Coordinator(s):

Dr Charlie Hargroves, Curtin University, Australia

Objectives and Scopes:

The objectives of the Task Group are:

  • to develop evidence-based methods to improve the design and delivery of infrastructure from economic and social perspectives, using project and technology best practices
  • to explore new technological approaches to understanding conditioning of existing infrastructures and novel approaches to their maintenance and repair.

The Task group aims to develop a Research Roadmap to identify greatest contributions and gaps to:

  • evidence best practice for portfolio, program and project management of infrastructure design, delivery
  • and improvement, particularly in developing nations
  • uncover emerging novel technical solutions and their relative merits compared to standard practices
  • develop resilient and sustainable solutions for whole-life use.

The Task Group will focus on two research areas that respectively aim to:

  • improve the design and delivery of infrastructure projects so that these can be effectively monitored and maintained, particularly later in their life cycle. Themes in this research area may include: whole-life design,
  • project delivery, embedded sensors, big data, sustainability and resilience
  • develop more efficient and effective infrastructure monitoring techniques to detect defects and partial
  • failures before these become catastrophic or move to a point beyond repair. Themes in this research area may
  • include: robotic vision, advanced diagnostic and survey sensors, big data and spatial information, new
  • approaches to cost-benefit analysis.

Current Work Programme:

The Task Group will:

  • run a series of workshops, both in-situ and online, to determine where research gaps lie to deliver solutions to the two focus research areas
  • collaborate with other CIB Priority Themes and Commissions
  • run a first conference as part of the CIB 2016 World Building Congress
  • explore possibilities for industry and academic funding
  • establish collaborative relations with the World Bank Group and GIH – the Global Infrastructure Hub.

Planned Output:

  • 2015 – run scope development workshops for different participants
    • Infrastructure Scope Development Workshops: February in Washington DC, USA, in May, Durban, South Africa, in July, Kolkata, India and Others.
  • 2016 – MOU’s for collaboration with World bank and GIH
  • 2016 – proceedings from a Task Group conference
  • 2018 – publication Infrastructure Research Roadmap

External Relations:

The Task group aims to establish collaborative relations with the World Bank Group and GIH – the Global Infrastructure Hub.

Membership:

Members of the Task Group have to be either Individual Member of CIB or appointed representative of a CIB Organisational Member.

Status:

The Task Group was established in March 2015 and has a mandate until the middle of 2018