The application of AHP in oil and gas pipeline route selection

The process of oil and gas pipeline route selection involves many complex decision-making problems which include quantitative factors as well as a large number of qualitative factors that cannot be quantified. These factors affect the oil and gas pipeline alignments. How to determine the importance of these factors is a key question worthy of considering. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is introduced into the Geographic Information System (GIS) which plays an important role in the pipeline route decision-making system. By establishing hierarchical structure models, AHP compares different factors in order to get the weight of each factor. This process can quantify the importance of route selection factors and reduce the impact of subjective factors, therefore, the pipeline alignment is more reasonable and effective.