<div>A transportation system plays a significant role in the economic development of a region by facilitating the movement of goods and services. No matter how well the infrastructure is designed or constructed, it is beneficial to know maintenance needs in the life cycle of the infrastructure so that the service life of the pavement is prolonged by minimizing its life-cycle cost requirements. The pavement life-cycle performance helps maintenance investment decision-makers to efficiently utilize the available infrastructure funds. This research focuses on developing</div><div>a framework for identifying a more effective and efficient way of decision making on the management and maintenance of infrastructure. The developed framework uses an agent-based modeling approach to capture the interaction that exists between different components of the transportation system and their characteristics such as traffic volume and pavement condition, user cost, agency cost, etc. The developed agent-based is useful to investigate the effects of time-varying vehicular density on pavement deterioration and the road users’ driving behavior. The developed framework was demonstrated as a two-lane highway as a case study. Using the developed agent-based simulation framework, it was possible to identify when the road</div><div>infrastructure maintenance should be done to increase the desired PCR value. Also, it was possible to show a decrease in PCR can affect the cost of road users. The framework can track the time to determine when maintenance should be done based on the PCR values that determine whether the</div><div>pavement is in good, moderate, or bad condition. Regardless of the degree of road users’ patience to stay in their travel lanes (patience), the vehicle distribution on the road is balanced in the long run because road users tend to change their travel lanes to minimize their overall travel times. When the patient level is low, road users tend to change lanes more, causing a high number of vehicles on the left lane as it is considered the lane changing lane in two-lane highways. It was also observed that as the patience of the road users increases, the number of vehicles that use the right lane is almost the same as the number of vehicles that use the left lane.</div>

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Although the application of surface treatments on bridge decks is expected to positively impact bridge deck condition, the effectiveness of specific surface treatments on extending bridge deck life has not yet been quantified on Utah bridge decks. Therefore, the objectives of this research were to develop and analyze deterioration curves for bare concrete bridge decks and decks with specific treatments commonly used in Utah. The scope of this study was determined by the types and extent of electronically available data, including selected static inventory information; maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction histories; and National Bridge Inventory (NBI) condition ratings for the bridge decks. Bridge deck selection criteria and analysis procedures were developed to enable evaluation of the effects of surface treatments on bridge decks in Utah. Characteristics of a typical bridge were defined, and a list of typical bridges was produced to minimize potentially confounding effects of atypical bridge characteristics in comparisons of deterioration curves for monolithic concrete decks, decks with a bituminous overlay, decks with an epoxy overlay, and decks with a latex-modified concrete overlay. Climatic differences were taken into account by grouping bridges not only by overlay type, but also by Utah Department of Transportation region, which was used in this research as a general surrogate for latitude. Individual bridge deck deterioration curves were then combined to generate average deterioration curves aligned by deck construction time and average deterioration curves aligned by deck treatment time. To at least partially account for the potentially different effects of different treatment times, the bridge groups involving overlays were divided into two treatment time categories, early and late, for analysis. The average deterioration curves aligned by deck construction time suggest that certain treatments applied at certain times can achieve average NBI ratings greater than those for monolithic concrete during selected years of bridge deck life. The average deterioration curves aligned by deck treatment time suggest that certain treatments applied at certain times can achieve improvements in NBI ratings that correspond to apparent increases in bridge deck service life. Primarily because the NBI rating system is based mainly on visual inspection, the full benefits of early applications of surface treatments are not apparent in the results of this research. Supplemental perspectives may be gained about the performance of specific surface treatments by evaluating bridge deck deterioration in terms of delamination, half-cell potential, and chloride concentration, for example, which are direct measures of the deterioration process typically experienced by concrete bridge decks in Utah.

The topic of the thesis is multi objective condition assessment of water supply systems. The state of the art of condition assessment of water supply systems and the state of the art of multi objective optimization methods are presented within the thesis. Based on these recherches, the uniform methodology of condition assessment of water supply systems and its 7 modules was designed. The thesis deals with the selected modules to condition assessment of water pumping stations, water networks and pipe sections. The output of the methodology is the assignment of a category of the technical condition to the rated object. The proposed methodology was tested on real water facilities and proves the ability of a fair presentation of the technical condition of the object.

<p>  </p> <p>During the construction of a bridge, more specifically a concrete bridge deck, there are sometimes defects in materials or workmanship, resulting in what is called a construction defect. These defects can have a large impact on the lifecycle performance of the bridge deck, potentially leading to more preventative and reactive maintenance actions over time and thus a larger monetary investment by the bridge owner. Bridge asset managers utilize prediction software to inform their annual budgetary needs, however this prediction software traditionally relies only on historical condition rating data for its predictions. When attempting to understand how deterioration of a bridge deck changes with the influence of construction defects, utilizing the current prediction software is not appropriate as there is not enough historical data available to ensure accuracy of the prediction. There are numerical modeling approaches available that capture the internal physical and chemical deterioration processes, and these models can account for the change in deterioration when construction defects are present. There are also numerical models available that capture the effect of external factors that may be affecting the deterioration patterns of the bridge deck, in parallel to the internal processes. The goal of this study is to combine a mechanistic model capturing the internal physical and chemical processes associated with deterioration of a concrete bridge deck, with a model that is built strictly from historical condition rating data, in order to predict the changes in condition rating prediction of a bridge deck for a standard construction case versus a substandard construction case. Being able to measure the change in prediction of deterioration when construction defects are present then allows for quantifying the additional cost that would be required to maintain the defective bridge deck which is also presented. </p>

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