Sustainable indicators

Sustainable indicators

1. Sustainable Transportation Indicators Dr. Badr Alsulami

2. Sustainable Indicators Sustainable Indicators have been considered as a primary method to transfer sustainability theory into practical measurement tools to measure sustainability ( Bockermann , Meyer, Omann , & Spangenberg, 2000) .

3. Sustainable Indicators An indicator is usually defined as a piece of information that has a wider significance than its immediate meaning ( Bakkes , 1994). Generally, an indicator is a named performance indicator if it has a linkage to a criterion, a goal or an aim, also in case of a combination of several indicators, the list is called an index. A set of indexes (an indice ) represents a larger issue (Lundin, 2003).

4. The information pyramid ( Braat , 1991)

5. The need for SIs in Transportation The need simplified indicators of causal connections in order to take into account the requirements of economic, social, technical, and environmental sustainable development. The indicators are also essential for the following three practical reasons:

6. The need for SIs in Transportation First, important decisions are required to be made in the early phases of the infrastructure project delivery process. In the context of strategic planning, and initial planning, design and project planning, there is insufficient data to enable an informed consideration of the sustainability effects, based on a deep impact assessment; thus simplified indicators are required.

7. The need for SIs in Transportation Second, the indicators are essential because of the complexity of the case. In extensive projects or processes, it is too difficult or time consuming to gather comprehensive data in order to thoroughly assesses the sustainability impact. Therefore, simple indicators are ideal for this purpose.

8. The need for SIs in Transportation Third, planners, developers and designers need SIs to objectively consider the sustainability aspects. On the other hand, to develop their own activities and to make it possible for owners and contractors to declare requirements for project parties, indicators that express the effectiveness and superiority of the activities, from a sustainability approach, are essential. However, the selection of the number of indicators for assessment must be kept fairly small, which means that identification of relevant indicators is necessary ( Kuckshinrichs et al., 2006).

9. Economic Sustainability At the macro level, the most frequent indicators utilized in the literature to quantify the economic dimension are improvement in the economy, willingness to pay, and affordability. 1.Economic improvement: is used to indicate the degree of contribution from the infrastructure system to the development of the economic status of a region that will be served by the proposed infrastructure project ( Bobylev , 2006)

10. Economic Sustainability 2. Willingness to pay: The willingness to pay (WTP) is the highest price that an individual is willing to accept to pay for some good or service ( Breidert , 2005). 3. Affordability: the ability of the users and consumers to pay for the services delivered ( Choguill , 1996).

11. Economic Sustainability At the infrastructure system level, the economic indicators include: the initial cost (Shen et al., 2011). The life cycle costs. such as operations and maintenance; the repair and rehabilitation costs; and the demolition and disposal costs (Ding, 2008).

12. Economic Sustainability 3. The cost of the employment (Ding, 2008). 4. Financial return (Shen et al., 2007). 5. Financial risk exposure for capital investment. it relates to the risk of loss to the company associated with particular kinds of investment (Ashley et al., 2003).

13. Environmental Sustainability Air, water, and noise pollution: The air, water, and noise pollution indicators are frequently used to measure the impact of infrastructure in atmosphere and water bodies, as well as the health and behavior of people (El- Diraby et al. 2005).

14. Environmental Sustainability 2. Waste generation: is used to quantify infrastructure system waste production output; that output could occur at any life phase of the infrastructure system, such as in the construction phase (i.e. solid waste is generated from construction activities) ( Matar et al., 2008).

15. Environmental Sustainability 3. Ecological impacts: cover a range of impacts on water, land, air and biodiversity; resource utilization covers the use of water resources, land, energy, materials and chemicals ( Foxon et al. 2002). 4. Climate change emission

16. Social Sustainability The Measuring the social aspect of a CIS is typically achieved through social indicators. However, these indicators are much more difficult to calculate and, as such have not received much attention in the engineering literature.

17. Social Sustainability The majority of the research into the social sustainability of CIS (Ashley et al., 2008; and El- Diraby et al. 2005) lists: Employment, Employment can measure how the CIS can enhance employment opportunities in the system area (Brent & Labuschagne, 2004).

18. Social Sustainability 2. human health, the human health indicator can identify the impact of risks to human health, such as the lack of availability of clean water, the risk of infection, and the exposure to toxic compounds ( Ugwu & Haupt 2007).

19. Social Sustainability 3. impact on safety, 4. acceptability 5. Stakeholders’ participation Includes individual actions, participation in decision-making and willingness to change behaviour ( Oltean-Dumbrava & Ashley 2006).

20. Social Sustainability 6.Public awareness: covers awareness of the implications of behaviour and consumer information ( Makropoulos et al. 2008 ). 7. Heritage and culture: addresses the impact of the proposed infrastructure project on the local culture and heritage of the project area, such as heritage buildings ( Bobylev , 2006).

21. Technical Sustainability The technical dimension should be taken into account due to the significance of this dimension in the sustainability assessment process of the performance for CIS. Performance Performance of the system includes the quality of providing the service or product.

22. Technical Sustainability 2. Reliability: represents the probability of a system successful state, it is a complementary item to risk, which represents the frequency of a system failure. 3. Durability: Long-term behavior is affected by the variation in mechanical properties over the design life of the structure. This includes environmental and time-dependent effects and their interaction.

23. Technical Sustainability 4. Flexibility and adaptability: Covers the ability to make future changes to the system to accommodate future needs . 5. Resilience: The probability of recovery of the system from failure to some acceptable state within a specified time interval.

24. Technical Sustainability 6. Vulnerability: Represents the severity or magnitude of a system failure. ( Foxon et al., 2002; Moy, Cohon , & Revelle , 1986; Porter & Harries, 2007)

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