Strategic decision support system for utility tunnel’s planning applying A’WOT method

Abstract

Future sustainable underground strategies will consist of the ability to reduce overcrowding subsurface space in our cities. To this end, utility tunnels become a key factor in urban underground planning. These facilities improve joint-use of urban underground space (UUS) that may contain multiple utilities such as water, sewerage, gas, electrical power, telephone, and central heating in several combinations or in some cases all together. However, implementing these subsurface tunnels is retarded most by first-cost, compatibility, security and liability problems. All these drawbacks should be addressed in early planning stages taking into account the uniqueness of each city. Therefore, expert consensus panels from public and private organizations should determine appropriate policies for developing utility tunnels network. This research work applies A'WOT hybrid method combining SWOT analysis and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to study utility tunnel planning in urban areas. The hybrid method takes account of internal resources and capabilities (strengths and weakness) and external factors (opportunities and threats). SWOT analysis is a structured way to analyze these four factors, while AHP technique achieves pairwise comparisons among factors in order to prioritize them using the eigenvector method. The quantitative strategic analysis obtained from the decision support system should be used as a preliminary step in urban planning of future utility tunnel networks.

Design of Strategies for the Implementation and Management of a Complementary Monetary System Using the SWOT-AHP Methodology

“…The SWOT-AHP methodology can be implemented in multiple areas [115]. Thus, there have been a variety of studies that have used this method to facilitate decision-making or solve multiple problems in industrial [116], energetic [117], agricultural [118], tourism [119], engineering [120] and territorial development sectors [121].…”

An Application of the A’WOT Analysis for the Management of Cultural Heritage Assets: The Case of the Historical Farmhouses in the Aglié Castle (Turin)

“…Starting from the seminal works by [28,29], a significant strand of literature developed and the number of its applications to real-world decision problems increased significantly [32][33][34]. The applications of the A'WOT method are varied and cover as major fields natural resource management [32,[35][36][37], sustainable tourism and tourism management [25,34,38,39], strategic assessment and group decision making (see among others, [40][41][42][43]). Although in the field of cultural heritage assessment, there are a flourishing set of recent contributions in literature on the sole application of AHP [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51] and SWOT analysis [52][53][54][55][56], respectively.…”

Construction and Operation for Utilities Tunnel Public Project in China: An Analysis Based on G-S Interactive Finance Framework

“…Different with traditional open-cut style for pipelines, utilities tunnel can avoid resource wasting and inconvenience to society, because traditional open-cut style need dig the ground many times. It can also decrease safety questions and can repair timely for pipeline obstacle [1][2][3][4][5].…”