A Review of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods Applied to the Sustainable Bridge Design

Abstract

The construction of bridges has been necessary for societies since ancient times, when the communication between and within towns, cities or communities was established. Until recently, the economic factor has been the only one considered in the decision-making of any type of construction process for bridges. However, nowadays, the objective should not be just the construction of bridges, but of sustainable bridges. Economic, social and environmental factors, which form the three pillars of sustainability, have been recently added. These three factors usually have conflicting perspectives. The decision-making process allows the conversion of a judgment into a rational procedure to reach a compromise solution. The aim of this paper is to review different methods and sustainable criteria used for decision-making at each life-cycle phase of a bridge, from design to recycling or demolition. This paper examines 77 journal articles for which different methods have been used. The most used methods are briefly described. In addition, a statistical study was carried out on the Multiple Attribute Decision-making papers reviewed.