Development of an integrated sustainability optimization tool for infrastructure projects

Infrastructure projects may be viewed as a country's economic development locomotive. On the other hand, such initiatives may have a detrimental impact on environmental and social concerns. As a result, these projects should be evaluated based on their predicted sustainability performance and then develop this performance. This paper aims to develop an integrated sustainability optimization tool for infrastructure projects in Egypt. Using this tool, decision-makers can analyze, rank, and prioritize projects based on their predicted sustainability performance and then pick the portfolio of projects that produces the highest overall sustainability score. Sustainability factors were discovered from the existing literature. Based on a questionnaire, the most important factors were selected to address the three main pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social. As the first step in this tool, an infrastructure project sustainability performance prediction model was created. The Analytic Hierarchy Process was utilized as a model development tool, each of the planned infrastructure projects may be granted a sustainability score. The assigned score reflects these projects' predicted sustainability performance. As a result, such projects may be prioritized based on their sustainability performance. As the second step in this tool, an optimization model was developed under specific criteria, these criteria include maintaining a limited budget cap and earning the required minimum score for each of the three sustainability pillars. As an optimization model, the Genetic Algorithm Technique was applied. To make the provided tool's operation more user-friendly, computer software was created. A real-life case study application was considered.