A comparison of the Saaty's AHP and modified AHP for right and left eigenvector inconsistency

Over the past two decades, Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been developed to solve decision problems in various fields by prioritization of alternatives using eigenvectors and manipulations in matrix algebra. However, a fundamental problem called "Right and Left Eigenvector Inconsistency" has been observed which may yield inconsistent results using the right and the left eigenvectors. A new method known as the Modified AHP has been recently devised by H.A. Donegan, F.J. Dodd, T.B.M. McMaster, The Statistician 41 (1992) 295-302 who claimed that the inconsistency problem can be effectively reduced. This work is an attempt to compare the Saaty's AHP (SAHP) and the Modified AHP (MAHP) using 42 models comprising 294 reciprocal matrices. It was discovered that the Modified AHP is no better than the Saaty's AHP. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.