Phased Interval and Rehabilitation Planning Optimization for Three Interdependent Urban Infrastructures: Water, Sewer and Road Networks

“To produce a master design for rehabilitation and replacement plans of Water Distribution Networks (WDN), traditionally the state of the network (i.e. water demands and physical conditions) is traditionally considered on the end of planning horizon. Furthermore, it is often assumed that the generated plan is constructed in one step or that the design is then further analysed to allow implementation in stages. However, that approach is suboptimal and difficult to implement due to practical issues and associated uncertainty. The construction is better done through multiple phases considering also multiple future scenarios (Figure 1). Based on the available literature, different types of WDN problems can be solved through the staged approaches, considering the number of phases and interval durations as fixed optimization parameters used for generating intervention decisions (Creaco et al., 2014; Minaei et al., 2020; Pachos et al., 2022). Abu-Samra et al. (2020) solved a rehabilitation problem for the three systems, water, sewer and road networks in an asset management framework with 25 one-year phases. They proposed different coordination scenarios for the interventions in every corridor where water, sewer and road network elements are co-located. This begs the question of whether intervals are optimized decision variables producing optimal master plans. What is their role in the type of intervention activities for the renewal plans? Is it better to upgrade the networks in many short phased minor interventions (leakage fixing for pipes and surface overlay for pavements) or a few longer phases by major interventions (pipe replacement or resurfacing for pavements)? The reply to these questions for rehabilitation planning of integrated urban systems still requires further investigations. This study aims to explore this issue for solving a real-world rehabilitation problem for three interdependent urban systems which are the water, sewer and road networks in Montreal, Canada.”

(Citation: Minaei, A., Abusamra, S., Hajibabaei, M., et.al. – Phased Interval and Rehabilitation Planning Optimization for Three Interdependent Urban Infrastructures: Water, Sewer and Road Networks – 19th International Computing & Control for the Water Industry Conference, 4-7 September 2023)