Decision support system for combined transportation and utility construction strategy

Highway projects often require that adjacent utilities be adjusted to make room for new or expanded highway facilities. As an increasing number of highway projects are constructed in congested, interference-prone environments, timely completion of utility adjustment work is more critical than ever. The conventional strategy used by state departments of transportation demands that each utility owner involved complete its respective adjustments before highway construction. This strategy may present numerous challenges and can carry with it serious consequences for state departments of transportation, utility owners, and the traveling public. One major new strategic approach sporadically used by state departments of transportation within the past decade is to combine utility adjustment work with the highway contractor's scope of work and theoretically to reduce some associated complications and risks. This strategy is called combined transportation and utility construction (CTUC), and it offers many benefits while presenting its own set of disadvantages and challenges. Hence, it is necessary to design a decision support system (DSS) for use during the highway planning and design phases. Such a DSS could help both state transportation and utility decision makers determine when to use the CTUC strategy. Results of the CTUC DSS's verification and validation show that the CTUC DSS can facilitate communication and coordination throughout the entire CTUC decision-making process.