What is relative measurement?-The ratio scale phantom

Traditionally, measurement scales with a unit are assumed to be available to measure and rank alternatives. However, such scales are scarce and it is often desired to rank alternatives on many tangible and intangible criteria. How? Relative measurement is a method for deriving ratio scales from paired comparisons represented by absolute numbers. This approach to measurement is useful in multicriteria decision-making where the concept of dominance is used to represent the comparisons numerically and derive and synthesize ratio scales to obtain an overall ratio scale ranking of the alternatives. Mathematical and structural issues relating to relative measurement and to the overall ranks of the alternatives are discussed in this paper.