###### Abstract  
Recently, the demand for residence and usage of urban infrastructure has been increased, thereby resulting in the elevation of risk levels of human lives over natural calamities. The occupancy demand has rapidly increased the construction rate, whereas the inadequate design of structures prone to more vulnerability. Buildings constructed before the development of seismic codes have an additional susceptibility to earthquake vibrations. The structural collapse causes an economic loss as well as setbacks for human lives. An application of different theoretical methods to analyze the structural behavior is expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, introducing a rapid vulnerability assessment method to check structural performances is necessary for future developments. The process, as mentioned earlier, is known as Rapid Visual Screening (RVS). This technique has been generated to identify, inventory, and screen structures that are potentially hazardous. Sometimes, poor construction quality does not provide some of the required parameters; in this case, the RVS process turns into a tedious scenario. Hence, to tackle such a situation, multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods for the seismic vulnerability assessment opens a new gateway. The different parameters required by RVS can be taken in MCDM. MCDM evaluates multiple conflicting criteria in decision making in several fields. This paper has aimed to bridge the gap between RVS and MCDM. Furthermore, to define the correlation between these techniques, implementation of the methodologies from Indian, Turkish, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) codes has been done. The effects of seismic vulnerability of structures have been observed and compared. damaged buildings; earthquake safety assessment; soft computing techniques; rapid visual screening; seismic risk estimation; Multi-criteria decision making; vulnerability assessment +
Footnote †: journal: Applied Soft  
detailed structural assessment such as a non-linear finite element analysis. For a large building stock, an approximate estimate that is efficient in prioritizing the structures for retrofitting shall be sufficient. The primary lateral load resistance system contributes as a significant factor in the structure's seismic response during earthquake events, as the level of vulnerability differs according to various types of structures. The seismic vulnerability can be defined as the insufficient resistance of the structure to withstand an impact from seismically induced vibrations [1]. First developed in 1988 by the United States as a standard guideline methodology for rapid vulnerability assessment, several national seismic codes were further developed by various other countries worldwide, each of them being specific to local factors of construction methods and design philosophies [2; 3]. The codes were further subjected to revisions for the incorporation of the latest advancements in seismic research [4]. The seismic vulnerability assessment can be performed in 3 stages--the initial stage consist of a fundamental walk-down survey followed by the second stage including of a more in-detail structural analysis of the buildings that have failed to achieve the cut-off score in the first stage, and further in the tertiary stage a detailed study on damage inspections, different behavior patterns with a structural analysis [5]. Nevertheless, with a vast number of buildings, due to limited human resources and available funds, a comprehensive investigation of individual buildings is not feasible which highlights the importance of using a simple walk-down survey. Rapid visual screening (RVS) help to classify buildings with varying grades of damage based on seismic vulnerability assessments. This method works with optimum seismic parameters: the age of the building, soil classification, seismic zone, quality the of material, the number of stories, and so forth. RVS is one of the superior methods, though it becomes laborious to run it in the case of missing parameters.