Hub facility location problem looks to find the most appropriate location for deploying such facilities. An important factor in such a problem is the pool of potential locations from which the optimal locations must be selected; i.e., which locations may actually be selected for a potential hub. The present research was performed to address two key objectives: (1) identifying the factors contributing to the selection locations for hub establishment, and (2) presenting an efficient methodology for assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of each node, followed by selecting optimal nodes for establishing potential hubs. The paper begins with a review on related literature, leading to identification and classification of the most important factors and criteria for a hub based on the required features in transportation systems. Subsequently, in order to assess all nodes, the identified factors were grouped into input and output criteria, with the extended Data Envelopment Analysis used to assess the efficiency of the nodes. Moreover, the assessment accuracy was enhanced by weighting the input and output criteria using Analytic Hierarchy Process. A significant achievement of this research was the innovative combination of Analytic Hierarchical Process and Data Envelopment Analysis by presenting a scientific model in the form of a heuristic pair-wise comparison matrix followed by adopting power eigenvector methodology. The result of this hybrid approach highlighted the nodes upon which unavailability the efficiency of other nodes was significantly affected, and new rankings of the nodes upon such unavailability. As findings, the present research identified the input and output criteria and their weights and developed a hybrid Analytic Hierarchy Process and Data Envelopment Analysis method for potential hub location. In order to validate the findings, Iranian Airport Dataset (IAD) was used.
