ABSTRACT Infrastructure development is a long term process, which cannot easily adapt to sudden change; and infrastructure assets can have long lifetimes. Poor investment choices risk locking in poor policy choices for substantial periods of time. The ‘need’ for a new infrastructure asset arises due to demographic, economic or policy changes. But historically Ireland’s infrastructure investment has also been driven, in part, by the pursuit of political / economic policies which have themselves ‘created’ infrastructure needs; and often decided on an isolated project-by-project basis. In contrast, a systems-of-systems (SoS) approach is a fusion of network modelling, consideration of various policy options, and appraisal of the impact of alternative demographic and economic scenarios on multiple systems. This paper assesses Ireland’s readiness to adopt a SoS approach to infrastructure decision-making, proposes a methodology for its development and implementation. This would enable the demand for new infrastructure to be tested under various policy scenarios, providing evidence for investment decisions.

中文翻译：

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用于战略基础设施决策的系统系统方法：以爱尔兰为例

摘要 基础设施建设是一个长期的过程，不能轻易适应突然的变化；和基础设施资产可以有很长的生命周期。糟糕的投资选择可能会在很长一段时间内锁定糟糕的政策选择。由于人口、经济或政策变化，出现了对新基础设施资产的“需求”。但从历史上看，爱尔兰的基础设施投资也在一定程度上受到政治/经济政策的推动，这些政策本身“创造”了基础设施需求；并且经常在一个单独的项目的基础上做出决定。相比之下，系统的系统 (SoS) 方法是网络建模、各种政策选择的考虑以及替代人口和经济情景对多个系统的影响的评估的融合。本文评估了爱尔兰在基础设施决策中采用 SoS 方法的准备情况，并为其开发和实施提出了一种方法论。这将使新基础设施的需求能够在各种政策情景下进行测试，为投资决策提供证据。