การจัดลำดับความสำคัญของโครงการลงทุนถนนในผังเมืองจังหวัดสงขลา

Abstract

Road is a principal transportation system in Thailand. It is utilized to develop the overall economy. All Thai road networks are under responsibility of governmental agencies. Songkhla is one of the most important economic provinces in the country; it accommodates the second-largest road networks in the southern region, and is continually expanding. Nevertheless, the increase of its road networks is in contrast to the present transport integration-development budget; which seems to be in perpetual decline each year. The effect is such that responsible road agencies could not effectively develop and maintain many routes under their care, and are forced to make tough decisions on suitable road-network investment that would optimize benefits. In accordance with this desire, this research to study factors that affect executive decision-making to invest in the Songkhla road networks by probing relevant experts of their knowledge and experiences working on road projects belonging to the Department of Highways, the Department of Rural Roads, and the Department of Local Administration. The subject is divided into new road construction projects and existing road improvement projects. Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process method is utilized to analyze and allocate scores to the decision-making process, as well as project ranking considering inclusive factors such as engineering, economic, political and policy, and social and environmental factors. The study reveals that all the three Departments have attached primary importance to engineering factors with an average score of 34.73 percent; and secondary, the economic factors, at 23.25 percent. In addition, majority of the expert opinions indicates prioritizing of road-network investments to developments of residential areas and official offices, followed respectively by commercial and industrial, rural and agricultural, environmental conservation and recreation areas. It is anticipated that the findings could be used as a guidance to appropriate future planning on road investment projects in Songkhla, and beyond.