Railway prioritized food logistics in developing countries using fuzzy decision making under interval-valued pythagorean fuzzy environment

Abstract

The current state of agricultural logistics is vulnerable to global crises and oil price fluctuations, especially in developing countries that depend heavily on highway transportation. Experts are seeking efficient and eco-friendly solutions, exploring options such as railroad transport and innovative concepts such as synchromodality for improvement. In this study, a decision-making approach for policymakers and logistics experts to improve the efficiency and resilience of agricultural logistics by using more sustainable transport modes and synchromodality is proposed. The approach is based on a new total ordering principle on the class of Interval-Valued Pythagorean Fuzzy Numbers (IVPFNs), which is compared with existing ranking methods. In this paper, we have used IVPFNs for modelling our problem. The idea of IVPFNs (generalising interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers) introduced by Yager in 2013. However, the total ordering of the class of IVPFNs has not been studied so far. The main Mathematical contribution of this work lies in defining the total order relation on the set of IVPFNs for the first time in the literature. To do this, firstly, the Four new score functions on the set of IVPFNs are introduced and various mathematical properties of them are studied. Secondly, a new total ordering principle is introduced by combining all these score functions, and their mathematical proofs are given. Thirdly, a new group decision-making algorithm based on interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy extent analysis (IVPFEA) is proposed and applied to a real-life case study problem. Finally, the sensitivity analysis has been done properly to show the robustness of the proposed algorithm and the results. The case study involves seven experts role-playing as advisors for the Republic of Türkiye, which is a developing country, on choosing the best agricultural logistics system alternative among four alternatives. Twelve criteria, under four aspects, are presented for participants to consider. Based on the responses of the experts, the railway-prioritized food logistics system is the primary alternative. Overall, the results of this study provide a mathematical and data-driven approach to deciding on a new logistics system that policymakers and sector experts can utilize.