CAREER: New Methods for the Analysis and Deployment of Sustainable Infrastructure Systems

该职业奖支持开发一种新方法的研究，该方法使用项目交付和项目融资方法作为优化公共基础设施组合的变量，以取代国家目前对“私有化”的意识形态混乱，并进行合理的工程分析。最近对可选交付方法的实验已经产生了确凿的证据，证明对于许多项目来说，不止一种项目交付方法是可行的。由于项目交付和融资方法被视为变量，因此基础设施决策者面临的优化问题截然不同。新出现的任务是合理地管理这些变量，以产生可行的单个项目（设施或服务）集合，这些项目在投资组合层面上也是可行的，即它们在多种资本限制下满足总体公共基础设施需求。迄今为止，PI的研究表明，为了使公共和私人融资方式以及其他项目交付方式无缝共存，必须在投资组合而不是项目层面重新建立“线性”。使用这些变量管理基础设施投资组合是PI研究的重点。基于详细的案例研究工作，本研究将开发工具，允许对公共基础设施组合进行综合分析和优化。这些工具包括新的贴现现金流（生命周期成本）模型，该模型可以普遍应用于所有项目交付方法，以及新的线性优化算法，该算法将资本分配模型扩展到有多种来源和资本限制的情况，以及项目层面的各种可行的项目交付策略。这项研究的目标是允许政府基础设施战略家使用可靠的工程分析，调查不同水平的私人和公共部门资金（连同资金数量和来源的变化）如何影响使用各种项目交付策略可以完成的项目的身份、数量和分布。

This CAREER award supports research leading to the development of a new methodology using project delivery and project finance methods as variables for optimizing the public infrastructure portfolio to replace the nation's current ideological confusion over `privatization` with reasoned engineering analysis. Recent experiments with alternative delivery methods have produced hard evidence that, for many projects, more than one project delivery method is viable. As project delivery and finance methods are considered variables, the optimization problem facing infrastructure decision makers is dramatically different. The emerging task is to sensibly manage these variables to produce collections of viable individual projects (facilities or services) that are also viable at the portfolio level, i.e. they meet overall public infrastructure needs within multiple capital restraints. The PI's research to date indicates that for public and private finance methods, and alternative project delivery methods to seamlessly co-exist, `linearity` must be re-established at the portfolio, not the project level. Managing the infrastructure portfolio with these variables is the focus of the PI's research. Based on detailed case study work, this research will develop the tools which will permit an integrated analysis and optimization of the public infrastructure portfolio. These tools include new discounted cash flow (life cycle cost) models that can be commonly applied to all project delivery methods, and new linear optimization algorithms which extend capital rationing models to situations where there are multiple sources and limits on capital, along with a variety of viable project delivery strategies at the project level. The goal of the research is to permit governmental infrastructure strategists, using sound engineering analyses, to investigate how different levels of private and public sector funding (together with changes in the amount and source of capital) affect the identity, number, and distribution of projects that can be completed using the various project delivery strategies.