Development of information technology for multi-criteria assessment of petrol stations vulnerability to accidents

Theses consider the development of intelligent information technology (IT) for the multi-criteria assessment of the petrol stations vulnerability to major accidents. On the basis of the authors' previous research on the methodology of assessing accidents and risks at petrol stations, it was proposed to develop IT for petrol stations vulnerability assessment, which would include methods of multi-criteria decision analysis, intelligent data analysis and fuzzy logic. The proposed IT construction method consists of 10 consecutive steps. The implementation of the first steps is related to the determination of the main types of accidents at petrol stations and consideration of the petrol stations vulnerability from the point of view of possible adverse consequences, for which the involved experts created 41 criteria of the primary space for assessing the petrol stations vulnerability, including economic, social and environmental criteria, as well as lost lives. To solve such a multi-criteria problem, it is proposed to apply the analytical hierarchy process for the analysis of expert data to obtain the secondary space of vulnerability criteria, without considering the lost lives. Based on the secondary space of criteria, data on the network of 17 petrol stations was collected and a scheme for their pre-processing and coding was proposed. A generalized model was developed based on the obtained data to assess the petrol stations vulnerability. To interpret the obtained results of the petrol stations vulnerability assessment, the use of a linguistic variable, which includes fuzzy sets in the form of trapezoidal membership functions, is proposed. Intelligent IT for petrol stations vulnerability assessment is implemented in the form of a decision support system (DSS). The decision-maker, based on the entered data according to the vulnerability criteria of a certain petrol station, will receive the preliminary value of the petrol station vulnerability assessment and an explanation of the way to obtain it. An integral part of the DSS is a formed knowledge base, which includes a database of pre-assessed petrol stations, as well as a base of rules for deriving the interpretation of the vulnerability assessment, with the possibility of its further editing and expansion. To visualize the results, petrol station data is displayed on a normalized coordinate graph, as well as on a graph of defined membership functions. The use of the proposed intelligent IT for multi-criteria assessment of the petrol stations vulnerability and DSS based on it provides an opportunity to make informed decisions on the assessment of potentially hazardous facilities and risk management, which allows to reduce the potential negative impact of accidents on petrol stations, improving the economic and social well-being of the country, considering the environmental impact.