A new integrated approach for better management of municipal infrastructure assets

Vital services like drinking water, storm water and wastewater systems, together with community connectors like roads and bridges, are Canada's lifelines. Each year, municipalities spend $12 to 15 billion on these lifelines, 80% of which goes to system repairs and renewals. However, current work practices have resulted in significant process and data fragmentation, which has created inefficiencies. Also, water, sewer and road networks are typically managed independently, with little or no consideration paid to their interrelationships. This lack of integration can result in significant misdirection of limited infrastructure renewal resources.

The National Research Council Centre for Sustainable Infrastructure Research (NRC-CSIR), established as one of the partners in the sustainable infrastructure technology cluster in Regina, has as one of its goals to collaborate with the City, with industry and other researchers to develop new techniques for monitoring, assessing and managing municipal infrastructure, including developing decision support systems (DSS).

In 2005, NRC-CSIR began a project together with the City of Regina to develop and implement techniques for integrating asset management processes. The objective is to improve the coordination and cost-effectiveness of asset management and renewal planning programs for inter-related municipal infrastructure, specifically water, sewer, and road networks. Dr. Mahmoud Halfawy, Research Officer at NRC-CSIR, is leading the project.

With his counterparts from the City and colleagues in the sustainable infrastructure cluster, Dr. Halfawy has developed integrated data and process models and linked them to the geographic information system (GIS) used by the City. Dr. Halfawy has also developed a framework for implementing integrated GIS-based and enterprise-wide municipal asset management systems. The team has incorporated new techniques for risk assessment, asset prioritization, selection of feasible renewal methods, and multi-objective optimization. A new approach for coordinating asset renewal planning and management decisions project has also been developed. A prototype DSS based on the developed models and algorithms has been implemented using City of Regina data. The research team is currently working with industry partners in the cluster to validate and further develop the software.

“The techniques and tools that we are developing will assist municipal professionals to implement and coordinate asset management processes in an integrated, cost-effective, and systematic way.” says Dr. Halfawy. Once piloted in Regina, he adds, these tools will be made available to communities across Canada.