A Software Platform Towards a Comparison of Cars - A Case Study for Handling Ratio-Based Decisions -

Abstract

Environmental aspects often are in conflict with the criteria for a best/optimal behavior under technical aspects only. In these cases, common methods to compare alternatives and to come to a decision show methodological disadvantages. In this situation, this paper intends to demonstrate the situation firstly by giving a typical example, secondly to show, how a software platform might support the decision, thirdly, to provide different methods for comparison to demonstrate the effects of the method chosen and finally to sensitize the users for the interdependencies between the comparison method and the resulting ranking. The example will deal with the decision to find a new car according to individually scalable ratios. General data on different cars mainly are in conflict with the ratio of CO2-ratio expressing the environmental aspects of the cars to select. The paper proposes a software platform that allows dealing with these conflicting parameters by individually weighting and a flexible interface for comparison.