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Recent technological developments affect daily life as much as they affect the industries. As part of these developments, automation and smart systems are important part of everyday life. Smart card systems are one of the well-known types of smart automation technology being used by the majority of the population in public transportation in most developed countries. Even though automated fare payment systems have been widely integrated into public transportation in developed countries, integration of smart card systems is still under consideration in most developing countries. The aim of this study is to propose a framework to evaluate different smart card systems to determine the best one and additionally validate their benefits when compared with the traditional fare payment system. For this purpose, an integrated multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) framework is used that combines two recent and popular methodologies together. The proposed methodology employs Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) method for determination of criteria weights in the decision model and the Weighted Additive Sum Product Assessment (WASPAS) method for comparison of alternatives. Research results revealed that all smart card systems show improvements under performance, reliability, and user satisfaction related criteria. However, traditional fare payment systems are found to be safer under consideration of personal data protection. Findings of this study can be used to select the best smart card system and as a guide for deciding on areas of improvement during the implementation phase to ensure higher user satisfaction.

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There are many types of solid wastes however, plastic wastes are among the ones which have several harmful effects on the environment. Plastic wastes have a long decomposition time in nature and the dangerous chemical compounds in them make them a threat for the environment along with other types of waste. Contamination caused by the plastic wastes attracts worldwide attention nowadays. As a member of thermoplastic polymers family, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products are one of the most preferred type of plastic composition, which holds an important ratio in the total plastic waste amount. PVC wastes should either be disposed or recycled to minimize their harmful effects on the environment. The disposal approach is easy and cheap, but recycling alternative requires the investment on special facilities hence, a more expensive solution. However, disposal alternatives, such as landfilling and incineration, may also cause pollution due to high chlorine content of PVC; whereas, mechanical and chemical recycling options reduce many environmental problems. There is a clear tradeoff in the decision of handling PVC waste between the costs and environmental effects. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the factors considered during the investment decisions of PVC manufacturers to find out the importance of environmental factors by using a multi-criteria group decision making method.

This study examines Turkey’s energy planning in terms of strategic planning, energy policy, electricity production planning, technology selection, and environmental policies. A mixed integer optimization model is proposed for strategic electricity planning in Turkey. A set of energy resources is considered simultaneously in this research, and in addition to cost minimization, different strategic level policies, such as CO2 emission reduction policies, energy resource import/export restriction policies, and renewable energy promotion policies, are also considered. To forecast electricity demand over the planning horizon, a variety of forecasting techniques, including regression methods, exponential smoothing, Winter’s method, and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average methods, are used, and the best method is chosen using various error measures. The optimization model constructed for Turkey’s Strategic Electricity Planning is obtained for two different planning intervals. The findings indicate that the use of renewable energy generation options, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric alternatives, will increase significantly, while the use of fossil fuels in energy generation will decrease sharply. The findings of this study suggest a gradual increase in investments in renewable energy-based electricity production strategies are required to eventually replace fossil fuel alternatives. This change not only reduces investment, operation, and maintenance costs, but also reduces emissions in the long term.