Scheduling Renewal of Water Pipes While Considering Adjacency of Infrastructure Works and Economies of Scale

Abstract

Much research effort has been dedicated to the development of optimal strategies for rehabilitation and/or replacement of water mains. Some of the methods are intended for high-level planning of groups or cohorts of pipes, while others address low-level scheduling of individual water mains. This paper focuses on the latter aspect. An approach is proposed for the efficient scheduling of individual water mains for replacement in a short to medium predefined planning period and subject to various budgetary constraints. This approach also accounts for economies of scale considerations as well as harmonization with other known infrastructure works. A multiobjective genetic algorithm scheme is used as a tool to search a vast combinatorial solution space, comprising various combinations of pipe replacement schedules.