A socio-economic analysis of Smart Infrastructure sensor technology

•We conduct a socio-economic analysis on the application of the innovative sensor technology to the rail industry.•The mean value of the cumulative net present value is estimated to be US$40 million.•According to the sensitivity analysis, the market penetration has the significant impact on outcome.

Smart Infrastructure wireless sensor technology is designed to provide a new way of managing infrastructure. These wireless sensors are able to share information on infrastructure conditions across a range of agencies without human intervention. Thus, false readings can be corrected automatically and further incidents should be avoided. The advantages of using these wireless sensors are their reliability, low-cost, low power and fast deployment characteristics. In this paper, we conduct a socio-economic analysis on the application of Smart Infrastructure sensor technology to the British rail tunnel industry using Monte Carlo simulation. The study would offer insights on the feasibility of the technology. Furthermore, the simulation forecast would bring the deeper understanding of the wider socio-economic implications, which is important for decision makers. Our study shows that the mean value of the cumulative net present value for the application of the Smart Infrastructure sensor to the British tunnel market in the year 2056 is estimated to be US$40 million. According to the sensitivity analysis, the key parameters, which have significant impacts on the net present value, are the maximum target market penetration rate, base year disruption cost due to tunnel closure, total tunnel length, and annual number of tunnel collapses.