Analytic Hierarchy Process as a Tool for Infrastructure Management

Abstract

The role of infrastructure management has been continuously changing since the late 1980s. Public agencies have started to incorporate private-sector practices. These new practices include the use of customer inputs to develop new goals and policies, development of new evaluation procedures for priority programming optimization, and addition of feedback loops into infrastructure management systems. One of the new evaluation procedures adopted into infrastructure management is the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). AHP is a decision-making tool that incorporates both qualitative and quantitative factors. AHP has increased in use and popularity because of its ability to reflect the way people think and make decisions by simplifying a complex decision into a series of one-on-one comparisons. The results are then synthesized and presented as a percentage of all the options evaluated. This presentation will illustrate AHP with two examples. In the first example, AHP was used to compare fast-track concrete repair products on the basis of the priorities set by a public agency. Three fast-track concrete repair products were compared with the use of 16 criteria comprised of construction procedures and physical properties. Without field testing, AHP showed that two of the tested products were superior to the other. In the second example, AHP was used to compare seven maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction strategies for asphalt pavements. This comparison was based on nine priorities compiled from a survey of road users.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Cowe Falls

, Haas

R. C. G.

, McNeil

, and Tighe

S. L.

. Using Common Elements of Asset Management and Pavement Management to Maximize Overall Benefits. Presented at 80th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., 2001.

Saaty

T. L.

Fundamentals of Decision Making and Priority Theory with the Analytic Hierarchy Process. RWS Publications, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1994.

Saaty

T. L.

Multicriteria Decision Making: The Analytic Hierarchy Process. RWS Publications, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1990.

Deyer

J. S.

, and Wendell

R. E.

. A Critique of the Analytic Hierarchy Process. Department of Management

University of Texas, Austin,

1985.

Fraser

, Bernhardt

, Jewkes

E. M.

, and Tajima

. Engineering Economics in Canada, 2nd ed. Prentice Hall Canada, Inc., Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, 2000.

Smith

J. T.

Fast Track Concrete Partial Depth Repairs: How Does One Address Cracking? MS thesis. University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2004.

Smith

J. T.

, and Tighe

. User Perceptions of Maintenance, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Strategies. Presented at Canadian Society for Civil Engineering 6th Transportation Specialty Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, June 2005.

Haas

, Hudson

W. R.

, and Tighe

. Maximizing Customer Benefits as the Ultimate Goal of Pavement Management. Presented at Fifth International Conference on Managing Pavements, Seattle, Wash., Aug. 2001.