Visualisation Tools for Multi-Perspective, Cross-Sector, Long-Term Infrastructure Performance Evaluation

Across different infrastructure sectors there are systems that help to monitor the current and near-future operation and performance of a particular system. Whilst Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are critical to maintaining acceptable levels of functionality, they do not provide insights over the longer timescales across which strategic investment decisions play out. To understand how individual or multiple, interdependent, infrastructure sectors perform over longer timescales, capacity/demand modelling is required. However, the outputs of such models are often a complex high-dimensionality result-set, and this complexity is further compounded when crosssector evaluation is required. To maximise utility of such models, tools are required that can process and present key outputs. In this paper we describe the development of prototype tools for infrastructure performance evaluation in relation to different strategic decisions and the complex outputs generated from capacity and demand models of five infrastructure sectors (energy, water, waste water, solid waste, transport) investigated within the UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC). By constructing tools that expose various dimensions of the model outputs, a user is able to take greater control over the knowledge discovery process

Towards a responsive infrastructure

Infrastructure administrators' physical networks face a substantial investment surge due to functional or technical aging of assets. Making those investments requires considering future technological and societal developments. Simultaneously, interdependencies between infrastructure networks offer investment opportunities. In the Next Generation Infrastructures research project RITRI (Responsive Infrastructure through Responsive Institutions), opportunities for collective investments for responsive infrastructures are traced, and the institutional frameworks are adapted that allow for seizing of these opportunitie

Evaluation of the impact of urban water systems on railways: The scenario of track flooding caused by a water main burst

Failures and disruption scenarios can reveal inherent but little known dependencies that exist between technical infrastructure systems. Whereas the dependencies between infrastructures in their normal state of operation are usually obvious and mutually correlated, interdependencies, when systems are disrupted, show a great deal of variety, depending on the specific scenario. The literature reveals the lack of a proper tool that can evaluate and quantify the scenario of track flooding caused by a water main burst, a cross-sectoral failure that can impact the operation of two urban infrastructure systems: the railways and the water supply. This work presents an approach to investigate the impact of urban water systems on railways and applies it to the case study of the Thameslink railway and Thames Water assets in London. The developed tool can be integrated into city level water supply GIS systems to facilitate the understanding of external risks (transport disruption) caused by an internal failure (water main bursts). Also, the results can help railway system operators facilitate the decision-making process in terms of drainage policy and maintenance activities

Reviewing the adaption of a wellbeing framework for asset management investment analysis on a three waters network

Water infrastructure world-wide is facing a number of pressures including increasing demand due to population growth and urbanisation, increasing legislative requirements, climate change, and ageing infrastructure. Supporting growth and prosperity across the country require smarter investment decisions to deliver cost-effective and innovative solutions. The focus on investment planning is moving away from the simple economic or risk-based decision to community wellbeing. The New Zealand Treasury has developed a wellbeing framework to guide policy and investment that focuses on improved community outcomes for the nation. The purpose of this framework is to track changes to the wellbeing outcomes over time and improve public policy making, with the ultimate goal of lifting living standards and improving intergenerational wellbeing. This framework, largely based on the OECD wellbeing framework, was adapted for New Zealand (NZ) and includes a stock model to simulate the inter-relationship between investment and wellbeing outcomes. This framework focuses more on providing guidelines around the domains of wellbeing from a macro policy level decision making level, however their linkages to localized infrastructure development are weak. This paper describes a strategy to develop a holistic decision-making framework for three waters (drinking water, wastewater, & stormwater), which include; finding the impact of investment in three waters on community’s wellbeing, conducting performance analysis, and the development of a mathematical model and trade-off model for such investment. The results have suggested that the existing wellbeing framework provides an excellent monitoring framework for water infrastructure, yet to establish inter-relationships between wellbeing factors on a meso-level, a different model needs to be considered