Infrastructure upgrading projects in slum areas face a number of challenges that are not common to those of similar projects in planned areas. These challenges stem from (1) the heavily-congested and unplanned nature of a slum, which results in a series of logistical challenges; and (2) the fact that slum dwellers reside in and around the upgrading project sites, which raises the level of resistance to project execution. As such, slum infrastructure upgrading projects face high risks of prolonged project duration and increased construction costs. This paper focuses on sanitary networks upgrading projects in slum areas. In these projects, the unplanned nature of the slum is manifested in the undocumented variations in road widths and their steep slopes as well as the ever changing urban characteristics of the area. It is common, under such conditions, for contractors to be forced to use different construction methods. Furthermore, these projects are expected to face high levels of dwellers' resistance because of the socioeconomic disturbance resulting from the construction activities. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper proposes an automated heuristic-based planning model capable of prioritizing the upgrading phases and selecting the suitable construction methods to accelerate the delivery of service to slum dwellers. To this end, the model computes the rate of service delivery under different construction scenarios and hence accounts for the expected resistance in cases of late delivery. The model processes the urban characteristics of slum areas and topography data as well as the proposed sanitary network design in order to generate the optimal order of upgrading phases and the optimal selection of construction equipment. An application example is presented to demonstrate the use of the model and its capabilities.
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