How can we increase the reliability of infrastructures that are vital to our economy and society? In our research, we focus on sustaining reliability in sectors like electricity, water, telecommunication, traffic (air, road, rail), internet and financial systems.
Technological, institutional and social developments have rendered these infrastructures more vulnerable than ever, but at the same time they have to fulfill increasingly stringent demands.
Due to the influence of information and communication technology, deregulation, increased environmental awareness and terrorist threats, these systems are nowadays operated and managed by networks of parties, all of them acting in their own interest and pursuing different and sometimes conflicting goals.
How to maintain stability and reliability in such a complex managerial environment? In the subprogram we ask ourselves two basic questions. The first one: what design approaches, technological innovations or interorganizational arrangements can help prevent potential, anticipated adverse effects to infrastructures before damage is done?
And second: what technological and organizational innovations are useful in coping with anticipated and unanticipated instability, the minute it manifests itself ('real time')? In other words: how can we improve the resilience of our infrastructures?
Because of great social and economic relevance of critical infrastructures we intend to set up a Reliability Knowledge Network, that will be enable participants of different kinds of utility industries to learn from similar challenges in other sectors.
For more information, contact Dr.ir. Aad Correljé.
