A new model for bridge management: Part B: decision support system for remediation planning

Abstract

Bridges are fundamental elements in any road network and characterize a major capital asset of community resources. Because of their strategic location over obstacles, any failure may limit and restrict road traffic and cause inconvenience and economic loss. It is therefore important to manage bridge assets, to ensure that all the bridges are maintained in a safe condition, with the most cost-efficient use of resources. Most of the existing bridge management systems are to some extent subjective and based on cost optimization which does not address the indirect impact of the remedial actions. The subjective nature of decision-making in bridge remediation could be replaced by the application of a multi-criteria decision support system that supports decision-makers through balanced consideration of multiple criteria. The main goal of this paper is to present a requirements-driven decision support methodology for remediation of concrete bridges with the aim of maintaining bridge assets within acceptable limits of safety, serviceability and sustainability. The simplified analytical hierarchy process is used as a multi-criteria decision-making technique. A method for selection of the best remediation plan in terms of fund allocation for top-ranked bridges of the network is also proposed using the outputs of the previous procedures considering the budget as the main constraint.

Keywords:

• Remediation
• decision support system (DSS)
• simplified analytical hierarchy process (S-AHP)

Notes on contributors

Maria Rashidi is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Western Sydney. She has published several papers in the area of civil infrastructure asset management with a focus on decision support system for remediation of concrete bridges. She has an MS in Civil Engineering and a PhD in Civil Infrastructure Asset Management, both from the University of Wollongong.

Bijan Samali is a professor of Structural Engineering and program director at the University of Western Sydney. He is the author or co-author of over 450 scholarly publications, on a wide range of topics in the areas of structural engineering, structural dynamics, vibration and motion control, wind and earthquake engineering, bridge engineering, damage detection and health monitoring of structures including keynote addresses and invited papers. He received his doctor of science (DSc) degree in Structures and Dynamics from George Washington University, USA in 1984.

Pezhman Sharafi is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Western Sydney. Sharafi studied civil engineering and his area of specialization is engineering optimization. He has over 30 publications mostly focused on novel cost optimization methods and applications in various engineering systems and building industry.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.