A Multi-Criteria Approach to Evaluate School Accessibility. AHPSort II and FlowSort: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The assessment of accessibility in educational institutions is a complex decision-making problem that involves multiple and heterogeneous criteria. In this study, Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods are employed to classify schools according to their level of accessibility, with particular attention to the methodological comparison between sorting techniques.
The analysis is conducted on a dataset of 131 Italian schools, for which data were collected through direct contact with the institutions in order to identify the presence and number of specific accessibility features. These features are used as evaluation criteria and include external entrances equipped with ramps, stairs compliant with current regulations, elevators for people with
disabilities, stairlifts or platform lifts, accessible restrooms, accessible internal pathways and accessible external pathways.
The primary classification is performed using AHPSort II, an extension of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) specifically developed for sorting problems. AHPSort II enables the assignment of a large number of alternatives to predefined and ordered accessibility classes through the introduction of representative profiles, central and limiting profiles, thus avoiding extensive pairwise comparisons among alternatives.
Subsequently, the same dataset and criteria are analyzed using the FlowSort method, which is based on the PROMETHEE outranking approach and assigns alternatives to predefined categories by comparing them with reference profiles through preference flows.
A comparative analysis of the classification results obtained from AHPSort II and FlowSort is then carried out in order to evaluate the consistency of the assignments, identify potential discrepancies between the two methods and discuss their implications for accessibility assessment in educational institutions.
The contribution of this work lies in providing a methodological comparison between AHPSort II and FlowSort applied to the classification of schools according to accessibility criteria, offering insights into the strengths and limitations of different MCDM sorting approaches in the context of educational infrastructure evaluation.