In Amsterdam, many bridges and tens of kilometres of quay walls are vulnerable and in poor condition. But this problem extends beyond Amsterdam: other municipalities also need help with the increasing pressure on their infrastructure, which is sometimes hundreds of years old. They face major maintenance tasks with costs that can run into the millions. Moreover, the short-term challenges coincide with significant transitions in climate adaptation, circularity, energy, and transport. The Urbiquay program focuses on sustainable, innovative solutions relevant to the maintenance, repair and renewal of this civil infrastructure.
The program was initiated by the Municipality of Amsterdam and AMS Institute in cooperation with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. The call for proposals was issued by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) in 2021. The program is part of the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA).
“Addressing the needs of the municipal Bridges and Quay Wall program, Urbiquay is a typical example of a scientific research program that will have a big impact on the asset management in the city”
Henk Wolfert
Program Manager Research & Valorization
Aim and objectives
The program aims to contribute to and deliver concrete knowledge for the existing ‘Bridges and Quay Walls’ program of the Municipality of Amsterdam, while at the same time contributing to the transferability of that knowledge to other contexts (other locations, circumstances, problems, or other municipalities).
Urbiquay consists of three big scientific research projects:
- LiveQuay provides an integrated assessment of the safety and performance of bridges and quay walls in a decision-support platform that is interactive and based on values from stakeholders. This project is led by Mandy Korff (Delft University of Technology).
- Stability provides the required methods to maintain historic structures while reducing construction waste and emissions, preserving the cultural heritage of cities, and keeping cities accessible, attractive, and livable. This project is led by Andreas Hartmann (University of Twente).
- Logiquay aims to develop closed-loop logistics methods and multi-project control solutions to accelerate the speed of renovations, increase control, and improve sustainability and circularity, including reusing secondary materials and reducing transport movements and emissions. This project is led by Ruben Vrijhoef (Delft University of Technology).
In addition, an umbrella project will be set up in 2023 addressing the value framework, upscaling aspects, and synthesis of overlapping topics.
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Project members
Partners
