Abstract
Utility infrastructure systems, designed well, have a pivotal role to play in improving the sustainability of cities due to their critical functionality in urban environments. Equally, utility streetworks – installation, maintenance and upgrading activities – can adversely impact the local and global economies. The inaccurate location of pipes and cables lengthens streetworks operations and can exacerbate traffic congestion, notably resulting in major delays in cases of third-party utility damage, while vehicle emissions and wasted energy are other examples of the adverse impacts of congestion caused by streetworks operations. The total impact of utility infrastructure projects can be assessed only by evaluating all economic (both direct and indirect), social and environmental costs of streetworks. A dedicated tool for evaluating the sustainability impacts of utility streetworks is required. This paper provides the basis for utility streetworks sustainability assessments, and hence full costing, by critically reviewing existing sustainability assessment tools and making recommendations for developing a total sustainability costing model and indicator system.
Highlights
Traditional civil engineering practices are being challenged by the changing contexts in which they are being carried out and their contribution to these changing contexts
Utility service provision is a critical aspect of urban environments, as ever more people live in cities – it is estimated that 70% of the world’s population will be urban by 2050 (Sterling et al, 2012) – and sustainable and resilient engineering solutions are required to address the problems posed by the increasingly complex and interdependent infrastructures that deliver them
The results of each of the assessments using a mix of qualitative and quantitative tools will be integrated in a multi-criteria model based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach to achieve a final sustainability index for each alternative utility streetworks method. This will help the decision-making process, and the results of this sustainability assessment will feed into an overarching decision-support system (DSS), which itself will form the basis of an integrated performance model of city infrastructures. Through their impacts on the environment and society, and their critical role within urban environments, utility infrastructure systems and the resources they supply play a pivotal role in driving the sustainable development of cities
Summary
Traditional civil engineering practices are being challenged by the changing contexts in which they are being carried out (extreme climatic conditions, natural resources scarcity etc.) and their contribution to these changing contexts (greenhouse gas emissions, global warming). Improved quality of placement (with respect to pipe and cable integrity), easy access to maintain and replace utilities, ease of location and leak detection (embedment of sensors within MUTs enhances this capability) and allowing for future additions – delivering a flexible and adaptable infrastructure system – are the main advantages of MUTs and, given that these advantages accrue in the long-term, they represent more sustainable and resilient solutions to the problems associated with utility service provision in the context of built form densification and growing demand. Different types of MUTs: (a) flush-fitting; (b) shallow; (c) deep (Hunt et al, 2014)
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