Integrated stochastic economics performance evaluation of horizontal infrastructure systems

Many aspects of the nation’s infrastructure are in dire need of improvement, as effectively illustrated by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and its Infrastructure Report Card. As of 2017, the ASCE gave American infrastructure a cumulative grade of D+ (“poor”), unchanged from the previous report card published in 2013. In its reports on individual categories of infrastructure, the ASCE has expanded on problems that have contributed to this poor grade. For example, they gave a D grade in the category of Roads, citing such problems as “traffic delays costing the country $160 billion in wasted time and fuel in 2014” and “one out of every five miles of highway pavement is in poor condition”. A D grade was also given to the nation’s aviation sector, because aviation infrastructure (including airports and traffic control systems) was deemed to be lagging far behind advancements in aircraft technology, leading to increased congestion and a projected “$42 billion funding gap between 2016 and 2025”. Decision-making techniques are useful tools for overcoming economic issues in engineering projects; the choice of a suitable decision-making technique is in itself a critical decision because different techniques may yield different solutions. It is imperative for a decision maker to be aware of the underlying principles of a technique as well as its associated pitfalls. In other words, the proper application of civil engineering economic analysis demands particularly great expertise. The development of economic analysis tools that are widely applicable to a variety of engineering projects is also a broadly important endeavor for use in the civil engineering field.