The functioning of infrastructure networks is vital for modern communities. Maintenance should be planned to ensure infrastructure's functionality and safety at the lowest cost. Interconnected infrastructure networks can affect each other's functionality, and maintenance on one network can impact the serviceability of others. Planned intervention grouping across infrastructures reduces set-up costs and service interruption, improving infrastructure availability and serviceability at lower costs. Finding the best grouping strategy is a known NP-hard problem, with several optimization strategies have been proposed, mainly based on nonlinear models which are computationally expensive and do not guarantee scalability. Furthermore, infrastructure intervention planning models mostly focus on grouping of interventions which are considered as given. In this paper, we propose a new efficient optimization model to optimize intervention grouping for interconnected infrastructure networks. We develop a scalable two-step optimization model where we first plan each individual intervention type based on a preventive maintenance policy accounting for the degradation behavior of objects, then group interventions to minimize the net costs, considering dependencies within and accross infrastructure networks. We formulate the grouping problem as an Integer Linear Program, which can be solved exactly with standard solvers. The model accounts for interactions between infrastructure networks and considers the impact on all stakeholders. It also accommodates various intervention types like maintenance, removal, and upgrading. Using a demonstrative application, we show that our model significantly reduces net costs and outperforms alternative nonlinear formulations and related heuristics in terms of both solution quality and computation performance. Additionally, the optimal intervention plan shows repetitive patterns, which suggests that a rolling horizon strategy could be used where the optimization problem is solved for shorter time horizons, leading to significant computational benefits.

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As modern societies become increasingly dependent on infrastructure systems, ensuring their functionality is paramount. Current simulation-based approaches for evaluating infrastructure wellbeing and resilience are known to be complex and time-consuming, making them unfeasible for practical applications. Indicators-based methods have been proposed as a promising alternative to simulations. However, a comprehensive set of indicators that cover all aspects of infrastructure systems has yet to be established. In this study, we performed an extensive literature review on wellbeing and resilience indicators specific to the transport infrastructure system. We filtered out duplications among the indicators and categorized them under distinct components and dimensions. These indicators can be tailored to fit specific circumstances and employed for/alongside advanced techniques such as Machine Learning, Bayesian Networks, and Fuzzy Logic. Acquiring a comprehensive set of wellbeing and resilience indicators can significantly improve stakeholder communication, empower communities in decision-making processes and adaptive management, and support resilience-strengthening strategies.@en

Changes in a construction project schedule can impact the project's planned duration, resulting in penalties. A manual trial-and-error probabilistic approach is usually conducted to find an appropriate set of corrective measures to mitigate delays of the overall project. However, this approach does not capture the actual goal-oriented behavior of project managers who react to the actual scenarios causing delays, leading to a fundamental modeling error. Moreover, it does not employ control and automation concepts when finding the optimal mitigation strategy. To remove this modeling error and to automate the mitigation process, the Mitigation Controller (MitC) software is developed. The MitC searches for the most cost-effective set of mitigation measures considering risk events and durations uncertainties of activities. Moreover, the MitC captures activity correlations and enables contractual penalty/reward schemes in the simulation. As a result, it returns the most effective mitigation strategy that minimizes the mitigation cost and penalty and maximizes the reward potential. The Mitigation Controller introduced here constitutes an open-source code written in Matlab

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Due to the increasing frequency of natural and man-made disasters, the scientific community has paid considerable attention to the concept of resilience engineering. On the other hand, authorities and decision-makers have been focusing their efforts on developing strategies that can help increase community resilience to different types of extreme events. Since it is often impossible to prevent every risk, the focus is on adapting and managing risks in ways that minimize impacts to communities (e.g., humans and other systems). Several resilience strategies have been proposed in the literature to reduce disaster risk and improve community resilience. Generally, resilience assessment is challenging due to uncertainty and the unavailability of data necessary for the estimation process. This paper proposes a Fuzzy Logic method for quantifying community resilience. The methodology is based on the PEOPLES framework, an indicator-based hierarchical framework that defines all aspects of a community. A fuzzy-based approach is implemented to quantify the PEOPLES indicators using descriptive knowledge instead of complex data, accounting for the uncertainties involved in the analysis. To demonstrate the applicability of the methodology, three cases with different levels of data availability are performed to obtain a resilience curve and resilience index of two out of seven dimensions of the PEOPLES framework. When numerical data does not exist, descriptive data based on expert knowledge is used as input. Results show that the proposed methodology can cope with both numerical and descriptive input data with different uncertainty levels providing good estimates of resilience. The methodology can be used as a decision-support tool to assist decision-makers and stakeholders in assessing and improving their communities' resilience for future events, focusing on specific indicators that suffer from resilience deficiencies and need improvements.

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Community and infrastructure resilience against natural and man-made hazards is paramount for the well-being of modern societies. To adapt to the fast-changing world, having communities that can effectively respond to the continuously changing (physical and social) environment is essential. Despite the existing literature on resilience definition and estimation, few frameworks and associated tools can effectively help decision-making. In addition, these tools are usually not well integrated into the community and infrastructure management processes so that decision-makers and authorities can effectively use them. This paper aims at developing a resilience-based risk assessment approach at the community level. It combines the risk analysis parameters with the intrinsic resilience of the community. The proposed approach offers essential insights into the quantitative resilience analysis of communities at different scales and for different natural hazards. It enables the combination of the risk parameters (hazard, exposure, and vulnerability) with the inherent resilience of all the systems that constitute a community. This paper also presents an easy-to-interpret tool for visualizing the resilience results obtained from the introduced approach. It translates the paper's scientific contribution into an interactive and visualization instrument that can ultimately support policymaking to ensure their communities' short and long-term resilience under known and unknown hazardous events.@en

The multitude of uncertainties of both natural and man-made disasters have prompted an increased attention in resilience engineering and disaster management. To overcome the effects of disastrous events, such as economic and social effects, modern communities need to be resilient. Natural disasters are unpredictable and unavoidable. While it is not possible to prevent them and protect individuals and societies against such disasters, modern communities should be prepared by incorporating both pre-event (preparedness and mitigation) and post-event (response and recovery) resilience activities to minimize the negative effects after a severe event. Resilience indicators may be fundamental to help the planners and decision-makers to develop strategies and action plans for making communities more resilient. This chapter presents a quantitative approach to estimate the resilience and resilience-based risk at the state level. In the proposed method, the resilience-based risk is a function of resilience, hazard, and exposure. To evaluate the resilience parameter, data provided by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) are used. The framework is developed using resilience indicators with the primary goal of achieving disaster risk reduction. To use those indicators in the resilience assessment, it is necessary to define the impact and the contribution of each indicator towards resilience. To do that, two possible methods to combine and weight the different SFDRR indicators are presented: Dependence Tree Analysis (DTA) and Spider Plot Weighted Area Analysis (SPA). The proposed approach allows the decision-makers and governments to evaluate the resilience and the related resilience-based risk (RBR) of their countries using available information.@en

The well-being of modern societies depends on the functioning of their infrastructure networks. During their service lives, infrastructure networks are subject to different stresses (e.g., deterioration, hazards, etc.). Interventions are performed to ensure the continuous fulfillment of the infrastructure's functional goals. To guarantee a high level of infrastructure availability and serviceability with minimal intervention costs, preventive intervention planning is essential. Finding the optimal grouping strategy of intervention activities is an NP-hard problem that is well studied in the literature and for which various economic models and optimization approaches are proposed. This research focuses on a new efficient optimization model to cope with the intervention grouping problem of interconnected multicomponent systems. We propose a scalable two-step intervention grouping model based on a clustering technique. The clustering technique is formulated using Integer Linear Programing, which guarantees the convergence to global optimal solutions of the considered problem. The proposed optimization model can account for the interactions between multiple infrastructure networks and the impact on multiple stakeholders (e.g., society and infrastructure operators). The model can also accommodate different types of intervention, such as maintenance, removal, and upgrading. We show the performance of the proposed model using a demonstrative example. Results reveal a substantial reduction in net costs. In addition, the optimal intervention plan obtained in the analysis shows repetitive patterns, which indicates that a rolling horizon strategy could be adopted so that the analysis is only performed for a short time horizon.

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This chapter introduces the role of machine learning (ML) in resilience engineering and discusses actual cases of emergencies in which ML contributed positively. To identify its benefits within the resilience-relevant aspects (social, economic, infrastructural, institutional, environmental, and communitywise), the role of ML in various disaster management applications is analyzed, including model identification, emergency detection, and solution generation. The problem of data scarcity in model identification is presented. The application of ML in different fields of emergency detection (e.g., physical, virtual) is highlighted. Finally, the effectiveness of ML in solution generation to support human decision making is evaluated. Real examples are included in which machines exceed humans in providing solutions.@en

Construction project management requires dynamic mitigation control to ensure a project's timely completion. Current mitigation approaches are usually performed by an iterative Monte Carlo (MC) analysis which does not reflect (1) the project manager's goal-oriented behavior, (2) contractual project completion performance schemes, and (3) stochastic dependence between construction activities. Therefore, the development statement within this paper is to design a method and implementation tool that properly dissolves all of the aforementioned shortcomings ensuring the project's completion date by finding the most effective and efficient mitigation strategy. For this purpose, the Mitigation Controller (MitC) has been developed using an integrative approach of nonlinear stochastic optimization techniques and probabilistic Monte Carlo analysis. MitC's applicability is demonstrated using a recent Dutch large infrastructure construction project showing its added value for dynamic control on-the-run. It is shown that the MitC is a state-of-the-art decision support tool that a-priori automates and optimizes the search for the best set of mitigation strategies on-the-run rather than a-posteriori evaluating the potentially sub-optimal and over-designed mitigation strategies (as commonly done with modern software such as Primavera P6).

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The wellbeing of modern societies is dependent upon the functioning of their infrastructure networks. This paper introduces the 3C concept, an integrative multi-system and multi-stakeholder optimization approach for managing infrastructure interventions (e.g., maintenance, renovation, etc.). The proposed approach takes advantage of the benefits achieved by grouping (i.e., optimizing) intervention activities. Intervention optimization leads to substantial savings on both direct intervention costs (operator) and indirect unavailability costs (society) by reducing the number of system interruptions. The proposed optimization approach is formalized into a structured mathematical model that can account for the interactions between multiple infrastructure networks and the impact on multiple stakeholders (e.g., society and infrastructure operators), and it can accommodate different types of intervention, such as maintenance, removal, and upgrading. The different types of interdependencies, within and across infrastructures, are modeled using a proposed interaction matrix (IM). The IM allows integrating the interventions of different infrastructure networks whose interventions are normally planned independently. Moreover, the introduced 3C concept accounts for central interventions, which are those that must occur at a pre-established time moment, where neither delay nor advance is permitted. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach, an illustrative example of a multi-system and multi-actor intervention planning is introduced. Results show a substantial reduction in the operator and societal costs. In addition, the optimal intervention program obtained in the analysis shows no predictable patterns, which indicates it is a useful managerial decision support tool.

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Natural and human-made disasters can disrupt infrastructures even if they are designed to be hazard resistant. While the occurrence of hazards can only be predicted to some extent, their impact can be managed by increasing the emergency response and reducing the vulnerability of infrastructure. In the context of risk management, the ability of infrastructure to withstand damage and re-establish their initial condition has recently gained prominence. Several resilience strategies have been investigated by numerous scholars to reduce disaster risk and evaluate the recovery time following disastrous events. A key parameter to quantify the seismic resilience of infrastructures is the Downtime (DT). Generally, DT assessment is challenging due to the parameters involved in the process. Such parameters are highly uncertain and therefore cannot be treated in a deterministic manner. This paper proposes a Bayesian Network (BN) probabilistic approach to evaluate the DT of selected infrastructure types following earthquakes. To demonstrate the applicability of the methodology, three scenarios are performed. Results show that the methodology is capable of providing good estimates of infrastructure DT despite the uncertainty of the parameters. The methodology can be used to effectively support decision-makers in managing and minimizing the impacts of earthquakes in immediate post-event applications as well as to promptly recover damaged infrastructure.@en

Critical infrastructures are an integral part of our society and economy. Services like gas supply or water networks are expected to be available at all times since a service failure may incur catastrophic consequences to the public health, safety, and financial capacity of the society. Several resilience strategies have been examined to reduce disaster risk and evaluate the downtime of infrastructures following destructive events. This paper introduces an indicator-based downtime estimation model for buried infrastructures (i.e., water and gas networks). The model distinguishes the important aspects that contribute to determining the downtime of buried infrastructure following a hazardous event. The proposed downtime model relies on two inference methods for its computation, Fuzzy Logic (FL) and Bayesian Network (BN), which are adapted for the current application. Finally, through a case scenario, a comparison of the two inference methods, in terms of results and limitations, is presented. Results show that both methods incorporate intuitive knowledge and/or historical data for defining fuzzy rules (in FL) and estimating conditional probabilities (in BN). The difference stands in the interpretation of the outcome. The output of the FL is a membership that defines how well the downtime fits the fuzzy levels while the BN output is a probability distribution that represents how likely the downtime is in a certain state. Nevertheless, both approaches can be utilized by decision-makers to easily estimate the time to restore the functionality of buried infrastructures and plan preventive safety measures accordingly.

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Probabilistic Monte Carlo simulations are often used to determine a project's completion time given a required probability level. During project execution, schedule changes negatively affect the probability of meeting the project's completion time. A manual trial and error approach is then conducted to find a set of mitigation measures to again arrive at the required probability level. These are then implemented as scheduled activities. The mitigation controller (MitC) proposed in this paper automates the search for finding the most cost-effective set of mitigation measures using multiobjective linear optimization so that the probability of timely completion remains at the required level. It considers different types of uncertainties and risk events in the probabilistic simulation. Moreover, it removes the fundamental modeling error that exists in the traditional probabilistic approach by incorporating human control and adaptive behavior in the simulation. Its usefulness is demonstrated using an illustrative example derived from a recent Dutch construction project in which delay is not permitted. It is shown that the MitC is capable of identifying the most effective mitigation strategies allowing for substantial cost savings.

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Due to the increasing frequency of disastrous events, the challenge of creating large-scale simulation models has become of major significance. Indeed, several simulation strategies and methodologies have been recently developed to explore the response of communities to natural disasters. Such models can support decision-makers during emergency operations allowing to create a global view of the emergency identifying consequences. An integrated platform that implements a community hybrid model with real-time simulation capabilities is presented in this paper. The platform's goal is to assess seismic resilience and vulnerability of critical infrastructures (e.g., built environment, power grid, socio-technical network) at the urban level, taking into account their interdependencies. Finally, different seismic scenarios have been applied to a large-scale virtual city model. The platform proved to be effective to analyze the emergency and could be used to implement countermeasures that improve community response and overall resilience.

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The capacity of a community to react to and resist during an emergency situation is highly related to the proper functioning of its infrastructure systems. Improving the infrastructure response and recovery capacity through management and adaptation strategies can help increase community resilience. Infrastructural assets are considered outdated in almost all countries in the world. This poses a clear vulnerability to infrastructure systems when subjected to disaster events such as earthquakes. This paper proposes a statistical probabilistic approach to quantify the resilience of large-scale Water Distribution Networks (WDN). The resilience of the network is evaluated using two indices: (1) the number of users without water, and (2) the drop in the total water supply, assuming that the local failure of the system occurs when the water flow and the water pressure go below a certain threshold. A series of earthquake scenarios are applied to the studied water network whose damage is determined using fragility functions that integrate the WDN characteristics with the seismic intensity. As an illustration, the proposed approach is used to quantify the resilience of a WDN in a virtual community testbed with 900,000 inhabitants. Results obtained show interesting correlation between the earthquake occurrence time, the water demand pattern, and the pipes material. The presented approach is the first step towards a systemic planning of the maintenance activities and budget allocation of pipeline networks, where both vulnerability and criticality of pipes are combined to obtain a more comprehensive resilience index of the network.@en

Availability of resources is one of the primary criteria for communities to attain a high resilience level during disaster events. This paper introduces a new approach to evaluate resourcefulness at the community and national scales. Resourcefulness is calculated using a proposed composite resourcefulness index, which is a combination of several resourcefulness indicators. To build the resourcefulness index, resourcefulness indicators representing the different aspects of resourcefulness are collected from renowned literary publications. Every indicator is assigned a measure to make it quantifiable. Time-history data for the measures are needed to perform the analysis. While these data could be obtained from different sources, acquiring a full set of data is quite challenging. Hence, to account for missing data, the Multiple Imputation (MI) and the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) data imputation methods are adopted. The data are then normalized, assigned weights, and aggregated to obtain the resourcefulness index. A case study is performed to demonstrate the applicability of the approach. The resourcefulness indexes of two countries, namely the United States and Italy, are evaluated. Results show that resourceful communities/countries are more resilient during disaster events as they have more tools to come up with solutions. It is also shown that knowing the current resourcefulness level helps in better identifying what aspects should be improved.@en

Despite widespread attention for the governance of infrastructures and improvements of the way infrastructure assets are maintained, the interdependency of infrastructures is not often considered from a systemic maintenance and renovation perspective. In this context, the issue of unforeseen intervention delays is of particular relevance because its impact on cost and hindrance might be too costly for infrastructure operators. Building upon the 3C concept (Centralize, Cluster, and Calculate) for intervention scheduling and optimization, this paper investigates the effect of unforeseen intervention delays on the intervention costs and the corresponding closure cost of the affected interdependent systems. A stochastic approach has been proposed to deal with the uncertainty of such delays. Uncertain intervention times are combined by Monte Carlo simulations to obtain the probabilistic distribution of the total cost at the end of the timeline of an intervention program affecting multiple interdependent infrastructures. Also, the change in the statistical deviation over time of the total cost with respect to the planned (optimal) cost during the entire program is obtained. This analysis yields interesting conclusions, such as the need for specific mitigation plans conducted during the course of the program to reduce the cost generated by the cumulative delays, and the need for enhanced communication between infrastructure managers, which could bring significant (economic) benefits to all stakeholders by jointly planning their intervention activities.@en

Resilience indicators are a convenient tool to assess the resilience of engineering systems. They are often used in preliminary designs or in the assessment of complex systems. This paper introduces a novel approach to assess the time-dependent resilience of engineering systems using resilience indicators. A Bayesian network (BN) approach is employed to handle the relationships among the indicators. BN is known for its capability of handling causal dependencies between different variables in probabilistic terms. However, the use of BN is limited to static systems that are in a state of equilibrium. Being at equilibrium is often not the case because most engineering systems are dynamic in nature as their performance fluctuates with time, especially after disturbing events (e.g. natural disasters). Therefore, the temporal dimension is tackled in this work using the Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN). DBN extends the classical BN by adding the time dimension. It permits the interaction among variables at different time steps. It can be used to track the evolution of a system's performance given an evidence recorded at a previous time step. This allows predicting the resilience state of a system given its initial condition. A mathematical probabilistic framework based on the DBN is developed to model the resilience of dynamic engineering systems. Two illustrative examples are presented in the paper to demonstrate the applicability of the introduced framework. One example evaluates the resilience of Brazil. The other one evaluates the resilience of a transportation system.

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Construction Management and Engineering students need to acquire managing skills for solving real-world problems that are complex, rarely straightforward and lack 'one right answer'. For this, they need to become 'open designers', capable to be reflective, integrative and creative in- and on action with dynamic and new situations. In this paper, the so-called Open Design Learning Circle (ODLC) will be proposed as an innovative educational concept in which engineering-, management- and pedagogic sciences are integrated. Within this concept the students 'dialogue' with: 1) an objective open glass box model covering engineering products and management processes (outer) and, 2) their subjective open human threefold, reflecting their personal learning (inner). The integration of both human and model dialogues is essential for the emergence of new knowledge and creative insights for open designs, which is essentially distinct from more traditional learning concepts. To enable this emergence, a self-chosen system of interest is the 'experiential vehicle' that forms the basis for a self-created textbook and model. Thereby, the ODLC forms the fundamental basis for creating 'open and persistent learners'. In this paper, it also will be shown how the ODLC can be operationalized into a learning cycle and how it has been implemented in an example course on systems engineering management within the MSc Construction Management Engineering curriculum at the TU Delft. Finally, some preliminary student findings and next steps for further research are discussed.

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The multiple uncertainties of both natural and human-caused disasters have attracted increased attention to the topic of resilience engineering. In this paper, an indicator-based method for measuring urban community resilience is proposed. The method is based on the PEOPLES framework, which is a hierarchical framework for defining the disaster resilience of communities at various scales. It consists of seven dimensions, summarized by the acronym PEOPLES, which stands for population, environmental and ecosystem, organized governmental services, physical infrastructures, lifestyle, economic development, and social capital. Each of the dimensions is split into several components and indicators, which were derived by the authors or collected from a wide range of literature. Each indicator is represented using a performance function, which portrays the functionality of the indicator in time. A higher functionality of the indicator denotes a higher resilience of the community. These functions can be constructed in a systematic manner using damage and restoration parameters. The aggregation of the performance functions passing through the different hierarchical levels of PEOPLES framework leads to one function that represents the dynamic performance of the analyzed community. This paper also introduces a matrix-based interdependency technique that serves as a weighting scheme for the different indicators. As a case study, the proposed methodology is applied to the city of San Francisco for which a resilience curve and resilience metric have been computed.@en