An optimal sustainable public transport infrastructure project portfolio selection requires an environment management strategy for both the social and economic development. This study considers the application of a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methodology that can be applied to assess the sustainable development of transport infrastructure projects, taking into account a range of transport, social, financial and environmental criteria. Furthermore, in order to resolve the strategic decision making under resource constraints and the carbon footprint factor, a zero-one goal programming (ZOGP) model is developed to facilitate an optimal portfolio of sustainable public transport infrastructure projects in Taiwan. The resulting data shows that the perspective of sustaihable transport and the criterion of decreasing traffic energy consumption are the most significant evaluation factors, and that the Tamhai Light Rail (TLR) Project and Tambai Expressway (TE) Project comprise by far the optimal portfolio of sustainable transport infrastructure projects which strengthen the connection between activity-based costing (ABC) evaluation and carbon footprint in a life cycle assessment. The integrated approach is a practical and useful tool for providing solution-related information for sustainable public transport infrastructure projects, and to help managers incorporate environment costs into decision-making processes. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.