Dr. Rade Hajdin
President and Founding Partner
Infrastructure Management Consultants Ltd
Switzerland

Biography
Prof. Dr. Rade Hajdin is president of Infrastructure Management Consultants GmbH, company providing consultant, development and research services in field of infrastructure management, located in Zürich, Switzerland. Prof. Hajdin is president of the Technical Committee 7 "Preservation Management" of Swiss Association for Road and Transport Professionals (VSS) and is also professor at the University of Belgrade, where he leads the group for maintenance and management of concrete structures at the Faculty of Civil Engineering. Prof. Hajdin has over 25 years of experience in design of structure and in field of infrastructure management.

Abstract
GIS in Infrastructure Management – Opportunities and Challenges

The importance of civil infrastructure to the society cannot be overestimated and is often related to the enormous investments in its construction. The benefit of these investments is reflected in the economic growth and increasing life quality. Maintaining it on the long run in economically efficient, environmentally friendly and socially reconcilable manner is the fundamental task of infrastructure owners or operators. In fulfilment of this task they face threats that are driven by ever increasing demand, deterioration, climate change and stiffer economic environment. The decision on sometimes costly measures to maintain or increase the benefit of civil infrastructure has to be carefully balanced between technically feasible options. The optimum measure is the one, which ensure the maximum long term availability of existing infrastructure at the minimum cost. The quest for such measure can be markedly facilitated with the use of GIS. The GIS is ideal platform to integrate all data necessary to simulate the long term behavior of the infrastructure components and evaluate the consequences of the possible courses of actions. In particular the interdependence of different infrastructure stemming from their geographic proximity can be adequately modeled in GIS. Similarly, the parts of infrastructure affected by natural hazard can be assessed by judicious use of GIS. The talk gives the overview of the opportunities and addressing the challenges that have to be mastered in the future.