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

该职业奖支持研究开发一种新的方法，使用项目交付和项目融资方法作为优化公共基础设施投资组合的变量，以合理的工程分析取代国家目前对私有化的意识形态困惑。最近关于替代交付方法的试验已经产生了确凿的证据，证明对许多项目来说，不止一种交付方法是可行的。由于项目交付和融资方法被视为变量，基础设施决策者面临的优化问题截然不同。新出现的任务是明智地管理这些变量，以产生可行的个别项目(设施或服务)的集合，这些项目(设施或服务)在投资组合层面也是可行的，即它们在多个资本限制的情况下满足总体公共基础设施需求。到目前为止，PI的研究表明，要想让公共和私人融资方法以及其他项目交付方法无缝共存，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的研究重点。基于详细的案例研究工作，这项研究将开发能够对公共基础设施组合进行综合分析和优化的工具。这些工具包括可普遍应用于所有项目交付方法的新的贴现现金流(生命周期成本)模型，以及将资本配给模型扩展到有多种资金来源和限制的情况下的新的线性优化算法，以及在项目层面上各种可行的项目交付战略。这项研究的目的是使政府基础设施策略师能够使用合理的工程分析，调查不同水平的私营和公共部门资金(以及资金数额和来源的变化)如何影响使用各种项目交付战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.