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Creating an ensemble of future strategies for national infrastructure provision

Creating an ensemble of future strategies for national infrastructure provision
Creating an ensemble of future strategies for national infrastructure provision
Well managed, maintained and effective national infrastructure (NI) systems (i.e. energy, transport, water, waste, ICT) provide the backbone for economic growth and societal wellbeing. Traditionally, NI planning and implementation has been conducted in isolation, based upon fixed assumptions about the future. This fails to recognise both the long-term socio-economic, climate-related and technological challenges and uncertainties of the coming century and the growing interconnectivity between these individual infrastructure systems. Here we develop a methodology for generating a range of strategies for the provision of NI suitable for an integrated ‘system-of-systems’ assessment of NI's future management. To provide coherent links with policy choices, integrated strategies are developed at an aggregate level with a diversity of investment requirements, demand management techniques, and levels of environmental targets. To facilitate implementation within NI simulation models, the example strategies are constructed from sectoral sub-strategies focusing on changes in demand, capacity utilisation and capacity expansion. Further new strategies can be explored and the approach lends itself to an iterative analytical approach, potentially capturing a wide range of policy questions. It is illustrated using the future provision of Great Britain's transport infrastructure as a case study, and demonstrates how cross-sector strategies for infrastructure provision can be developed.
0016-3287
13-24
Hickford, A.J.
55d34672-b7bb-47d4-97a6-095304c429de
Nicholls, R.J.
4ce1e355-cc5d-4702-8124-820932c57076
Otto, A.
7a7273f8-b54e-438f-a3b4-ed59323cdacc
Hall, J.W.
493ab641-5e68-4cba-af1a-3a3aa774c1bf
Blainey, S.P.
ee6198e5-1f89-4f9b-be8e-52cc10e8b3bb
Tran, M.
088ba983-de32-4d3f-9738-39d351192a3e
Baruah, P.
b66bbf91-73c6-471b-9f86-30ef00a171b7
Hickford, A.J.
55d34672-b7bb-47d4-97a6-095304c429de
Nicholls, R.J.
4ce1e355-cc5d-4702-8124-820932c57076
Otto, A.
7a7273f8-b54e-438f-a3b4-ed59323cdacc
Hall, J.W.
493ab641-5e68-4cba-af1a-3a3aa774c1bf
Blainey, S.P.
ee6198e5-1f89-4f9b-be8e-52cc10e8b3bb
Tran, M.
088ba983-de32-4d3f-9738-39d351192a3e
Baruah, P.
b66bbf91-73c6-471b-9f86-30ef00a171b7

Hickford, A.J., Nicholls, R.J., Otto, A., Hall, J.W., Blainey, S.P., Tran, M. and Baruah, P. (2014) Creating an ensemble of future strategies for national infrastructure provision. Futures, 66 (February 2015), 13-24. (doi:10.1016/j.futures.2014.11.009).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Well managed, maintained and effective national infrastructure (NI) systems (i.e. energy, transport, water, waste, ICT) provide the backbone for economic growth and societal wellbeing. Traditionally, NI planning and implementation has been conducted in isolation, based upon fixed assumptions about the future. This fails to recognise both the long-term socio-economic, climate-related and technological challenges and uncertainties of the coming century and the growing interconnectivity between these individual infrastructure systems. Here we develop a methodology for generating a range of strategies for the provision of NI suitable for an integrated ‘system-of-systems’ assessment of NI's future management. To provide coherent links with policy choices, integrated strategies are developed at an aggregate level with a diversity of investment requirements, demand management techniques, and levels of environmental targets. To facilitate implementation within NI simulation models, the example strategies are constructed from sectoral sub-strategies focusing on changes in demand, capacity utilisation and capacity expansion. Further new strategies can be explored and the approach lends itself to an iterative analytical approach, potentially capturing a wide range of policy questions. It is illustrated using the future provision of Great Britain's transport infrastructure as a case study, and demonstrates how cross-sector strategies for infrastructure provision can be developed.

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Published date: 3 December 2014
Additional Information: Funded by EPSRC: UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC): PROGRAMME GRANT: Long term dynamics of interdependent infrastructure systems (EP/I01344X/1)
Organisations: Transportation Group, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 368331
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/368331
ISSN: 0016-3287
PURE UUID: 3c73e7c0-b53a-44d0-8ebd-17f5aaf700dc
ORCID for A.J. Hickford: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6414-9064
ORCID for R.J. Nicholls: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-9715-1109
ORCID for S.P. Blainey: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4249-8110

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 12 Sep 2014 11:34
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:32

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Contributors

Author: A.J. Hickford ORCID iD
Author: R.J. Nicholls ORCID iD
Author: A. Otto
Author: J.W. Hall
Author: S.P. Blainey ORCID iD
Author: M. Tran
Author: P. Baruah

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