Knowledge-Enabled Decision Support System for Routing Urban Utilities
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 137, Issue 3
Abstract
This paper presents a Web-based system for supporting the selection of the most suitable routes for buried urban utilities. The aim of the proposed system is to support (not make) decisions through a collaborative semiautomated environment, in which stakeholders can share information and/or study the impacts of different routing alternatives with respect to decision constraints. First, the knowledge relating to route selection for urban utilities is represented through an ontology. The ontology defines the types and attributes of infrastructure products and the surrounding areas. It also defines the impacts of routing options on surrounding areas through a set of decision criteria adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of any route in terms of its potential impacts. A set of constraints are also defined to help represent/study the decision criteria. Second, a GIS-based system has been created to help visualize route data, interact with users, and support the needed discussions among stakeholders. The portal also achieves data interoperability through wrapping existing geospatial data with ontology structures. Finally, a set of reasoners have been created to help quantify/augment some of the constraints. The system is capable of (1) extracting the attributes of each routing option, (2) testing the interaction/conflicts between route attributes and the constraints of the surrounding area, (3) studying the impacts of a route as stipulated in the ontology, (4) referring users to existing best practices to help enhance routes or address conflicts and, when needed, (5) develop objective measures for comparing different routes. On the microlevel (street level), route options are evaluated through a “constraint-satisfaction” approach. On the macrolevel (city level), route options are evaluated through a fuzzy inference scoring system. The proposed system focuses on facility life cycle, sustainability, and community impacts. Construction costing, scheduling, labor, and equipment along with other management issues can either be added to the system or, better, analyzed through integrating the system with four-dimensional (4D) modeling tools.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
ASCE. (1998). Pipeline route selection for rural and cross country pipelines, American Society of Civil Engineers, Reston, VA.
American Water Works Association (AWWA). (1999). “American national standard for polyethylene encasement for ductile-iron pipe systems.” ANSI/AWWA C105/A21.5 99, AWWA, Denver.
Buszynski, M. (2004). “Public issues associated with planning a large diameter pipeline in a multi-use urban corridor.” Proc., of the Biennial Int. Pipeline Conf.—ASME, Calgary, Canada, 533–538.
Chong, W. K., and O’Conner, J. (2005). “Modeling construction production rates for pipes and culverts.” Pipelines 2005: Optimizing pipeline design, operations, and maintenance in today’s economy. Proc., Pipeline Division Specialty Conf., ASCE, Houston, 21–24.
Collier, N. O., and Kranc, S. C. (2006). Optimizing facilities placement and automating permit process for improved utility corridor development.” Transportation Research Record 1984, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 151–158.
Construction Industry Institute (CII). (2002). “CII best practices guide: Improving project performance.” IR 166-3, Construction Industry Institute, Univ. of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.
Dunston, P., and Williamson, C. (1999). “Incorporating maintainability in the constructability review process.” J. Manage. Eng., 15(5), 56–60.
El-Diraby, T., and Osman, H. (2009). “Ontologies for linking CAD and GIS.” CAD/GIS Integration: Existing and emerging solutions, H. Karimi and B. Akinci, eds., CRC Press, New York.
Giudice, F., La Rosa, G., and Risitano, A. (2006). Product design for the environment: a life cycle approach, CRC, Boca Raton, FL.
Halfawy, M. R., Dridi, L, and Baker, S. (2008). “Integrated decision support system for optimal renewal planning of sewer networks.” J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 22(6), 360–372.
Hirst, G., and Ruwanpura, J. (2004). “Simulation tool to select the most optimum route for pipeline projects.” Proc., Biennial International Pipeline Conference—ASME, Calgary, Canada, 391–397.
HP Labs. (2009). “HP labs semantic Web research.” 〈http://www.hpl.hp.com/semweb/〉 (Apr. 8, 2009).
Luettinger, J., and Clark, T. (2005) “Geographic information system-based pipeline route selection process.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 131(3), 193–200.
Makropoulos, C. K., Butler, D., and Maksimovic, C. (2003). “Fuzzy logic spatial decision support system for urban water management.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 129(1), 69–77.
Molina, A., Sanchez, J. M., and Kusiak, A. (1998). Handbook of life cycle engineering: concepts, models, and technologies, Springer, New York.
Osman, H., and El-Diraby, T. E. (2006). “Ontological modeling of infrastructure products and related concepts.” Transportation Research Record No. 1984, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
Raza, W., and Darren, B. (2004). “Spatially enabled pipeline route optimization model.” Proceedings of the Biennial International Pipeline Conference—ASME, Calgary, Canada, 699–707.
Ross, T. J. (2004). Fuzzy logic with engineering applications, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ.
Ryan, P. K. (2001). “A versatile route selection process.” Proc., Pipelines Conf., ASCE, Reston, VA.
Sadiq, R., Rajani, B., and Kleiner, Y. (2004). “Fuzzy-based method to evaluate soil corrosivity for prediction of water main deterioration.” J. Infrastruct. Syst., 10(4), 149–156.
Surahyo, M., and El-Diraby, T. (2009). “Schema for interoperable representation of environmental and social costs in highway construction.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 135(4), 254–266.
Vanier, D. J., and Rahman S. (2004). “Critical issues and opportunities for managing municipal infrastructure: Preliminary survey results of municipal infrastructure investment planning project.” CIB 2004 Triennial Congress, Toronto
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 13, 2009
Accepted: Aug 3, 2010
Published online: Aug 5, 2010
Published in print: Mar 1, 2011
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.