Optimal Repair Policies for Infrastructure Systems with Life Cycle Cost Minimization and Annual Cost Leveling

One of the goals infrastructure asset management research is to find appropriate repair policies for systems. The annual cost system may vary when a policy meant only minimize life cycle applied each facility in system. Such variance leads difficulty securing budget managers; thus, desirable, practicable should reduce not but also dispersion cost. In this study, we first formulate network-level optimization problem an comprising finite number facilities total over planning period, which defined as weighted sum and its variance. Then propose two methods solving it: (1) exact one based on Markov decision process; (2) approximate using preventive rules. former can be used small-scale systems, whereas latter simplify regardless size determine large-scale proposed methodology numerical investigations system; case, Pareto frontier costs by solution method show that rule–based provides near-optimal solution. other superior aggregation optimal solutions independently found decomposed subsystem.