Masih, S and Kar, S (2025) Assessing social sustainability for multimodal activities in construction: An FAHP-TOPSIS approach. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 151(12): 04025210, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Promoting social sustainability (SS) in construction can enhance human well-being, quality of life, inclusiveness, and community benefits. This can also help mitigate the negative impacts of construction projects. Sustainability must be integrated into various project stages, including planning and execution. However, SS is the least explored and practiced due to its application complexity and the unavailability of a standardized assessment framework. A construction planner must consider social aspects while selecting a specific method of multimodal activities to achieve sustainability. However, SS assessment at the activity level for multimodal activities is rarely explored. Therefore, the present study aims to (1) identify the critical criteria of SS and (2) develop a framework to assess the SS of various activity modes. The framework developed in this study utilized a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and the technique for order of preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) method to rate and compare multimodal construction activities. Five critical SS criteria were identified and addressed in the study. Employee well-being was found to be the most crucial SS criterion with a criterion weight of 0.255, followed by local labor employment, local community well-being, noise, and vibration, and purchasing from local suppliers with criteria weights of 0.233, 0.224, 0.172, and 0.116, respectively. Furthermore, TOPSIS was used to determine the SS scores of various activity modes of three multimodal activities required for reinforced cement concrete (RCC) work in building construction. For concrete preparation, the mode using manual batching and a concrete mixer obtained the highest SS score of 0.99 among the other possible modes of activity. The reinforcement cutting and bending using steel bar cutters and bending machines scored highest (i.e., 0.59) for reinforcement work. In contrast, utilizing motor buggies received the highest score (i.e., 0.70) for material transportation and placement among its other alternatives. This study further illustrated the application of the simple additive weighting (SAW) method to obtain SS scores of any activity when the scores of their respective subactivities were known. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by developing a framework to quantify SS for the activity modes. This study will also help construction practitioners determine the appropriate activity mode to achieve better SS in a construction project.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction planning; FAHP; MCDM; multimodal activity; social sustainability; TOPSIS |
| Index terms: | purchasing, construction activity, employment, topsis, construction planning, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, reinforcement, social sustainability, construction practitioner, building construction, quality of life, placement, vibration, complexity, social aspect, body of knowledge, preference, construction planner, well-being, construction project |
| Subjects: | building materials, construction planning, mental health and wellbeing, mechanical systems, sociology, systems engineering, procurement strategy, public and environmental health, management, professional development, construction operations, knowledge management, practitioner, building construction, communities and social development, decision-making and optimization, decision-making and reasoning, production management |
| Topics: | Human Resources, Site Management, Information Management, Construction Materials, Research Practice, Construction Technology, Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management, Engineering Principles, Project Management, Health and Safety, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here