Multi-Criteria Decision-Making in Sustainable Bridge Design
Summary
Designing bridges for sustainability demands a systematic appraisal of economic, environmental and social objectives throughout a structure’s life cycle. Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) frameworks enable engineers and stakeholders to weigh competing considerations—such as initial cost, carbon footprint, service life and community impact—against one another in a transparent manner. Classical methods like the Analytic Hierarchy Process have long guided material selection and maintenance planning, while more recent approaches exploit outranking algorithms and evolutionary optimisation to navigate complex trade-offs under uncertainty. By integrating resilience metrics, life-cycle assessment and stakeholder preferences, MCDM supports robust decisions on conceptual design, construction techniques, retrofit strategies and end-of-life options. Practical applications span seismic retrofit prioritisation, accelerated bridge construction to minimise traffic disruption, and the adoption of novel low-carbon materials, illustrating the global relevance of this decision-support suite for sustainable infrastructure.
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Multi-Criteria Decision-Making in Sustainable Bridge Design publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in multi-criteria decision-making in sustainable bridge design across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM): A decision-support framework that evaluates alternatives against multiple, often conflicting, criteria.
Life-Cycle Cost (LCC): The aggregated cost of a bridge over its entire lifespan, including construction, maintenance and decommissioning.
Resilience: The ability of a bridge to resist, absorb and recover from disruptive events while maintaining functionality.
Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II): A computational method for finding a set of optimal solutions in multi-objective optimisation problems.
Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS): A ranking method that identifies alternatives closest to the ideal solution and farthest from the worst case.
Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC): Techniques aimed at reducing on-site construction time and related impacts through prefabrication and innovative methods.
References
- A logical retrofit strategy optimization framework for resiliency bridge infrastructure management considering life-cycle cost. Sustainable Structures (2024).
- Remedial Modelling of Steel Bridges through Application of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Applied Sciences (2017).
- A Review of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods Applied to the Sustainable Bridge Design. Sustainability (2016).
- Life cycle sustainability assessment for multi-criteria decision making in bridge design: a review. Journal of Civil Engineering and Management (2020).
- Multi-Criteria Evaluation Framework in Selection of Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) Method. Sustainability (2018).
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