CHARACTERISTICS OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF BRIDGES FOR TYPE SELECTION
Laxman SUNUWAR	Nagoya University	Furo-Cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-01
Yoshito ITOH	Center for Integrated Research in Science and Engineering, Nagoya University
Takayuki NISHIDO	Kawada Techno System Co.Ltd,Tokyo 116
<Abstract> Various factors govern in selecting the bridge type such as the cost, driving comfort, landscape and environmental impact of the bridge. The decision of appropriate bridge type has to be made by balancing all these factors according to the existing condition. Inclusion of the environmental impact of a bridge is a new approach in the bridge type selection and has been dealt with in this paper. A decision support system is developed, by extending previous bridge type selection system to include the above factors in a quantitative manner. Relative scores with respect to these selection factors are calculated by the bridge type selection system for each candidate bridge. Weights of these selection factors are obtained from a response of a panel of decision-makers. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to formulate the methodology of finding these weights.
<Keywords> bridge type selection, environmental impact, energy consumption, CO2emissions, selection factors