A proposal to compare urban infrastructure using multi-criteria analysis

Abstract

The decision-making process in the conservation of urban roads relates disciplines with a social, technical and political profile, in most cases entails a conflict at the time of public spending in urban spaces. The aspiration of the public administrations to promote the different quality standards in urban streets, in the face of ever-smaller budgets, suggests the need to devise new formulas and strategies that allow guiding their efforts towards public spending with perspectives of urban sustainability.This study focuses on the evaluation and diagnosis of urban streets through an integrated multi-criteria model of a sustainable nature. The application of the model allows generating guidelines for priority action in public investment in urban infrastructure.The developed methodology defines two fundamental stages: a novel approach to inspection the urban streets and the determination of the Urban Street Condition Index (USCI) through MIVES (Multi-criterion decision-making).The results shows that the Schimmplfeng Avenue present a significant USCI, when 3 avenues presented adequate values ​​and 6 streets requiring actions in public spending. The results in each of the requirements (urban infrastructure, accessibility and mobility) indicate that urban streets with tourist profile have obtained better indices than commercial or neighborhood streets.