Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the innovative approaches to further reduce the environmental impacts during the construction of mega transportation infrastructure, particularly for Australia. Design/methodology/approach As part of this research, the Sydney Metro was exploited as a case study. This included reviewing the elements of reducing the environmental impacts for the Sydney Metro. Findings This research has found that there are six elements of reducing the environmental impacts of the Australian public transport infrastructure process. Moreover, this research also found that for the Sydney Metro, first, the logistic planning and optimisation was carefully developed followed by the remaining five elements. Originality/value The originality of this research consists of carefully examining the Sydney Metro’s environmental implications including its on-going EIA and EPA compliance.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to initially evaluate the most current and important complications of sustainable mega rail transportation projects. This purpose is assisted by thoroughly reviewing the foremost uncertainties and challenging issues of STI. Once these factors are established, they will be the base of STI indicators. Finally, to consolidate such alignment, the Sydney Metro and Melbourne Metro are then compared and analyzed. The analysis would then create a platform to measure sustainability and relevant complexities in mega rail transportation projects. Design/methodology/approach To further consolidate such hypothesis, this research investigated two mega rail transportation projects in Australia. Both Sydney Metro and Melbourne Metro Rail were selected as the basis of case study, as both possess similar sustainability aspects. Findings As an outcome this research found that, complexities in both of these projects were based on future challenges and opportunities including imperfect equalization or not balancing all the four sustainability indicators; and where and how to emphasize the overlapping of these four indicators. In summary, these findings can assist the relevant planners, to better prepare and manage mega railway infrastructure and their operations. Originality/value While the sustainability for transportation infrastructure has been covered extensively by other authors, this paper strengthens the four specific and separate STI indicators – especially for mega rail infrastructure. Although, there are some crossover areas within these indicators, however, this research separately validates each as an independent entity. Commonly, there are three dimensions within the sustainability domain – environmental, economical and social. Nevertheless, for this research, a fourth dimension engineering which includes all the technical focus, has been separately developed. This is particularly important to effectively deal with all the complexities, particularly for mega projects, such as rail transportation infrastructure. Accordingly, separating the engineering dimension would thus reshape the triple bottom line factors to include a separate technical focus. To further evaluate this separation of the four specific areas, two mega Australian rail transportation projects are then reviewed as experiments.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review the Fuzzy Markov development for assessing the structural integrity of buried transportation bridges. In doing so, the appropriateness of Fuzzy Markov will be assessed, leading to the subsequent model. Design/methodology/approach This research will utilize the Fuzzy Markov techniques as the conceptual framework. Such methodology is further supported via the utilization and evaluation of 30 buried transportation bridges using the developed Fuzzy Markov model. Findings Subsequently, through a developed Fuzzy Markov model, this research found that as the basis of structural resilience, specific matrices for age-dependent transition probability can be compiled using conditional survival probabilities in the various structural states; as the basis of structural integrity, specific environmental and economic schemes can also be established based on inspection intervals, intervention systems and failure phases; exact inspection and maintenance intervals can be scheduled to further prolong an asset’s life; and clear and early warning signs can also be formulated for immediate intervention when the structural integrity of the asset are indeed compromised. Originality/value The gap within the literature currently surrounds the limitation of computational analysis for some buried structures such as bridges. Specifically, to streamline such evaluation and regimes, a Fuzzy Markov is developed and reviewed.

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