Information Technology for Sustainable Infrastructure Construction and Management

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The importance of infrastructure (e.g. roads, buildings, industrial facilities, water, waste water, airports, etc.) to our economic prosperity and quality of life is a well-accepted fact. Sustaining this infrastructure, and improving infrastructure project and asset performance require good management and a sound technological foundation. Canadian policy and industry groups have recognized this imperative. The proposed research addresses this imperative through creation and application of a technical foundation for information generation and its use in the design, construction and management of sustainable infrastructure. Making this a particularly challenging problem, are: (a) the complex social, behavioural, economic and environmental impacts of infrastructure and its construction, (b) the dynamic and context sensitive nature of construction projects, and (c) the proliferation of sensing, communications, and information processing tools. To address these challenges, the proposed research has three goals: (1) Generation of information with improved frequency, accuracy, and usefulness by applying model based a priori information, evidence based reasoning, and data fusion to information acquired using 3D imaging, automated locating, sensing, and web based systems, (2) Innovative management and use of integrated information systems for improved, sustainable supply network management, automated project diagnostics, and decision support based on project control and asset condition metrics, and (3) Understanding the impact of information on infrastructure sustainability via re-use of construction materials, system dynamics modeling of infrastructure, development of construction performance and asset management metrics, and analysis of the impact of practices and technologies on performance and sustainability. These research goals are directly aligned with major initiatives such as the National Infrastructure Systems Technology Road Map (CIS-TRM), Canada’s national “Guide for Sustainable Municipal Infrastructure (Infra-Guide), and the NRC Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment (BICE) recommendations. Significant impacts of the research are expected on technology advances such as improved project and asset state estimation, improved data fusion methods, improved decision support and management tools, as well as education and training of a new generation of researchers and practitioners.