A New FullEX Decision-Making Technique for Criteria Importance Assessment: An Application to the Sustainable Last-Mile Delivery Courier Selection

Abstract

Last-Mile Delivery (LMD) phase is essential in city logistics. However, it presents challenges due to the increasing number of vehicles and negative transportation effects. Sustainable city development requires smart LMD courier selection based on various criteria. This paper introduces a new subjective technique, called FullEX, for the criteria importance assessment. FullEX incorporates experts' opinions and their influence on the final decision, considering their reputation determined by education degree and experience. The application of FullEX focuses on assessing the importance of criteria for LMD courier selection. Such criteria are delivery service cost, on-time delivery, air and noise pollution, brand, and safety. Five experts participate in the evaluation procedure. However, this number can be adjusted depending on a certain problem. The FullEX method ranks on-time delivery as the most important criterion for sustainable LMD courier selection. In addition, the comparative analysis with the Best-Worst Method (BWM) confirms the results obtained by the FullEX method. Nevertheless, the sensitivity analyses demonstrate the stability of the FullEX and justify its introduction. Measuring the consistency index of the experts’ judgment has also the advantage of this method. This proposed criterion weighting method is versatile, user-friendly, and applicable to any MCDM problem involving expert opinions on criteria.