A conceptual framework for the assessment of bridge performance indicators through the integration of constructability, sustainability and risk analysis

Bridges, being complex and large infrastructure projects, can suffer from meager levels of performance and lukewarm users’ satisfaction. In order to avoid such undesirable results, it is essential not only to undertake a rigid feasibility study and establish an efficient contractual strategy, but also to optimize the relevant performance indicators (be it technical, sustainable or managerial) through the concepts of constructability and sustainability. Constructability, being a holistic lifecycle project edifice, relies heavily on the assessment and improvement of performance indicators (be it technical, sustainable or managerial), towards design and construction integration, close stakeholders’ cooperation and, ultimately, the attainment of the best possible overall project performance. Its interconnection with sustainability is close, since the latter is one of the most important dimensions of quality – one of the key project performance objectives – and extrapolates towards the rest, which are cost (of integration), time (of completion) and client satisfaction. Risk analysis, being used extensively in project management but not as of yet integrated deeply in the unified themes of constructability and sustainability, can provide the cognitive and mathematical basis for the establishment of a new methodology of assessing the performance indicators, thus helping in their improvement for the existing and ongoing projects and their documentation into lessons-learned databases for future projects. In this early work, a coarse conceptual framework for the integration of risk analysis in the combined notions of constructability and sustainability in order to assess performance indicators for bridges is defined, being an early step in an ongoing research effort towards the establishment of a holistic methodology.