A risk-based decision making methodology for planning and operating safe infrastructure systems against various hazards

Abstract

Decision-making for infrastructure systems is a difficult task to perform because of the complexity and the variety of the types of risks that may occur in the different phases of the life-cycle of an infrastructure system. To overcome these difficulties a new methodology for a risk-based decision making for planning and operating infrastructure systems is proposed. This methodology integrates: (i) the variability of impact upon risk occurrence, (ii) the available risk-response strategies, and (iii) the preference of the decision maker over these strategies with regard to the criticality of the various impacts upon risk occurrence. The proposed methodology considers four risk-response strategies, namely: (a) acceptance, (b)mitigation, (c) transfer, and (d) avoidance. Three approaches are applied, in order to determine the preference margins between these strategies: (i) compliance with regulations and specifications, (ii) determination based on data elaboration, and (iii) subjective judgment. Once, the expected value of the impact upon risk occurrence is estimated, the decision maker is capable to decide for the respective risk-response. An application example is presented as a proof-of-concept of the proposed methodology.