Comparing the Results of Alternative Ranking Obtained by Several Variants of the Analytic Hierarchy Process

The paper notes that the analytic hierarchy process is one of the most widely used multi-criteria methods, and its calculation procedures have repeatedly become the object of various improvements and modifications. The presence of many variants of the analytic hierarchy process may result in the dependence of the determination of the best alternatives on the used variant of this method. The paper describes three variants of the analytic hierarchy process: original, simplified, and fuzzy. Based on solving a known example, these three variants confirmed that they can lead to different rankings. The paper concludes that it is advisable to carry out calculations according to several variants and to decide the superiority of one alternative over another only in case of convergence of the results of their comparison according to the majority of used variants to increase the validity of the recommendations for the person making the decision.