INSE-6311 Sustainable Infrastructure Planning and

Management Systems

Framework of Infrastructure
Management
 Covered Topics
 Definition of infrastructure
 Brief history
 Infrastructure management
 Issues, challenges and opportunities
 Role of engineering
 Needs assessment
 Life cycle concepts
 Transportation asset management
 New approaches for infrastructure financing
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 What is Infrastructure?

 “A civilization’s rise and fall is linked to its ability to

feed and shelter its people and to defend itself.
These capabilities depend on infrastructure - the
underlying, often hidden foundation of a society’s
wealth and quality of life. A society that neglects its
infrastructure loses the ability to transport people
and food, provide clean air and water, control
diseases, and conduct commerce.”
NSF, ‘Civil Infrastructure Systems Research’, 1994.

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 What is Infrastructure? (2)
 “The nation’s infrastructure is its system of public
facilities, both publicly and privately funded, which
provide for the delivery of essential services and a
sustained standard of living. This interdependent,
yet self-contained, set of structures provides for
mobility, shelter, services, and utilities… America’s
infrastructure is the base upon which society rests.
Its condition affects our lifestyles and security and
each is threatened by its unanswered decay.”

Associated General Contractors of America, 1982.

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 Milestones in (U.S.) History

 Has generally paralleled economic development

 Roads
 Railroads
 Telegraph/ Telephone
 Sewer/Water Supply Systems (1800-1850)
 First federal highway funds (1918)
 Franklin Roosevelt - public works funding (1930)
 Interstate Highway System (1950)

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 What is Infra. Mgmt.?
 Administrative process of creating,
planning, and maintaining our infrastructures
 An integrated, inter-disciplinary process
that ensures infrastructure performance over
its life cycle
 Life cycle is the entire time from design
through decommissioning

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Overall Framework for Infra. Mgmt.
Systems

Program/Network/
System Level

Project Level Database

In-Service Monitoring & Evaluation

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 Program/System Level
 Data (location, performance,
Financing evaluation)
 Deficiencies/Needs (current,
Budgets future)
 Alternatives and Analyses
Policies  Priorities

Exogenous Factors

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 Project/Section Level

 Data (materials, loads,

Standards/
flows, costs, etc.)
Specifications
Budget Limit
 Detailed Design
Environmental
 Construction
Constraints  Maintenance

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 Ideal Infra. Mgmt. System
 Would coordinate and enable the execution
of all activities
 Maximizes use and expenditure of resources
 Maximize performance of assets
 Serve all management levels

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 Key Issues
 Decay and deterioration (condition, failure)
 Lack of maintenance/renovation
 Scarcity of financing
 Federal gov’t funds projects of national/interstate
importance - states left to build the rest
 Money tends to be for construction and not maintenance
 Lots of infrastructure needs - which ones are #1 priority?
 Inadequate reporting and accounting

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 State of Highways and Bridges (U.S.)
 ~235,000 miles of roads rated poor or
mediocre
 >70% of peak-hour travel on urban interstates
is congested
 1/3 bridges structurally deficient or obsolete,
and needs improvements
 >25% of bridges are more than 50 years old

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 State of Water (U.S.)
 10,000 dams classified as ‘high hazard’
 13,500 as ‘significant hazard’
 Compliance costs to meet Safe Water
Drinking Act $3 billion per year
 Will need 3,400 new treatment facilities

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 Construction Industry

 13% of GDP
 Second largest industry in U.S.
 Also most fragmented
 1 million firms, 10 million workers
 Lots of ‘small’ firms (subcontractors)
 Lags behind other major industries in
terms of R&D
 High-tech, chemicals, etc. 3-4%, construction
only 0.5%

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 Financial Issues

 Federal investment on infrastructure stock fell

from 1.2% of GDP in 1980 to 0.8% in 1993
and still low.
 Since majority of infrastructure funding comes
from the government, this is a big problem
 Concern for spending has reduced this even
more

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 Risks and Sustainable
Development
 Risk and liability concerns generally lead to
low-risk designs, which rewards stability not
innovation
 Also challenges related to building with an
eye towards the resource needs of future
generations

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 Opportunities
 Need follow-through on National
Construction Goals
 Innovative financing (e.g. infrastructure
bonds)
 Link between infrastructure investment and
economic productivity
 High-Performance Materials

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 How did this happen?
 Construction wins votes, no one cares about
rehabilitation/repair
 Institutional issues favor construction
financing
 Rehabilitation has high total costs in urban
environments

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Why Does it Matter?

Social System

Economic System

Physical Infrastructure

Natural Environment

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 Where Does Engineering Help?
 Systems engineering perspective
 Framing of problem
 Using quantitative tools to solve it
 Tools: uncertainty/risk analysis
 Optimization via Linear Programming, Probabilistic, etc.
 Both parts are important

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Systems Engineering Processed
CONTEXT
(Tech./Social/Political Environment)

PROBLEM RECOGNITION
(Reviews, Preliminary Assessments)

Periodic
PROBLEM DEFINITION
In-Service
(Objectives, Constraints, Decisions)
Monitoring &
GENERATION OF Evaluation
ALTERNATIVES

ANALYSIS/EVALUATION/
OPTIMIZATION

IMPLEMENTATION
(Schedules, Activities, Documentation)
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 Tools for Optimization
 Mathematical Programming
 LP (min/max with constraints), etc.
 Heuristics
 Probabilistic
 Graphical (e.g. Scheduling Charts)

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 Needs Assessment
 Concept of ‘need’ used casually
 Can refer to both ‘need’ for repair as well as
‘need’ for new capacity
 It is difficult to judge how much infrastructure
a region or a society ‘needs’ and how ‘need’
is measured
 Economic viability? Growth?
 What is a better approach?

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 Approach to Defining Needs
 National Council on Public Works
Improvement (NCPWI) 1986 - considers:
 Consumer Demand
 Recognition that demand changes
 Consumer willingness to pay
 Benefit-cost analysis

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 Other Issues on Needs
 Instead of focusing on conditions, establish
future investment priorities
 Instead of simply finding cost to repair,
consider cost of alternatives with same
effect
 Consider infrastructure ‘output’ as measure
instead of condition
 Funding needs to match area of influence,
e.g. federal money for federal interests
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 More Issues
 Needs assessments should distinguish:
 Safety or structural defects
 Capacity shortages
 Upgrading to new standards
 Current and future demands

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 Economics
 Performance = P(S,D,t)
 S = Supply of infras. Services = S(X)
 X = set of functional characteristics
 Planners want adequate X, S over time
 D = demand for these services

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 Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA)
 A ‘life cycle’ is the entire length of time from
design, planning, construction, operation,
maintenance, and decommissioning/demolition
 It is important to understand the cost
implications of design decisions across the life
cycle
 Also important to understand where in the life
cycle that total costs occur

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 Life Cycle Cost Influences
Level of Influence Cumulative Cost
100%

50% Increasing Expenditure

0%
Planning
Decreasing Influence
Design
Construction
Maintenance
Disposal
Time 29
 Related Topic: Service Life
 Physical service life is the length of time
which a piece of infrastructure is able to be
kept in useful service
 Depends on all life cycle phases
 Can be extended from original design due to
rehabilitation or preventive maintenance

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Expected Service Life Estimates
 Airport Buildings - 150 yrs
 Runways - 50 yrs
 Bridge Decks - 50
 Bridge Sub-/superstructure - 125
 Tunnels - 200
 Sports Complexes - 300
 Electricity/telephone lines - 400

Source: Hudson, Haas, Uddin 31

 New Approach for Infra. Mgmt.
 Critically review status of infrastructure
 Understand issues in managing existing
infrastructure rather than building new
 Develop awareness of tools and resources
for infrastructure management

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 Structural Deficiency and
Functional Obsolescence
 Structural Deficiency (SD) – The structure
has been restricted to light loads, or is closed,
or requires immediate work to stay open
 Functionally obsolete (FO) - one of several
design parameters no longer meets usual
criteria for system

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 Obsolescence
 No longer meets current needs or expectation
levels
 Aging, technology, standard change
 2-yr old computers good example
 Inability to meet changing performance
requirements

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 Obsolescence & Service Life
 “Always remember that someone,
somewhere is making a product that will
make your product obsolete”
-Georges Doriot
 “Planned obsolescence” by Vince Packard’s
The Waste Makers
 Practice of deliberately designing products to
last for a shorter period of time
 Systemically doing this leads to inferior products

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 What Causes Obsolescence?
 Technological change
 Regulatory change
 E.g. SDWA forced upgrades
 Economic / social changes
 Value / behavior changes

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 Service vs. Physical Lives

 Physical Lives: time it takes for infrastructure

to wear out/fail
 Predicting this may be irrelevant
 Service life: time actually used
 In general these two are different
 Power plants become obsolete because of
technology/policy changes

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 Design service life

 “Design service life” is only meaningful if

defined in terms of obsolescence
 Assumptions about lifetime will likely change over
time
 Infrastructure seldom abandoned before
replacement in place
 Expectations will increase
 Need to consider expectations and
deterioration functions
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 Rates of Change

 Information economy is making older transport

modes obsolete
 E.g., ground -> air shipping
 How long should infrastructure last?
 Physical or service?
 Where will it go when we are done?
 What could we do with Roman roads now?

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 Strategies to Mitigate
 Plan and design for flexibility
 Build to assure optimum performance level is
achieved
 Monitor change to defer obsolescence
 Repair and retrofit early

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 Asset Management
 More specific than Infras. Mgmt.
 Focused on transportation Assets
 Assets = $ + people + physical resources
 Guided by: performance goals, time horizons,
engineering / economics
 High-level assessment of trade-offs between
alternatives
 Quantitative and qualitative data
 Source: ‘Asset Mgmt Primer’, DOT 1999

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 Investment Decision Making

Asset Management Primer, FHWA STIP: State Transportation Improvement Program

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 Bridge Management Systems
 Inventory and condition ratings
 Deterioration prediction features
 How and when to spend money on bridges to
maintain/preserve condition

 PONTIS Demo
 Even though features exist, most states use it only
for inventory/database
 Economic prediction parts ignored

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 Deficiency Ratings - Bridges
 National Bridge Inventory (NBI) used as
information source to U.S. Congress to
justify spending
 States can use own system, but must report
in form usable by NBI
 Ratings subjective, but follow a given and
preset scale
 Shows coding guide and inspection rules

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New Approaches for Infrastructure Financing
 Proposed by Government Accounting Standards
Board (GASB)
 Asset approach for state financial reporting
 Just like private companies do
 Costs, revenues of providing services
 Historical cost estimate or current replacement cost
 Depreciation allowed (Service Life, condition)
 Exempt if subject to Asset Mgmt AND in better than
planned condition
 Asset Mgmt system should contain:
 Inventory
 Updated condition assessment
 Expected annual maintenance costs
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