Quantification and Measurement of Level of Service of Water Distribution Networks

Determination and quantification of levels of service in municipal context assist in performing quality-cost trade-off analysis for its services. This trade-off depends on the willingness of a community to pay for municipal services as well as on the condition of municipal assets. This paper presents a simple and generic methodology to develop a level of service model for water distribution networks. In order to develop this Analytical Hierarchy based model, in all nine operational level performance measures are identified. These account for reliability, capacity, and health and safety concerns related to a water network. A hypothetical case study is designed to exemplify the proposed method. Output of the model is in terms of service percentile which is an integrated representation of asset performance to meet user's requirements. This model can assist asset managers in quantifying the improvements required in asset performance and in making more informed decision towards sustainable asset management.