Optimized holistic municipal right-of-way capital improvement planning

Abstract

Abstract: Much of North America’s critical municipal right-of-way (ROW) infrastructure is facing a severe deficit in planned maintenance, rehabilitation, and renewal spending. An optimized holistic approach for capital improvement planning allows for the consideration of contiguity savings and efficiencies through the synchronization of rehabilitation and renewal projects for collocated segments from different ROW infrastructure component systems. This paper presents the results of the application of a holistic methodology to a small ROW network made up of segments of varying condition and criticality. This methodology was developed utilizing an evolutionary genetic algorithm to optimize a five-year capital improvement plan. The results from the application of the holistic model to an existing ROW network indicate that it is successful in achieving savings through synchronization and in providing superior maintenance, rehabilitation, and renewal plans when compared to the traditional paradigm where independent plans are created for road, sewer, and water utilities.