Defining complementary tools to the IVI. The Infrastructure Degradation Index (IDI) and the Infrastructure Histogram (H_I)

ABSTRACT

The Infrastructure Value Index (IVI) is quickly becoming a standard as a valuable tool to quickly assess the state of urban water infrastructure. However, its simple nature (as a single metric) can mask some valuable information and lead to erroneous conclusions. This paper introduces two complementary tools to IVI: The Infrastructure Degradation Index (IDI) and the Infrastructure Histogram (H_I). The IDI is focused on time (compared to the IVI, focused on value), represents an intuitive concept and behaves in a linear way. The joint analysis of IVI and IDI provides results in a more complete understanding of the state of the assets, while maintaining the simplicity of the tools. The Infrastructure Histogram allows for a full evaluation of the infrastructure state and provides a detailed picture of network age compared to its expected life, as well as an order of magnitude of the required investments in the following years.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic asset management
• water services
• rehabilitation
• long-term planning
• infrastructure value index
• renovation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Baseform Labs for supplying real data used in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.