The Overlaying Map Technique: Problems and Suggested Solutions

Abstract

This paper identifies three basic problems associated with the Overlaying Map Technique, and suggests ways to overcome them The first problem relates to practical aspects of the suggested solutions to the problem of implied addition of ordinal scale numbers in the application of the method The second problem concerns the addition of positive values for both the negative and positive effects of factors The third problem is the general difficulty of deriving the final results, and the fact that the final result of the method does not represent an optimum solution Two methods of obtaining the suitability ratings in ratio scale are suggested to overcome the first two problems, an alternative method for deriving the final results, using the ratio scale ratings is suggested, and a linear assignment model is proposed to overcome the optimization problem