MISTRAL: Multi-scale Infrastructure Systems Analytics

国家基础设施为现代经济提供基本服务：能源、交通、数字通信、供水、防洪以及废水/固体废物的收集、处理和处置。经合组织估计，到2030年，全球将需要53万亿美元的基础设施投资。英国的国家基础设施计划在未来十年投资超过4600亿英镑，但目前尚不清楚这些投资将对国家基础设施服务的质量和可靠性、经济规模、社会弹性或对环境的影响产生什么影响。由于基础设施网络及其与人类和环境的相互作用的复杂性，这种知识差距的存在。这意味着，从欧洲的能源网络到当地的排水系统，在基础设施的规划、评估和设计中，有太多的猜测和未经检验的假设。我们的愿景是基础设施决策由系统分析指导。当这一愿景实现时，决策者将能够访问并可视化所有基础设施系统运行情况的信息。他们将拥有有助于查明漏洞和量化失败风险的模型。他们将能够对拟议的投资进行“假设”分析，并探索未来不确定性的影响，如人口增长、新技术和气候变化。英国基础设施转型研究联盟（ITRC）是由牛津大学领导的七所英国大学组成的联盟，在基础设施系统分析、建模和决策方面具有独特的能力。得益于EPSRC项目拨款（2011-2015），ITRC开发并展示了世界上第一个国家基础设施系统模型家族（NISMOD），用于相互依存的基础设施系统的分析和长期规划。这项研究已经被公用事业公司、工程顾问、英国土木工程师学会（Institution of Civil Engineers）和英国政府的许多部门用于分析风险，并为价值数十亿英镑的更好的基础设施决策提供信息。英国基础设施部门现在正在使用NISMOD来分析国家基础设施计划。MISTRAL的目标是开发和展示一种高度集成的分析能力，为从地方到全球的战略基础设施决策提供信息。因此，MISTRAL将从根本上扩展基础设施系统分析能力：-小尺度：从ITRC对国家网络的开创性代表到英国2570万家庭和520万企业，代表他们所需的基础设施服务和通过这些服务交付的多尺度网络。-高端化：从国家角度出发，通过电信、交通和能源网络实现全球互联。-跨规模：到英国以外的其他国家，那里的基础设施需求最大，系统分析对英国工程公司来说意味着巨大的商业机会。这些研究挑战迫切需要解决，因为基础设施系统是跨规模互联的，现在正在发生的大量技术创新将利用或可能威胁到这种互联性。MISTRAL将推动系统研究的前沿，以量化这些机会和风险，为规划、投资和设计现代、可持续和有弹性的基础设施服务提供所需的证据。5年前，提出从家庭到全球、从英国到不同国情的理论、方法和网络模型是不可信的。现在，多尺度建模的机会正在出现，ITRC也许是独一无二的，有能力和雄心在MISTRAL项目中接受这一挑战。

National infrastructure provides essential services to a modern economy: energy, transport, digital communications, water supply, flood protection, and waste water / solid waste collection, treatment and disposal. The OECD estimates that globally US$53 trillion of infrastructure investment will be needed by 2030. The UK's National Infrastructure Plan set out over £460 billion of investment in the next decade, but is not yet known what effect that investment will have on the quality and reliability of national infrastructure services, the size of the economy, the resilience of society or its impacts upon the environment. Such a gap in knowledge exists because of the sheer complexity of infrastructure networks and their interactions with people and the environment. That means that there is too much guesswork, and too many untested assumptions in the planning, appraisal and design of infrastructure, from European energy networks to local drainage systems. Our vision is for infrastructure decisions to be guided by systems analysis. When this vision is realised, decision makers will have access to, and visualisation of, information that tells them how all infrastructure systems are performing. They will have models that help to pinpoint vulnerabilities and quantify the risks of failure. They will be able to perform 'what-if' analysis of proposed investments and explore the effects of future uncertainties, such as population growth, new technologies and climate change.The UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC) is a consortium of seven UK universities, led by the University of Oxford, which has developed unique capability in infrastructure systems analysis, modelling and decision making. Thanks to an EPSRC Programme Grant (2011-2015) the ITRC has developed and demonstrated the world's first family of national infrastructure system models (NISMOD) for analysis and long-term planning of interdependent infrastructure systems. The research is already being used by utility companies, engineering consultants, the Institution of Civil Engineers and many parts of the UK government, to analyse risks and inform billions of pounds worth of better infrastructure decisions. Infrastructure UK is now using NISMOD to analyse the National Infrastructure Plan.The aim of MISTRAL is to develop and demonstrate a highly integrated analytics capability to inform strategic infrastructure decision making across scales, from local to global. MISTRAL will thereby radically extend infrastructure systems analysis capability:- Downscale: from ITRC's pioneering representation of national networks to the UK's 25.7 million households and 5.2 million businesses, representing the infrastructure services they demand and the multi-scale networks through which these services are delivered.- Upscale: from the national perspective to incorporate global interconnections via telecommunications, transport and energy networks.- Across-scale: to other national settings outside the UK, where infrastructure needs are greatest and where systems analysis represents a huge business opportunity for UK engineering firms.These research challenges urgently need to be tackled because infrastructure systems are interconnected across scales and prolific technological innovation is now occurring that will exploit, or may threaten, that interconnectedness. MISTRAL will push the frontiers of system research in order to quantify these opportunities and risks, providing the evidence needed to plan, invest in and design modern, sustainable and resilient infrastructure services.Five years ago, proposing theory, methodology and network models that stretched from the household to the globe, and from the UK to different national contexts would not have been credible. Now the opportunity for multi-scale modelling is coming into sight, and ITRC, perhaps uniquely, has the capacity and ambition to take on that challenge in the MISTRAL programme.