Investment Decision Framework for Infrastructure Asset Management [Kumar, RMIT] 2001-010-C

This project aims to develop an investment decision-making framework that will enable funds in the area of civil infrastructure, such as roads, buildings, railways and bridges to be better utilised by taking into account both capital investment and rehabilitation and maintenance expenses. In order to achieve this, the project will consider a triple plus one bottom line approach to decision making which includes economical, environment, social & political factors. In the first stage of the research, existing decision-making models being used in the road sector will be reviewed and a methodology for predicting and incorporating the effect of social, environmental and political factors during decision making will be developed. Following this, an integrated multi-criteria decision making model will be developed and tested for the road sector. Because of the models flexibility it will be able to be applied to other types of civil infrastructure such as railways, buildings, bridges complementing this financial modelling will be an assessment of the feasibility of the use of non-destructive testing of roads.