A Comprehensive Decision Support Tool for Accelerated Bridge Construction

Over 35% of bridges in the United States are currently rated in fair or poor condition, highlighting ongoing challenges in maintaining safety and performance amid aging infrastructure, limited budgets, and extended repair timelines. While Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) offers a faster solution, its adoption requires comprehensive decision frameworks. This paper presents a multi-criteria decision support tool (DST) that builds on the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) ABC decision matrix. This DST quantifies the benefits of ABC for road and work zone safety, social equity, and environmental justice (SEEJ) and integrates them with structural, traffic, and construction factors to provide a comprehensive approach for determining the suitability of ABC techniques in bridge construction projects. Crash costs and corresponding safety benefits are quantified based on crash severity and frequency. While the tool incorporates both safety and SEEJ criteria, it also allows decision makers to consider either criterion individually based on their preferences. To demonstrate the applicability and benefits of the tool, it was applied to case studies in Connecticut. The results demonstrated how the considerations of safety and SEEJ can affect ABC decision-making. The presented DST is simple (Excel-based) and offers a practical and flexible tool that utilizes readily available data from national databases, making it applicable to all state DOTs across the United States.