An AHP-based prioritization model for bridge maintenance after natural disasters

ABSTRACT

The island of Taiwan’s location, topography, and weak geological structure make its bridges vulnerable to the destructive effects of natural disasters. This was revealed in the aftermath of the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake and 2009 Typhoon Morakot, which severely damaged hundreds of bridges across several cities and counties. In crises like these, the immediate restoration of bridges to their pre-disaster levels of safety and serviceability is of the utmost importance, as they serve as critical channels for emergency response and socio-economic recovery. However, the national disaster management system currently lacks an efficient strategy for dealing with such situations. This paper proposes an AHP-based prioritization model to support bridge officials in establishing the order of priority for post-disaster bridge maintenance actions. Through the evaluation of twelve decision criteria, bridges are ranked and categorized according to their vulnerability to disaster-induced damage and their strategic importance. The model uses the information available from the Taiwan Bridge Management System (TBMS) and can be applied to bridge maintenance management following disasters triggered by earthquakes, typhoons, or floods. A case study based on the 2018 Hualien earthquake was performed to demonstrate the model’s utility.

CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:

• Ou, Yu-Chen

ASSOCIATE EDITOR:

• Ou, Yu-Chen

KEYWORDS:

• Bridge maintenance
• bridge inspection
• natural disaster
• analytic hierarchy process

Nomenclature

o₂ Age of bridge

t₁ Average daily traffic

o Bridge location and age

CI Consistency index

CR Consistency ratio

c₂ Cost of restoration

c₁ Cost of traffic delay

e₁ Disaster history

c Economic factor

e Environmental factor

I_D Impact of damage hierarchy

P_I Inspection priority index

o₁ Location of bridge

λ_max Maximum eigenvalue of pairwise comparison matrix

t₂ Proximity to alternative traffic routes

s₂ Proximity to the disaster area

RI Random index

w_x Relative weight of criteria x

P_R Restoration priority index

s Safety factor

c_x Significance rating of criteria x

l Structural factor

t Traffic access factor

s₁ Type and intensity of the disaster

e₂ Type of landform

l₁ Type of support system

l₂ Vertical clearance

V_D Vulnerability to damage hierarchy

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute of Transportation, Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Taiwan (R.O.C.) under grant IOT-111-EB001.