Improved delivery of social benefits through the maintenance planning of public assets

Abstract

The prioritisation of public facilities' maintenance is a necessary but complex task due to the need of considering both physical and socio-economic criteria. This study addresses this problem by quantifying the improvement in the delivery of social benefits that the corrective maintenance of an urban area's public facilities could yield. Based on this, a decision framework is proposed to design and schedule corrective maintenance plans at a municipal scale. The methodology integrates multi-criteria assessment with an analytical method for evaluating the contribution of an area's public facilities to its sustainable urban development based on their type of social infrastructure and their maintenance condition. The decision framework is implemented as a software to facilitate its application to a case study, consisting in building urban regeneration strategies aligned with governmental guidelines. The results revealed that decision-making is more efficient when considering the facilities' type of social infrastructure. In addition, a cost-efficient prioritisation of corrective measures yields better results than neglecting the economy.