowledge and competency of group members may
directly affect the outcome of brainstorming sessions (Skulmoski et al., 2007). Elaborate
group discussions maximize the communications among group members and increase
their stake in reaching a final decision. Group discussions should be organized by sending

Figure 2 An integrated decision model

An Integrated Group Discussion -AHP approach towards

ranking and selection of new DFC on IR

Brainstorming, Experts’ Opinion

by electronic mail survey/video
conference
Group Discussions
Listing the key criteria

Pairwise Comparison of key

criteria

AHP Method
Ranking the criteria

Ranking the DFC projects and selecting the best one.

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 the details of the subject to members before the group meeting. These details can be
mailed and there should be a preliminary list of criteria or other relevant subject matter, or a
background note. The hierarchy prepared in advance can be placed before the group. The
discussions may result in hierarchy modification, and the group may break down the given
complex issue into simple levels. There may be instances when a few members of the
group may try to dominate. In such cases, it is better to assign time slots to group members
to give them the opportunity to express his/her views (Al-Subhi and Al-Harbi, 2001). The
final agreement may incorporate the objectives to be achieved and reach a consensus, and
the group may use the voting technique or take the average of the judgments given by
group members. All group members may be given equal votes or other votes as per their
position or experience. There are various opinions about the optimum group size in the
literature, but Vidal et al. (2011) have suggested a group size between 9 and 18
participants to avoid significant disagreements among experts.

5.2 Analytical hierarchy process

Dr Thomas Saaty devised a method in 1980 for solving technical and management
problems while selecting a relevant project out of available project options (Saaty, 1980).
The results obtained in the process have been noticed to be appropriate for situations
involving intuition, rationality, uncertainty and risks. The AHP concept has been explained in
Appendix 2. The link for the same has been provided in the manuscript.
There are a few limitations associated with AHP method. As the expert has to assign the
subjective values between 1 and 9 and different scores for the criteria and alternatives,
there may be differences in the approach of experts and stakeholders. The expert may not
rationally assign the number because of lack of attention span and preoccupation of mind
with other thoughts. There may be instances when expert judgments may lack consistency.
It is assumed that scores of alternatives for a given attribute are independent of scores of
other alternatives on other attributes, but there may be interrelationships among the various
attributes.

6. The analytical hierarchy process methodology implementation

6.1 The survey respondents for our study
The experts having sound knowledge about IR were chosen to have a significant clarity of
goal with the experts. The study involved 20 experts from academics, planning, operations,
project executors and stakeholders in the transportation sector, as detailed in Table 1.
In this study, the first stage of the decision framework is a group discussion, which involves
literature review, email survey and video conference to identify appropriate criteria for
selecting an appropriate alternative. An email survey was administered to explore the
possible criteria. The experts were requested to assign ranks to ten criteria mentioned in the
mail. The ten criteria included market share, capacity enhancement, environmental impact,
multimodal fit, transit time, impact on regional development, land availability, cost of
service, construction cost and choice of service to the customer. The average of ranks was

Table 1 Information about experts

Category of experts No. of group members

Planning 5
Operations 5
Academics 3
Project executors 2
Stakeholders 5

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obtained, and six criteria, i.e. market share, capacity enhancement, environmental impact,
multimodal fit, transit time and impact on regional development, were chosen for group
discussions through video conference. The group discussions were organized
systematically and interactively through data collection, brainstorming the issues and
prioritizing the outcomes. A video conference was arranged with 20 experts to obtain the
weights and ranks of criteria. A questionnaire was circulated in advance, and experts were
asked to fill the questionnaire before attending the video conference (Appendix 1). The link
for the same has been provided in the manuscript.
A brief description of six criteria is given below:

1. Market share

For any geographical area, the percentage freight share of each mode of transport can be
expressed as net-tonne km carried by that mode of transport. A transport mode having
efficient service and good network availability shall be better positioned to attract the
available freight traffic. Keeping an eye over available road networks and other modes in
Northern, Eastern and Western parts of India, the impact of DFC development on increasing
the rail modal share in these parts of India is reflected under market share criteria.

2. Capacity enhancement
The line capacity of a railway is expressed in number of trains that can be run in both
directions in 24 h. Though a railway network may be available but slots for running new
trains on this line may not be available. In such a scenario, there may be potential traffic, but
existing rail mode capacity constraints may impact the new loading. The capacity
constraints may be affecting the achievement of longer leads also because there may be a
situation that slot for new trains is available for some sections, but slots are not available for
intermediate sections. Hence, the impact of the development of new DFC in capacity
enhancement is reflected under capacity enhancement criteria.

3. Environmental impact
It is known that rail transport is less polluting than road network. Keeping an eye on loading
potential and exiting road traffic, it is assumed that some part of road traffic shall switch to
upcoming DFC resulting in lower pollution and lesser consumption of energy.

4. Multimodal fit
To reduce inventory cost and transit time, the multimodal transport involves services of
different means of transport. Availability of one mode of transport may be leading to longer
leads such as shipping of cargo from Mumbai to Kolkata by sea shall take six to seven days
in contrast to three to four days of the rail transportation. A cargo coming from Gulf
countries to Kolkata may take lesser number of days in case of multimodal transport
involving sea and rail modes. The criterion of multimodal fit stands for best fit DFC which
promotes multimodal transport.

5. Transit time

Depending upon the existing network and conditions of the road network and saturation of
the existing rail network, the upcoming DFC may result in faster movement of traffic due to
high speed and longer block sections.

6. Impact on regional development

The upcoming DFC may pass through various states and contribute to regional
development by catering to industry needs and facilitating access to manufacturing
industries. There may be an impact on employment generation and economic activities in
neighboring areas.

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 Figure 3 pictorially represents the hierarchy under AHP method of MCDM.

7. Analytical hierarchy process formulation, results and discussion

The AHP formulation process has been depicted in Appendix 2. The link for the same has
been provided in the manuscript. As per used software, Figure 4 illustrates the consolidated
global priorities and ranking of six criteria.
From Table A6 and Figure 4, it is observed that calculated values through AHP formulation
are very close to the values calculated by the used software. From the results, we observe
that capacity enhancement is the most important criterion, with a weight of 0.245, followed
by transit time with a weight of 0.221. The criteria of regional development impact secured
the last place with a comparative weight of 0.078. The emergence of capacity enhancement

Figure 3 AHP hierarchy of AHP

Figure 4 Consolidated global priorities and ranking of criteria

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as the major criterion is quite important because the availability of capacity itself shall
increase market share, reduce transit time and ultimately lead to regional development. The
ranking of transit time at second place is again important because the customers want early
delivery of their consignments. The transit time has a direct impact on inventory costs and
factory operations. Hence, the reduction in transit time shall improve the reliability of rail
services, and traffic from other modes may get diverted on railway mode. The
environmental improvement has been placed by experts at the fifth position because
experts believe that rail services will automatically reduce the environmental impact of
transportation when the traffic is carried over the rail in place of road transportation.
The AHP method was further used to rank the three alternatives. We obtained the
decision matrices for three alternatives against individual criteria by following the steps
explained in pair-wise comparison matrix of criteria. After calculating all priorities and
inconsistency indices, it is observed that with respect to market share (A), capacity
enhancement (B) and impact on environmental criteria (C), the East Coast DFC is at rank
one and North-South DFC is at rank 3. As detailed in Table 2, the East-West corridor is at
rank 1 with respect to multi-modal fit (D), transit time (E) and impact on regional
development criteria (F).
The results in Figure 5 provide the rankings of three alternatives as per the weighted sum
method (WSM).
It is observed that East-West DFC scored highest score of 0.423, followed by 0.368 for East
Coast DFC and 0.209 for North-South DFC. The East-West DFC has been considered by
experts for early implementation and development. It has scored high weightage for criteria
such as multi-modal fit (D), reduced transit time (E) and impact on regional development (F).
The construction of East-West DFC shall decongest the existing Indian Railway network in
Western, Central and Eastern parts of India. The proposed East West DFC route while
passing through states of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha,
shall capture traffic from coal mines, power plants, iron ore mines, steel plants, industrial
hubs, logistic parks and ports. At present, this traffic uses existing rail and road network.
This proposed project is expected to reduce congestion on existing rail corridor, terminals
and junctions, which would provide high performance and fast movement of freight.
Running of Heavy Haul trains (higher axle load of 25/32.5 Tonne) with overall load of 13,000
Tonne shall result in reduction in unit cost of transportation. East West DFC shall facilitate
the running of longer (1.5 km) and double stack container trains connecting the existing
ports and industrial areas for faster movement of goods. The interim survey report of East
West DFC corridor submitted in February, 2022 has stated that internal rate of return for the
project shall be 16.35% and returns for Indian Railway shall be 16.82% (Data provided by
Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India on request of authors).
Hence, in view of positive financial impacts from construction of East-West DFC, IR should
organize the financial resources and start working on obtaining several clearances for the
timely construction of East-West DFC.

Table 2 Priority and rank of the alternative as per individual criteria

NS EW ECO
Criteria Priorities (%) Priorities Rank Priorities Rank Priorities Rank

A 19.2 0.178 3 0.376 2 0.446 1

B 24.5 0.141 3 0.422 2 0.437 1
C 12.2 0.181 3 0.385 2 0.434 1
D 14.1 0.322 2 0.383 1 0.295 3
E 22.1 0.246 3 0.487 1 0.267 2
F 7.8 0.237 3 0.484 1 0.279 2

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 Figure 5 Priority and ranking of three alternatives by WSM

45% 42.3%
42%
39% 36.8%
36%
33%
30%

Global Priories
27%
24% 20.90%
21%
18%
15%
12%
9%
6%
3%
0%
NS EW ECO
Allternave

8. Sensitivity analysis
We have undertaken the sensitivity analysis on the basis of 1,000 judgment variations as
detailed in Table 3. We have used the AHP-OS tool (Goepel, 2018) software for performing
the sensitivity analysis.
From Figure 6, we observe that market share, multi-modal fit, impact on environment and
impact on regional development criteria do not have any overlap, but the capacity
enhancement and transit time criteria have overlap within the uncertainties.
Similarly, we estimated alternative weight uncertainties (WSM) through AHP software on the
basis of 6,000 judgment variations, as detailed in Table 4.
From Figure 7, we observe that none of alternative has overlap within uncertainties. Hence,
our solution for the top alternative, i.e. East-West DFC, is robust.
We estimated weight uncertainties based on 6,000 judgment variations under the weighted
product method (WPM). The results have been provided in Table 5. We observe from
Tables 4 and 5, the global priority of East-West DFC has changed from 42.3% to 42.0%, for
East coast DFC it has changed from 36.8% to 35.9%, and for North-South DFC it has
changed from 20.9% to 20.1%, but the ranking of DFCs has remained same. We further
observe that the alternative weight uncertainties have remained the same for East-West
DFC and East coast DFC under WSM and WPM methods, but alternative weight
uncertainties have changed from (þ1.2%, 1.1%) in WSM to (þ1%, 1%) in WPM for
North-South DFC.

Table 3 Criteria weight uncertainties

Criteria Priority (%) Rank (þ) (%) () (%)

Mkt-Share 19.2 3 1.3 1.2

Cap-Enh 24.5 1 1.4 1.4
Env-Imp 12.2 5 0.8 0.8
Multi-Fit 14.1 4 1.0 1.0
Transit-Time 22.1 2 1.3 1.3
Region-Dev 7.8 6 0.4 0.4

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Figure 6 Overlap of criteria

Table 4 Alternative weight uncertainties by WSM

Alternative Priority (%) Rank (þ) (%) () (%)

NS 20.9 3 1.2 1.1

EW 42.3 1 1.9 1.9
ECO 36.8 2 1.9 1.9

Figure 7 Overlap of alternatives within uncertainties

45%
42%
39%
36%
33%
Global Priories

30%
27%
24% (+)
21%
18% Priority
15%
12% (-)
9%
6%
3%
0%
NS EW ECO
Alternave

Table 5 Alternative weight uncertainties by WPM

Alternative Priority (%) Rank (þ) (%) () (%)

NS 20.1 3 1.0 1.0

EW 42.0 1 1.9 1.9
ECO 35.9 2 1.9 1.9

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 As detailed in Table 5, no overlap of alternatives within uncertainties has been observed in
the case of alternative weight uncertainties by the WPM method.
In summary, the sensitivity analysis reveals that East-West DFC remained the top-ranked
alternative, followed by East Coast DFC and North-Soth DFC. Thus, our results are valid and
robust.

9. Conclusions
With about 28% market share in the total freight movement, Indian Railways must strive to
increase ITS market share. As per National Rail Plan (2021), IR can increase its market
share to 44% by gradually increasing the speed of trains from current 25 kmph to 50 kmph
and by reducing the tariff by 30%. To achieve these objectives, IR as an organization has to
use the available resources based on thorough analysis and proper application of available
evaluation methodologies. Given these facts, our study lays a foundation for the decision-
makers of IR to consider a scientific approach while finalizing the big investment projects.
As such, in this paper, we have analyzed and ranked three DFCs on multiple decision
criteria. It was observed that capacity enhancement emerged as the most important criteria,
followed by transit time, multi-modal fit, impact on the environment and regional
development secured the last place in terms of criteria weight analysis. The integrated
group discussions AHP model framework facilitated assigning the numerical values to the
qualitative criteria, thus providing valuable results for the decision-making. Furthermore, the
sensitivity analysis was performed, and the results were robust. In general, the study
highlights that East-West DFC should be constructed on priority.
The proposed method has several practical implications for Indian Railway’s policy
planners and managers. The projects pipeline can be methodically scanned, and
redundant projects may be shelved.
The link for the Appendix 1 is https://docs.google.com/document/d/17iVuhkuJm7Xoo3DKHUY
u3Xyvn7yKUgNR/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114205865455465774324&rtpof=true&sd=true
The link for Appendix 2 is https://docs.google.com/document/d/12bhBS0DJwdpNQOMhEa
3dvmSN4barmP4T/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114205865455465774324&rtpof=true&sd=true

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Further reading
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pp. 2198-2204.
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Vargas, L.G. (1990), “An overview of the analytical hierarchy process and its application”, European
Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 48 No. 1, pp. 2-8.

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 Appendix 1

Appendix 1: Questionnaire

Overview

Thank you for participating in this Delphi Study on Dedicated Freight Corridors. After you have finished reading this introduction, you will be
directed to the Delphi Study itself. Please remember that you are being asked for your assessment - there is no right or wrong answer. Rather,
there is only your answer.

We look forward to receiving your responses.

Part One
The following section is necessary to establish the demographics of the respondents.

1. Select from the following list the one that best describes your current employment?
a. Self –employed:
b. Government Employee:
c. Business Employee:
Please identify the industry:
d. University/College Faculty:
e. Other (Please describe):
2. What is your current job title?
3. How long have you been in your current position? _________ years.
4. How long have you been involved with Transportation and Logistics sector? ______ Years.
Goal
Priority Order for Construction of DFCs. Ministry of Railways is planning construction of three new DFCs i.e. (1) North-South sub corridor (Vijaywada-Nagpur-Itarsi –
Length - 975 Kms) (2) East-West (Bhusawal-Wardha-Nagpur-Rajkharswan-Kharagpur-Uluberia- Dankuni - Length-1673 Kms and Rajkharswan-Kalipahari-Andal- 195
Kms) (3) East Coast (Kharagpur-Vijayawada) corridor of 1115 kms at cost of Rs 3 trillion. As the resources are limited. Our goal is to identify the constru
ction order.

Alternatives
DFC 1-North South (NS) DFC 2- East West (EW) DFC 3- East Coast (Eco)

Criteria
Market Share Increase Capacity Enhancement Environmental Impact Multimodal Fit Transit Time Impact on Regional
Development

How much you prefer Criteria 1 over Criteria 2 or vice versa

Extremely Very Strongly Strongly Moderately Equally Moderately Strongly Very Strongly Extremely
Criteria 2
Criteria 1 Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred
9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9
Market Share Capacity
increase Enhancement
Market Share Environmental
increase Impact
Market Share
Multimodal Fit
increase
Market Share
Transit Time
increase
Impact on
Market Share
Regional
increase
Development
Capacity Environmental
Enhancement Impact
Capacity Multimodal Fit
Enhancement
Capacity Transit Time
Enhancement
Impact on
Capacity
Regional
Enhancement
Development
How much you prefer Criteria 1 over Criteria 2 or vice versa
Extremely Very Strongly Strongly Moderately Equally Moderately Strongly Very Strongly Extremely
Criteria 2
Criteria 1 Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred
9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9
Environmental Multimodal Fit
Impact
Environmental Transit Time
Impact
Impact on
Environmental
Regional
Impact
Development
Multimodal Fit Transit Time

Impact on
Multimodal Fit
Regional
Development
Impact on
Transit Time
Regional
Development

With respect to Market Share Increase- how much you prefer Alternative 1 over Alternative 2 or vice versa
Extremely Very Strongly Strongly Moderately Equally Moderately Strongly Very Strongly Extremely
Alternative 1 Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Alternative 2
9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9
North South East West
(NS) (EW)
North South East Coast
(NS) (Eco)
East West East Coast
(EW) (Eco)

(continued)

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 With respect to Capacity Enhancement- how much you prefer Alternative 1 over Alternative 2 or vice versa
Extremely Very Strongly Strongly Moderately Equally Moderately Strongly Very Strongly Extremely
Alternative 1 Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Alternative 2
9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9
North South East West
(NS) (EW)
North South East Coast
(NS) (Eco)
East West East Coast
(EW) (Eco)

With respect to Environmental Impact- how much you prefer Alternative 1 over Alternative 2 or vice versa
Extremely Very Strongly Strongly Moderately Equally Moderately Strongly Very Strongly Extremely
Alternative 1 Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Alternative 2
9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9
North South East West
(NS) (EW)
North South East Coast
(NS) (Eco)
East West East Coast
(EW) (Eco)

With respect to Multimodal Fit- how much you prefer Alternative 1 over Alternative 2 or vice versa
Extremely Very Strongly Strongly Moderately Equally Moderately Strongly Very Strongly Extremely
Alternative 1 Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Alternative 2
9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9
North South East West
(NS) (EW)
North South East Coast
(NS) (Eco)
East West East Coast
(EW) (Eco)
With respect to Transit Time- how much you prefer Alternative 1 over Alternative 2 or vice versa
Extremely Very Strongly Strongly Moderately Equally Moderately Strongly Very Strongly Extremely
Alternative 1 Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Alternative 2
9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9
North South East West
(NS) (EW)
North South East Coast
(NS) (Eco)
East West East Coast
(EW) (Eco)

With respect to Impact on Regional Development- how much you prefer Alternative 1 over Alternative 2 or vice versa
Extremely Very Strongly Strongly Moderately Equally Moderately Strongly Very Strongly Extremely
Alternative 1 Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Preferred Alternative 2
9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9
North South East West
(NS) (EW)
North South East Coast
(NS) (Eco)
East West East Coast
(EW) (Eco)

Appendix 2

AHP concept
In AHP process, the experts and stakeholders sit together to develop a criteria hierarchy
keeping in view the goal or purpose of the project. Huang et al. (2009), Dong et al. (2010)
discuss the need of involving experts and managers from different departments such as
finance, sales, marketing and engineering in group decision-making. Once the criteria are
selected, the problem is divided into subproblems. The complex field problems are
analyzed through pairwise comparison, and results are merged to find the best solution.
The priorities are assigned numerical values, and possible solutions are evaluated after
applying weighted score methodology. The expert assessment results may have lower
symmetry; hence, procedure of weighted average is used to reach a final assessment (Al-
Atawi et al., 2016). The number of comparisons in any AHP method depends upon the
number of criteria to be compared, as detailed in Table A1 (Altuzarra et al., 2007).

Table A1 Number of criteria and comparisons

No. of criterion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 n

Number of comparisons 0 1 3 6 10 15 21 n(n–1)/2

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 Table A2 gives experts’ guidelines for value assignment as per their perceived importance
of one criterion from the given pair of criteria.
Figure A1 demonstrates the process of paired comparison. For any given goal, the expert
may prefer criteria B in comparison to criteria A by assigning any numerical score on the
right-hand side of the scale and vice versa.
For ‘n’ criteria, the subjective assessment of experts is recorded in a n  n matrix (Frei and
Harker, 1999). The diagonal elements of the matrix are marked as 1 and the upper
triangular matrix is filled as per numerical values marked by experts, and entries of a lower
triangular matrix are filled by the reciprocal of values mentioned in the upper triangular
matrix. We can say that if aij is the element of row ‘i’ column ‘j’ of the matrix, then the
corresponding lower triangular matrix entry will be governed by formula:

1
aji ¼ (1)
aij

After obtaining the n  n matrix, the priority vector or the normalized eigen vector of the
matrix is computed as a vector, which is the normalized Eigen vector of the matrix. We add
column entries and divide each column entry with the sum of column entries to obtain
normalized relative weight. Then all entries in a row are added, and the sum is divided by ‘n’
to obtain a normalized eigen vector from the matrix. This vector is also known as the priority
vector, and the sum of its all elements is 1. The priority vector helps us in the identification of
relative weights of criteria (Podvezko, 2009). To check the consistency of expert judgments,
we obtain the principal eigen value by multiplying each element of eigen vector with the
sum of columns of n  n matrix.
Taha (1997) observed that for any n  n matrix the largest principal eigen “l max” should be
less than or equal to the number of comparisons. For such cases, the degree of consistency
or Consistency Index is stated as:

kmax  n
CI ¼ (2)
n1
The Consistency Index is compared with the random consistency index to check the validity
of the results. For ‘n’ criterion, the random consistency index values are stated as below in
Table A3.
The Consistency Ratio is obtained by dividing the consistency index with random
consistency index.

Table A2 Values vs preferences

Value Preference description

1 Equally preferred
3 Moderately preferred
5 Strongly preferred
7 Very strongly preferred
9 Extremely preferred

Figure A1 Pair-wise comparison scale

9 7 5 3 1 3 5 7 9
Criteria A Criteria B
More important More important

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 Table A3 Random index scale
n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

RI 0 0 0.58 0.9 1.12 1.24 1.32 1.41 1.45 1.49

CI
CR ¼ (3)
RI
The inconsistency is acceptable for CR values less than or equal to 10%. If CR is more than
10% the subjective values assigned by experts have to be revised.
(Al-Subhi and Al-Harbi, 2001) discuss various steps of the AHP method. For two-level
hierarchy, the criteria and AHP can be represented as below in Figure A2.
The goal of the analysis is placed at Level 0, and various possible criteria are represented at
Level 1. Level 2 represents the available alternatives. The lines between different levels
represent the relationship among goals, factors and alternatives.

AHP formulation
The pairwise comparison matrix for six criteria on the basis of inputs given by 20 experts is
presented in Table A4. The pair-wise comparison matrix is normalized by dividing each
value in column by the total column value (Tables A4 and A5).
The priority vector (or Eigen Vector) is calculated to determine the ranking of each criterion.
The eigen vector values are calculated by taking the mathematical average of all criteria as
exhibited in Table A6.

Figure A2 AHP architecture with planning options

Table A4 Calculating the total of each column

Criteria A B C D E F

A 1 1/1.32 1.50 1.53 1/1.14 2.33

B 1.32 1 2.15 1.71 1.13 2.84
C 1/1.50 1/2.15 1 1/1.10 1/1.62 1.37
D 1/1.53 1/1.71 1.10 1 1/1.41 1.89
E 1.14 1/1.13 1.62 1.41 1 3.58
F 1/2.33 1/2.84 1/1.37 1/1.89 1/3.58 1
Total 5.21 4.03 8.1 7.09 4.62 13.01

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 Table A5 Comparison matrix for criteria after normalization
Criteria A B C D E F

A 0.19 0.19 0.19 0.22 0.19 0.18

B 0.25 0.25 0.27 0.24 0.24 0.22
C 0.13 0.12 0.12 0.13 0.13 0.11
D 0.13 0.15 0.14 0.14 0.15 0.15
E 0.22 0.22 0.2 0.2 0.22 0.28
F 0.08 0.09 0.09 0.07 0.06 0.08

Table A6 Eigenvector calculations

Criteria Eigenvector (Calculation) Eigenvector

A (0.19 þ 0.19 þ 0.19 þ 0.22 þ 0.19 þ 0.18)/6 = 0.193(19.3%)

B (0.25 þ 0.25 þ 0.27 þ 0.24 þ 0.24 þ 0.22)/6 = 0.245(24.5%)
C (0.13 þ 0.12 þ 0.12 þ 0.13 þ 0.13 þ 0.11)/6 = 0.123(12.3%)
D (0.13 þ 0.15 þ 0.14 þ 0.14 þ 0.15 þ 0.15)/6 = 0.143(14.3%)
E (0.22 þ 0.22 þ 0.2 þ 0.2 þ 0.22 þ 0.28)/6 = 0.223(22.3%)
F (0.08 þ 0.09 þ 0.09 þ 0.07 þ 0.06 þ 0.08)/6 = 0.078(7.8%)

Table A7 Calculation of maximum eigenvalue

Eigenvector 0.192 0.245 0.122 0.141 0.221 0.078

Total (Sum) 5.21 4.03 8.1 7.09 4.62 13.01

Maximum Eigenvalue [(0.192 5.21) þ(0.245 4.03) þ(0.122 8.1) þ(0.141 7.09) þ(0.221 4.62) þ(0.078 13.01)] = 6.011

To determine the consistency in the choice of the decision makers, the data inconsistencies
have been analyzed as per theoretical explanation given in Section 5.2. The maximum
Eigenvalue is calculated by adding the product of each element in the Eigenvector and the
respective column total of the original comparison matrix as exhibited in Tables A4, A6 and
A7.
The consistency Index (CI) is calculated as per equation (2) and consistency ratio (CR) is
calculated as per equation (3) given in Section 5.2. RI value of 1.24 is based on number of
criteria as stated in Table A3.
CI = (6.011–6)/(6–1) = 0.0022
CR = CI/RI = 0.0022/1.124 = 0.00178 = 0.178%
As CR value is less than 10%, the comparison matrix can be considered to be consistent.

Corresponding author
Vinod Bhatia can be contacted at: onlynodihuf@gmail.com; onlynodi@gmail.com

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