Determining the relative importance of sustainability evaluation criteria of urban transportation network

•Define a comprehensive sustainable urban transportation network (SUTN).•Evaluation criteria for SUTN based on economic, social and environmental factors.•Propose a framework based on Best Worst Method (BWM) to define a SUTN. A truly sustainable urban transportation network (SUTN) needs to be sustainable in all aspects including economic, social and environmental dimensions. Identifying the evaluation criteria for sustainability of urban transportation network (UTN) and evaluating importance of these criteria, are completely critical. While most researches have only focused on economic aspect of transportation systems (TSs), in this paper, by considering economic, social and environmental dimensions, the evaluation criteria for evaluating the sustainability of UTN have been identified. Then a framework based on Best Worst Method, has been proposed to evaluate and prioritize sustainability dimensions and evaluation criteria. To show the usefulness of the proposed model, it is applied to a real-world case study of transportation in Isfahan, one of the largest cities in Iran. The results from this study are used for evaluating and selecting real transportation projects. We have also shown how the proposed framework helps managers and experts for analyzing sustainability of existing UTN, identifying potential strategies, evaluating and selecting new policies or constructing projects to achieve sustainability goals.