Sustainable Infrastructure Assessment Model: An Application to Road Projects

Abstract

Sustainable infrastructure assessment models play an important role in sustainable development. However, the current infrastructure assessment models for road projects have several limitations; specifically, all the models do not support the involvement of various stakeholders. Most models do not consider the risk arising from uncertainty in the assessment, and are not flexible regarding changes needed for local project contexts. Accordingly, this study aims to develop a sustainable infrastructure assessment model that overcomes these limitations, which is the distinct contribution of this study. A utility function is used to address the risk, and the stakeholders’ involvement is taken into account by a social welfare function. To provide flexibility for changes, the model is programmed using Visual Basic for Application for interactive activities with stakeholders (as assessors) and Microsoft Excel for calculation activities. The model includes four phases: 1) assessor weight selection, 2) assessment criteria and weight selection, 3) sustainable infrastructure assessment, and 4) sustainability assessment report. The model was verified and validated with four actual road projects, and acceptable results were obtained. Thus, the proposed model, which reflects reality more accurately than other available sustainable infrastructure assessment models, can assist stakeholders by reducing the time and effort required for assessing the sustainability of road projects.