A Performance Index for Assessing Urban Water Systems: A Fuzzy Inference Approach

Assessing public utilities, such as urban water systems, can be extremely complicated because of the difficulties in quantifying system attributes. A framework for developing and aggregating performance indicators can assist the measurement and assessment process. In this article, research involving an integrated set of performance indicators applied to the urban water system of Tehran, Iran, is discussed. Specifically, a fuzzy inference model was used to aggregate indicators into an overall system‐performance index, which can be used to make comparisons among a large number of competing water system alternatives. The approach proposed in this article can also be applied to the assessment of other urban public utilities.