CAIT project no.: CAIT-UTC-046
Fiscal Year: 2013/2014
Status: Final
Rutgers-CAIT Author(s): Carlos Chang, Assistant Professor, UTEP, Marketa Vavrova, Patrick Szary, Ph.D.
External Author(s): Sui Tan
Sponsor(s): FHWA - RITA, Metropolitan Transportation Commission
Transportation asset management has been gaining popularity in the United States and worldwide enabling to provide the required level of service in the transportation infrastructure assets in the most cost-effective manner. In modern transportation asset management, sustainability should be integrated with the traditional cost-effectiveness and performance-based analysis. Sustainability brings into consideration the environmental and social factors which many times are not included in the decision making process. The decision situation is complex as many perspectives, often producing conflicting goals, need to be considered. Furthermore with the growing transportation funding gap and progressing global warming, is vital not only to maintain the infrastructure at a certain level of service, but also include into the decision making incentives to promote sustainability and mitigate wasting of limited resources. However, a uniform definition of sustaibalility in transportation infrastructure management and an incorporation of sustainability into an multiobjective model are not well structured and clear yet.