Predicting structure performance of urban critical infrastructure: An augmented attention-based LSTM model

Purpose: Accurate prediction of the structural condition of urban critical infrastructure is crucial for predictive maintenance. However, the existing prediction methods lack precision due to limitations in utilizing heterogeneous sensing data and domain knowledge as well as insufficient generalizability resulting from limited data samples. This paper integrates implicit and qualitative expert knowledge into quantifiable values in tunnel condition assessment and proposes a tunnel structure prediction algorithm that augments a state-of-the-art attention-based long short-term memory (LSTM) model with expert rating knowledge to achieve robust prediction results to reasonably allocate maintenance resources. Design/methodology/approach: Through formalizing domain experts' knowledge into quantitative tunnel condition index (TCI) with analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a fusion approach using sequence smoothing and sliding time window techniques is applied to the TCI and time-series sensing data. By incorporating both sensing data and expert ratings, an attention-based LSTM model is developed to improve prediction accuracy and reduce the uncertainty of structural influencing factors. Findings: The empirical experiment in Dalian Road Tunnel in Shanghai, China showcases the effectiveness of the proposed method, which can comprehensively evaluate the tunnel structure condition and significantly improve prediction performance. Originality/value: This study proposes a novel structure condition prediction algorithm that augments a state-of-the-art attention-based LSTM model with expert rating knowledge for robust prediction of structure condition of complex projects.