Multinomial decisions

As part of the research for this article series, I read a research paper on tactical behaviour of bicyclists. One thing that I picked up from this paper was this sentence "The aim of this research is to identify relationships between the environment and the tactical behaviour of bicyclists in order to design infrastructure and traffic signal control that encourages overall rule-conform and safe behaviour"

That made me think that this approach is useful for the tactical security as well. Although the relationship between bicyclists’ actions and resulting safety risk is relatively well understood, few studies have investigated the motivating factors of these behaviours.

Most of the cyclist were conforming to the balance of safety (of a bicycle lane) and availability (not obstructed by a car), providing a safe haven where they were prioritized.

The findings presented in this paper are useful for understanding the relationships between the tactical choices of bicyclists at signalized intersections and the situational factors, strategic and prior tactical choices of the bicyclist.

One possible way to quantify different choices in tactical decision making is to use a decision making matrix1. This is a tool that helps you compare and evaluate alternatives based on multiple criteria that are important for your goal or objective. A decision making matrix can help you assign scores and weights to each alternative and criterion, and calculate the total score for each alternative. The alternative with the highest score is usually the best choice.

To use a decision making matrix, you can follow these steps1:

• Identify viable alternatives: What are the possible courses of action that you can take?
• Identify criteria that are to be used for evaluating the alternatives: What are the factors that matter for your decision? For example, cost, quality, time, risk, etc.
• Assign relative weight (1-10, with 10 being the most important) to each criterion: How much does each factor matter for your decision? For example, if cost is more important than quality, you can assign a higher weight to cost than quality.
• Score each alternative for each criterion (again 1-10, with 10 being the best): How well does each alternative meet each criterion? For example, if an alternative has a low cost but a low quality, you can assign a low score for both cost and quality.
• For each alternative, multiply the score with the corresponding criteria weight and add these multiples in the last column: This gives you the total score for each alternative based on all criteria.
• Compare the total scores of all alternatives and choose the one with the highest score: This is usually the best choice based on your criteria.

By using multinominal measurement, you can quantify the information (in a multinominal way) that you have available and base the decision on this. The decision can be made without all the perspectives prefect aligned. It is about having enough information to make an informed decision.

Now to the icon that I have at the end of all articles:

I got the idea for this image, based on my Visio document that I was using to structure my ideas.

I realized that it had similarities to a ship wheel as well as it also resembles the way that you use multiple input in making tactical decisions. The icon will symbolize this.

Backlink

(1) Investment | LinkedIn