Multi-objective Optimization for Bridge Management Systems
Description:... Key functions of bridge management include the establishment of optimal investment funding levels and performance goals for an inventory of bridges, as well as identification of the appropriate combinations of treatment scope and timing for each individual bridge over its life cycle. This report is expected to aid bridge management decision making and thus to enhance the cost-effectiveness of agency spending. Past experience suggests that bridge investment decisions made only on the basis of lowest cost yield unsatisfactory results. Therefore, bridge agencies have expressed a need to enhance current decision-making methodologies to include other performance criteria, such as bridge condition, safety, traffic flow disruption, and vulnerability. That way, more balanced, rational, defensible, and cost-effective decisions can be made, and better investigation of trade-offs between performance criteria can be carried out. In responding to these critical bridge management issues, the present study developed network and bridge level methodologies that involve multiple performance criteria and also involve selection of investment choices based on optimization. An accompanying software package was developed to facilitate implementation of the methodologies. The concepts ofvalue and utility theory were duly incorporated to account for inherent risk and uncertainty associated with the decision parameters.
Show description