dr. A. Hartmann (Andreas)

Sustainable Circular Lifespan-Extension Strategies for Inner-Cities Bridges and Quay Walls (STABILITY)

Historic quay walls and bridges are a landmark in many Dutch cities and give them their unique character and appearance. The cultural value of these structures is at stake. Accelerated deterioration, deferred maintenance, and changed social, technological, and environmental conditions have drastically decreased their technical and functional performance. Maintaining the cultural heritage of inner-city quay walls and bridges and at the same time preparing them for the future is a huge challenge for many Dutch municipalities. Lifespan-extension is a promising way to cope with this challenge. It can increase the structural reliability of quay walls and bridges in a sustainable and circular manner while preserving the cultural value. However, less is known on the structural, environmental, economic, and cultural impact of lifespan-extension measures and their assessment for the management of quay walls and bridges. Based on engaged research with municipalities, contractors, engineering firms and citizens STABILITY addresses this knowledge gap. It combines the development of an integrated life cycle cost benefit approach for the sustainable and circular impact assessment of lifespan-extension measures, with the development of an assessment method for the structural reliability improvement of these measures and the development of an adaptable planning method to optimally prioritize and schedule lifespan-extension measures. STABILITY equips municipalities with the required decision-support to devise rehabilitation strategies for historic inner-city quay walls and bridges that reduce construction waste and emissions, preserve the cultural heritage of cities, and keep cities accessible, attractive, and livable.

Live Insights for Bridges and Quay Walls (LiveQuay)

Cities, public asset owners and citizens currently struggle to keep bridges and quay walls, often long passed their (technical) end of service life, in adequate condition and open for traffic. Asset owners urgently need reliable and transparent knowledge and tools to support decisions on maintenance prioritisation and potential lifetime extension. LiveQuay will provide an integrated assessment of the safety and performance of bridges and quay walls by designing a decision support platform that will be interactive and based on values from stakeholders. However, particularly in the urban context, the utility of information from monitoring data relates to the risk perception of different stakeholders (e.g. owners, users, and citizens). Risk perception is an individual’s assessment of the uncertainty related to the alternatives in a specific decision situation. The acceptance and support of and the decision on intervention measures will depend on whether these stakeholders perceive the measures as necessary to ensure the functionality of quay walls and bridges or to reduce their risk of failure. The utility of information obtained from monitoring systems will emerge from the stakeholders’ perception of the risk represented by this information. Here, the way of representing the risk will influence its perception. Cognitive biases can lead, for example, to the underweighting of risk when a decision maker perceives an outcome as certain while, in fact, it is uncertain (pseudo-certainty effect). As partner in this project, we will investigate the manner of informing and consulting stakeholders about monitoring activities considering the effects of monitoring results on the risk perception of stakeholders.

Open Strategizing for Infrastructures in Transition (PRONTO)

Infrastructure agencies are increasingly aware of the challenges that socio-technical transitions pose to their infrastructure systems and they have started to interact more strategically with various stakeholders in infrastructure planning processes. However, these more open forms of strategic planning, labelled as ‘open strategizing’, remain exceptions rather than the rule. The legacy of institutionalized sector-focused planning processes and the need of bringing together multiple internal and external interests create organizational and institutional tensions and dilemmas that constrain cross-sectoral strategy forming. In practice, infrastructure agencies experience difficulties synchronizing their infrastructure plans to facilitate transitions. The research project PRONTO addresses these difficulties by answering the following research question: What practices of open strategizing are enacted in planning processes for infrastructure in transitions to achieve coordinated cross-sectoral infrastructure strategies, and what governance and modelling approaches support these practices? By adopting a multi-disciplinary approach and integrating governance and modelling dimension of planning processes, PRONTO provides unique insights in the pluralistic planning realities of infrastructure agencies and generates a rich and nuanced understanding on how processes of long-term infrastructure strategizing can be opened up to achieve a more cross-sectoral planning coordination. The research outcomes of PRONTO feed into the development of specific training modules and a serious game which both will facilitate learning for open strategizing of infrastructure professionals and the next generation of infrastructure planners.

BRIDGITISE

Industrial Doctoral Network on Bridge Digitalised Lifecycle Management

BRIDGITISE is a European industrial doctoral network that aims at leveraging digital technologies to develop and validate innovative technologies for the cost-effective and sustainable integrity management of bridges. The achievement of this overarching research objective is pursued through the development and validation of innovative technologies to (i) collect bridge information in a cost-effective and sustainable way, exploiting the possibilities provided by new technologies and maximizing their accuracy, precision, spatial coverage, and resolution; (ii) process and share bridge information in a cost-effective and sustainable way, exploiting and tailoring to bridges the possibilities of artificial intelligence to maximize the speed, reliability, security availability, and usability of the information; (iii) model bridge information reliably to support bridge management strategies, maximizing infrastructure functionality, safety, sustainability, and resilience. As partner in the network, we will work on (i) automatizing the execution of visual bridge inspections and the classification and visualization of bridge damages and defects and (ii) developing circularity metrics as decision-support tools for sustainable bridge management.

Collaborative, Digitized and Integral Processes to Achieve Circular and Emission-Free Renovation (PACER)

Renovation projects are complex and multi-objective design challenges characterised by intensive decision-making and organisational activities concerning a building’s future. Such projects uniquely connect a variety of otherwise fragmented disciplines. Crucial for fostering more circular renovation practices with lower emissions is the availability of accurate, timely and concise information on supply chains and material flows and optimal design strategies, considering multiple value-creation perspectives from different stakeholders. PACER will provide collaborative, digitised, integral processes, tools, and legal and economic frameworks to achieve circular and emission-free renovation practices. As partner in this project, we will work on the development of a new integrated data-driven process for identifying, inventorying, harvesting, and distributing recovered materials in renovation projects via reverse logistics.

Sustainable Maintenance Policy For Infrastructure Networks In The Randstad: A Climate Change Perspective

In the Randstad one of the most important future challenges is the potential global warming and its implication for mobility, economy and social-welfare. Given the location of the Randstad, climate change is expected to be one of those factors having a great impact on the future condition and vulnerability of the infrastructure network and consequently on the decision-making regarding the maintenance, renovation and reconstruction (MR&R) of infrastructure assets. However, while previous research has mainly focused on the climatologic consequences of different transportation modes, very little effort has been devoted to understand the implications of changing climate conditions for MR&R of infrastructure assets. Moreover, there is scarce understanding of the incorporation of climate data in MR&R decisions, the required strategic MR&R decisions to respond to probable climate change scenarios, and the interrelatedness of MR&R decision-making and policy processes. The main objective of this research programme is to improve the strategic MR&R decision-making at public agencies in the Randstad by integrating three interlinked areas of investigation: climate change, infrastructure asset performance, and policy development. These areas are studied in two research projects looking at the impact of changing local climate conditions on the performance of the infrastructure network in the Randstad, appropriate MR&R strategies to anticipate and mitigate climate change effects on infrastructure assets, and the integration of MR&R decision-making related to climate-induced effects on infrastructure in policy processes at public agencies in the Randstad.

Durable Pothole Repair

The main objective of the project POTHOLE is to address the need of road agencies for durable constructions and maintenance methods concerning the repair of damages which occur after hard winters due to repeated frost-thaw cycles. All European countries are faced with the problem of potholes and how to repair them. Many approaches just deal with repair methods which are durable only on a short-term base and therefore are not cost-effective. Regarding the imense economic loss due to the damages, the repair of potholes with materials that is only good on a short-term base and most important the increasing numbers of crashes, injuries and deths caused by potholes to improve the methods and techniques and espially to give road agencies some kind of help to deal with these problems. In this project normal but also new and approaches which target on a middle or long term repair of potholes will be studied. In a catalogue tests, evaluation methods and experiences according to existing European Standards will be listed to give road agencies an overview of the possibilities for the repair of potholes. Furthermore the testing of techniques and the use of materials from already existing trial sites will be used to determine laboratory testing which can or should be used to be able for the correct testing of materials for this purpose. The gained knowledge including the European experiences will be used to develop guidelines for road agencies to enhance their maintenance needs providing them to select a repair material with a durability corresponding to the estimated lifetime of the existing pavement. The great advantage of this approach is the corporation of seven countries which ensures that many views and experiences throughout Europe are considered.

Stakeholder Benefit And Road Intervention Strategies (SABARIS)

The research project SABARIS addresses the challenge of road agencies to select an intervention strategy for road network that is optimal taking into consideration the varying and conflicting values of road benefits for the stakeholders of this network. The objective of the project SABARIS is to support this decision making by: - identifying the stakeholders of different types of roads in different European countries, - determining the road benefits for the stakeholders and ways of engaging the stakeholders to determine these benefits and to communicate to them that their concerns are being taken into consideration, - analyzing the values of the benefits for the stakeholders, - assessing the impact of the valuation of benefits on the optimality of intervention strategies for roads, and - evaluating the sensitivity of the optimality of the intervention strategies due to variations in benefit values, especially when conflicting valuations between stakeholders exist.

Sustainable Maintenance Planning of Highways

An important goal of Rijkswaterstaat is to be 100% climate neutral and sustainable in 2050. At the moment, Rijkswaterstaat still plans the maintenance for the highway network without full consideration of sustainable aspects. One reason for this is the uncertainty about effects of maintenance measures on sustainability, for example, the effect of the use of different materials on the CO2 emissions of traffic. Another reason is the unclear implication of sustainability for the life-cycle costs of highways, for example, to which extent does the reusability of material outweigh its shorter lifetime. The current challenge for Rijkswaterstaat lies in incorporating sustainable aspects in the maintenance planning and improving the understanding of sustainable maintenance strategies and their cost implications. The aim of this design project is to develop a decision-support tool to improve the sustainability assessment of maintenance strategies for highways. The expected outcome of the tool to be developed is: - Reducing the uncertainty related to maintenance effects on sustainability - Providing insights into the cost implications of sustainable maintenance measures - Improving the life-cycle cost calculations for highway maintenance strategies by considering sustainability effects - Including sustainability assessment criteria in the cost-benefit analysis of highway maintenance