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Automation in Construction 17 (2008) 682 690

www.elsevier.com/locate/autcon

Constraint-based clustering model for determining contract packages of


bridge maintenance inspection
Ying-Mei Cheng a,b,, Sou-Sen Leu a
a

Department of Construction Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology,


43 Kee-Lung Road, Section 4, Taipei, Taiwan 10672, ROC
Department of Civil Engineering, China University of Technology, 56 Hsing-Lung Road, Section 3, Taipei, Taiwan 116, ROC
Accepted 7 December 2007

Abstract
When a number of bridges are to be maintained yearly, contract engineers need to package certain bridges based upon the specified conditions.
Traditional contract packaging is performed subjectively and manually. The purpose of this paper is to develop an objective and automatic
decision-making process for contract packaging. Contract Packaging Technique (CPT), which is derived from k-prototypes, can determine
appropriate contract packages by considering the inherent conditions of the infrastructure to be maintained. It can simultaneously handle userspecified constraints and mixed data types such as bridge locations, bridge types, bridge construction materials and maintenance costs. Validation
was performed in this study to illustrate that the CPT can effectively divide a huge bridge maintenance plan into several appropriate contract units.
2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Bridge maintenance; k-prototypes; Clustering; Contract packages

1. Introduction
Many bridges in Taiwan were designed and built 30 to 40 years
ago. They have endured public overuse and the negative
influences of the environment over their lifetimes. Today, a
majority of them are deteriorating and need to be maintained,
rehabilitated or replaced. In recent years, there have been
numerous studies in the field of bridge maintenance. Kong [1]
developed a computer program to analyse the life-cycle
performance of deteriorating structures based on system reliability. Fwa [2] proposed a genetic-algorithm-based procedure for
solving the multi-objective network-level pavement-maintenance
programming problems. Zayed [3] applied the dynamic programming (DP), integer programming (IP) and greedy heuristic (GH)
approaches to optimise a two-year budget allocation for
repainting the steel bridges in Indiana. Bandara [4] focused on
Corresponding author. Department of Construction Engineering, National
Taiwan University of Science and Technology, 43 Kee-Lung Road, Section 4,
Taipei, Taiwan 10672, ROC. Tel.: +886 2 27333141x7511; fax: +886 2 2737
6606.
E-mail addresses: yingmei.cheng@msa.hinet.net (Y.-M. Cheng),
leuss@mail.ntust.edu.tw (S.-S. Leu).
0926-5805/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2007.12.001

the development of a subjective pavement evaluation methodology for priority ranking and future condition prediction. Labi [5]
developed a model for estimating seal coating effectiveness. Chen
[6] studied 14 SPS-3 test sites in Texas to determine the
effectiveness of preventive maintenance treatments. Zayed [7]
proposed an economical model to provide a rational framework
for the alternative evaluation of the paint maintenance of steel
bridges. Morcous [8] proposed an approach that combines the use
of genetic algorithms and Markov-chain models for programming
maintenance alternatives and then applied this approach to
concrete bridge decks. Metni [9] depicted the dynamics of an
unmanned aerial vehicle for monitoring of structures and
maintenance of bridges. Lorenc [10] deeply described the Robotic
Bridge Maintenance System (RBMS) developed by the Construction Automation and Robotic Laboratory (CARL). Nevertheless, only a few studies have been conducted to package
contract units for the maintenance service. For example, Tsai [11]
used constrained fuzzy c-mean clustering algorithm for determining bridge let projects.
The traditional bridge management process is summarised
in Fig. 1 [11]. The process consists of the following four steps:
(1) bridge condition survey, (2) bridge tasks determination, (3)

Y.-M. Cheng, S.-S. Leu / Automation in Construction 17 (2008) 682690

Fig. 1. The traditional bridge management process.

bridge tasks priority setting and (4) determine maintenance


contract. During the bridge condition survey, consultant
engineers first inspect and analyse the bridge conditions, and
then propose appropriate maintenance strategies. The bridge
management engineers determine the maintenance contracts
based upon the maintenance strategies and annual budgets.
Traditionally, engineers subjectively divide a huge bridge
maintenance plan into several appropriate contract units in an
easy manner. This process is inconsistent or inaccurate. Further,
it is quite time-consuming due to the manual operation
involved. This paper aims to discuss the systematic division
of a bridge maintenance plan into appropriate contract units
based upon user-specified constraints, with special emphasis on
the bridge maintenance inspection. A clustering technique was
adopted to develop the Contract Packaging Technique (CPT) for
the determination of contract packages of bridge maintenance
inspection. Clustering is a technique that partitions a set of
objects into clusters (groups) according to the similarities
among these objects. The majority of the existing clustering
algorithms can handle either only the mixed data types or only
the user's constraints [1119]. In this paper, an effective
clustering method that appends the user's constraints to the kprototypes algorithm can simultaneously deal with both the
mixed data types and the user's constraints.
The rest of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2
reviews the state-of-the-art tendering policy and the clustering
methods. Section 3 describes the contract packaging problem.
Sections 4 and 5 discuss the methodology proposed in this
study. Section 6 displays the real applications of this study in
bridge maintenance, and Section 7 concludes the paper.

683

been conducted in Taiwan. Yen [26] conducted a study on the


tendering policy in major projects using the Taipei transit
tending experiences as an example. Wu [27] discussed the major
decision factors of the Contract Division in the Kaohsiung
Sewerage system. Wang [28] studied the tendering strategies
employed in the national expressway projects in Taiwan. Table 1
summarises the major decision factors for contract packaging for
construction projects. The rapid transit system is generally
divided into categories based upon the mileage or the structure.
The contract division of the sewerage construction system may
have to take into account the time limit for a project. Moreover,
the expressway construction system often emphasises the need
to be open to the public, at least partially. Thus, it can be
observed that the factors involved in making a decision often
depend on the engineering characteristics. The bridges included
in a bridge maintenance inspection plan are scattered around, but
a few of their inherent characteristics are similar. Hence, it is
further effective to adopt a similar technical service for the
maintenance of these similar bridge types. Therefore, besides the
distance between the bridges, it may be necessary to take the
inherent conditions into consideration when packaging bridge
maintenance projects.
Clustering is the art of finding groups in a data set. Nearly
30 years ago, biologists and social scientists began seeking
systematic ways to find groups in their data sets. Now, clustering
algorithms have numerous scientific and practical applications
such as in artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, and medical
research. In general, clustering analyses can be divided into
various categories based upon their principles and algorithms.
The classification of clustering algorithms is shown in Fig. 2
[29,30]. The traditional clustering methods include the following: 1) Partitioning methods such as k-medoids, CLARANS [31]
and k-means [32,33]; 2) Hierarchical methods [34,35]; 3)
Density-based methods such as DBSCAN [36]; and 4) Gridbased methods such as CLIQUE [37], STING [38], MAFIA
[39], etc. The traditional clustering methods have various
advantages such as being generally simple, using little CPU time
and being easy to apply to large database systems. However, the
traditional clustering algorithms cannot effectively deal with the
constraint problems. Both Tung et al. [40] and Qian et al. [41]
have developed constraint-clustering algorithms. They mainly
deal with only the numerical attributes. To overcome this
limitation, the k-prototypes algorithm proposed by Huang [19]
can treat mixed data efficiently; however, it cannot deal with the

2. Literature review

Table 1
The major decision factors in engineering contract packaging

The published works related to construction tendering can be


generally classified into two major categories. One focuses on
contractor prequalification or contractor selection from the
owner's perspective [2023]. The other emphasises on analysing factors determining the degree of subcontracting [24] or
supporting management in subcontracting rating from the
contractor's perspective [25]. Thus far, relatively few studies
have surveyed the contract packaging problem, particularly in
the case of the infrastructure maintenance. A few studies have

Rapid transit system

Sewerage system

Expressway

1. Engineering
characteristic
2. Time limit for a project
3. Construction resource
4. Budget

1. Time limit for a


project
2. Work environment
3. Owner risk
4. Participant's ability

1. Requirement to open
to traffic partially
2. Small firms cultivated
3. Construction interface
4. Capacity of construction
firms

5. Work interface
6. Construction
resource

684

Y.-M. Cheng, S.-S. Leu / Automation in Construction 17 (2008) 682690

Fig. 2. Classification of clustering algorithms.

constraint problem. In this study, the k-prototypes model was


improved by appending constraint handling algorithms. This
new algorithm can simultaneously handle the constraints and the
mixed data types.
3. Bridge maintenance inspection
In the traditional contract packaging for bridge maintenance
inspection, contract engineers subjectively group the bridges to
be maintained into several packages based upon the bridge
locations. They generally do not take bridge types or construction material of the bridges into consideration. Nevertheless,
each company has its speciality; for example, some companies
specialise in steel bridges. If the maintenance package includes
similar bridge types, the bridge maintenance may be handled
more effectively. Moreover, from the owners' perspective, a cost
limit for each contract package may be necessary. A construction
firm owns limited in-house manpower; if the contract amount
goes beyond its capacity, the management and the allocation of
the in-house manpower may be deficient.
There are approximately 382 bridges in Taipei, Taiwan. Fig. 3
(a) depicts the ratios of the bridge materials, and Fig. 3(b) depicts
the ratios of the bridges based upon their purposes. Three-fourths

of these bridges are RC bridges, and approximately half are


mixed purpose. Due to the deterioration and overuse of the
bridges, the Taipei government has decided to inspect all the
bridges to generate an appropriate maintenance program. There
are four main attributes of bridge maintenance: location, bridge
type, material and inspection cost. The bridge location and cost
attributes are numerical, and the others are categorical. The total
annual inspection cost for Taipei city is approximately
$60 million NT dollars (New Taiwan dollar). The material
types include reinforced concrete, steel and hybrid bridges (RC
and steel). The bridge types include pedestrian subways, undercrossing boxes, foot bridges, viaducts, channel or river bridges,
tunnels, etc. This paper proposes a new clustering algorithm to
resolve the contract packaging problem. This algorithm needs to
simultaneously treat the mixed data and constraints. The
grouping results between only the location attributes and the
other attributes plus a cost limit for each cluster will be compared
and discussed.
4. Contract packaging algorithm
As explained above, there are four decision variables for
bridge inspection contract packaging; they are bridge material,

Y.-M. Cheng, S.-S. Leu / Automation in Construction 17 (2008) 682690

685

location, bridge type, and inspection cost. In this study, based


upon the basic algorithm of the k-prototypes model [19],
inspection cost is selected to act as a constrained attribute to
limit the clusters within a range. Besides, a constrained
function (CF) is added to the objective function of the kprototypes; the objective function is revised as follows:

P W ; Q

Minimise

k 
X


Pl r Plc CF

l1

In Eq. (1),

Pl r

n
X

wi;l

i1

Plc g

n
X
i1

Fig. 3. The component ratios of the bridge data set.

p
X

2
xi; j  ql; j

j1

wi;l

m
X



d xi; j ; ql; j

jp1

Eq. (2) is the squared Euclidean distance measure of the


numeric attributes, and Eq. (3) is the simple matching
dissimilarity measure of the categorical attributes. CF can
add up and record the distances between the objects within the
clusters after any necessary moving of the objects between
clusters. The steps involved in moving the objects are described

Fig. 4. The steps involved in moving an object in CPT.

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Y.-M. Cheng, S.-S. Leu / Automation in Construction 17 (2008) 682690

Fig. 5. The CPT flow chart.

in Fig. 4. The value of CF varies when the objects are moved;


the equation is as follows:
X
DP r DP c
4
CF

value of CV satisfies the condition; otherwise, directly go


to (4). When moving an object, add up and record the
variance of the distances using CF. Rewrite W. (4) Let
, Q) to obtain Q t + 1. If P(W
, Q t )=P(W
,
=W t and solve P(W
W
t +1
t

Q ), output W, Q and stop; otherwise, go to (5). (5) Let


) to obtain W t + 1. Repeat (2) and
Qt + 1 and solve P(W, Q
Q
t
), output W t, Q
and stop;
(3). If P(W , Q) =P (W t + 1, Q
otherwise, let t=t +1, and go to (4).

To evaluate the performance of CPT, a simulated data set and


two real data sets were used. The result is described in the next
section.

(1) If the constrained attribute is over the upper limit, then


DPr xva

p
X

j1

j1

m
X

DPc gxvo

p
X

2
2
xv;j  qo;j xva
xv;j  qa;j

m
X




d xv;j ; qo;j gxva
d xv;j ; qa;j

jp1

jp1

5. Algorithm testing and evaluation


(2) If the constrained attribute is below the lower limit, then
DPr xvo

p
X

j1

DPc g

m
X
jp1

p
X
2

2
xv;j  qo;j xvs
xv; j  qs;j

5.1. Testing and evaluation


7

j1
m
X




d xv;j ; qo;j  g
d xv;j ; qs;j

The CPT algorithm was coded by using the MATLAB 6.5


programming language. First, a few data sets were simulated to
test the performance of CPT by comparing with the results of

jp1

where xv,j :j attribute of the moving object v, qo,j: Center


of j attribute of the original cluster, qa,j: Center of j
attribute of the acceptable cluster, and qs,j: Center of j
attribute of the supply cluster. The weight is used to
avoid favouring either type of attribute. The flow chart is
shown in Fig. 5, and its algorithm is as follows: (1)
Choose an initial Q0 and solve P(W, Q0) to obtain W0.
Set t = 0. (2) Calculate the total value of the constrained
attribute value (CV) for every cluster. Compare it with the
upper and the lower limits. (3) If the value of CV does not
satisfy the limiting condition, move the objects until the

Fig. 6. The calculation time ratio of CPT and k-prototypes.

Y.-M. Cheng, S.-S. Leu / Automation in Construction 17 (2008) 682690

687

Table 3
Purity validation (entropy measure)
Cluster number

k=2

Group attribute

k=3
B

k=4
B

Material
Type

0.2958
0.4804

0.2762
0.4746

0.2933
0.5645

0.2774
0.4680

0.2921
0.5497

0.2590
0.2958

Approach A: consider only bridge location, grouped by k-means.


Approach B: consider bridge location, cost, bridge material and type, grouped
by CPT.

Fig. 7. The objective function ratios of CPT and Bradley's method.

the k-prototypes [19] and the Bradley's method [13]. Fig. 6


shows the calculation (CPU) time of CPT and k-prototypes. The
CPU time of the original k-prototypes and that of CPT is
approximately equal in this study. Furthermore, the Wisconsin
Diagnostic Breast Cancer data set (WDBC) [42] is used to test
the performance quality of CPT. Fig. 7 shows the ratios of the
test performance results of CPT as compared to those of the
Bradley's method [13]. The value of indicates that every
resultant cluster contains at least number of objects and the yaxis shows the ratios of the objective function values from the
constrained clustering methods and the standard k-means. The
performance of CPT follows a trend that is similar to that
observed in the Bradley's method and the performance of CPT
is better than that of the Bradley's method. This is because the
value of of CPT is always greater than that of the Bradley's
method when the ratios are greater than 1. Finally, the credit
approval data set [43] is used to test the accuracy of CPT. In this
case, the objects are classified into two clusters, and the number
of objects in each cluster is limited to a range; the accuracy of
CPT is then observed. A misclassification matrix was used to
analyse the correspondence between the clusters and the
original classes. Table 2 shows the result. The average value
of r is approximately 0.8, and the result is similar to that of
Huang [19]. The abovementioned test proves that CPT can
generate efficient, accurate and reasonable objective values, as
compared to the k-prototypes and Bradley's method.
5.2. Entropy validation
In general, there are two types of clustering validation
techniques that are based on external criteria and internal

criteria. Entropy is a commonly used type of external validation


technique. It is used to measure the amount of uncertainty,
surprise or randomness in a data set. The value of entropy
ranges between 0 and 1. Indeed, when all the data in a set belong
to a single class, there is no uncertainty, and
the entropy is zero.
s
P
For probabilities p1, p2,, p3 where
pi 1, entropy is
i1
defined as follow [44]:
El P1 ; P2 ; :::; P3

s
X

pi log1=pi :

11

i1
k
P

The total entropy E nnl El for a set of clusters is computed as


l1
the weighted sum of the entropies of each cluster, where nl is the
size of cluster l, k is the number of clusters and n is the total
number of bridges. As shown in Table 3, as compared to
approach A wherein only the locations are taken into
consideration, CPT produces the lower value. This implies
that CPT is more useful than k-means in resolving the contract
packaging problem.
6. Contract packaging and discussion
382 Taipei bridges were divided into 2 to 4 groups (contract
packages). Figs. 8 and 9 show the grouping results with cluster
numbers 2 and 3, respectively. Table 4 depicts the details of the
maintenance contract packaging. Fig. 8 shows the results by
taking only the bridge locations into consideration. Fig. 9 shows
the results by simultaneously taking into consideration the bridge
locations, costs, bridge materials and types and the cost limits.
According to these figures, more spatial concentration is obtained
in the traditional packaging approach wherein only the bridge
locations are taken into consideration. Nevertheless, it does not
mean that the traditional approach has an advantage over CPT.
The inspection costs and components in each group are shown in
Table 4. There are a few bridge types that did not appear in any

Table 2
The r-value of different constraints
Constraint

n N 250

n N 300

n N 330

n b 340

n b 400

0.8018

0.8100

0.8000

0.8000

0.8018

Constraint

250 b n b 340

250 b n b 400

300 b n b 340

300 b n b 400

330 b n b 340

330 b n b 4000

0.7973

0.8018

0.7973

0.8018

0.7943

0.7943

688

Y.-M. Cheng, S.-S. Leu / Automation in Construction 17 (2008) 682690

maintenance cost of all bridges. Table 6 provides the objective


values when k = 2, 3, and 4, and RV is set to the following
values: (1) the average of the maintenance cost of all the
bridges, (2) the maximum of the maintenance cost of all the
bridges and (3) the average of (1) and (2). The objective value is
obtained from the average of the results by testing each
combination a hundred times. Each of the test values of the
standard deviation (SD) and the coefficient of variation (CV) is
listed in Table 6 to observe the trend. When the constraints
range or cluster number is higher, the objective value or CV is
lower, i.e., even if the initial cluster value is random, the result
approaches the average objective value. However, if the
constraints range is set too high, it results in a very erratic
cluster cost. Engineers need to set a maximum range on the
allowable conditions in order to obtain the smallest minimum
objective value possible.
7. Conclusions
Fig. 8. Bridge projects grouped by only the location attribute.

group (the object number is zero). This condition can purge the
contract package, promote similarity in each contract package
and, thus, improve the contractor's work efficiency. Obviously,
Table 4(b) has more zero appearances than 4 (a). Hence, CPT is
better than the traditional packaging approach.
According to the abovementioned analysis, if engineers
choose k = 3 to create contract packages, Table 5(a) shows the
entropy value of considering different conditions to group the
382 bridges. Besides considering only the bridge locations and
all the attributes of the bridge data set, it adds more conditions,
including C: no bridge type, D: no bridge material and E: no
bridge location. Table 5(b) shows the total entropy value. The
total entropy was calculated as follows:
a  materialentropy b  typeentropy ; a b 1

For convenient management or attracting competitive


contractors, it is important to divide a project into appropriate
components. This paper provides an objective and automatic
decision-making process in the maintenance phase by considering the inherent characteristics of the infrastructure. In this
study, an effective constraint-based clustering algorithm derived
from the k-prototypes has been proposed. This algorithm can
simultaneously treat mixed data types and user-specified
constraints. The testing results demonstrate that CPT can
generate efficient, accurate and reasonable objective values, as
compared to the k-prototypes and Bradley's method. Using this
method, if engineers set the cluster number and the specific
constraint for each cluster, the system will automatically build
the optimum cluster results depending on the similarity among
the objects. In the bridge maintenance and inspection process

11

According to Table 5(b), no matter the material or type,


condition E has the minimum value. It implies that if bridge
location is not used to group bridges, the bridges are further
similar in each group, and the result is convenience for
contractors; this improves their performance. Therefore, if the
bridges are scattered in a small city such as Taipei, location is
an unimportant attribute to determine the contract packages.
Another important factor influencing the clustering model is
the range of cost limits. When the lower or upper bounds for the
total maintenance cost of each cluster was chosen, an
appropriate range value (RV) was set to avoid the failure of
the cluster process, given by the following equation:
B
FRV
k

12

where B is the total maintenance cost; k, the number of clusters;


and RV, the range value. Basically, RV of each cluster is set
between the average maintenance cost and the maximum

Fig. 9. Bridge projects grouped by all the attributes plus constraint.

Y.-M. Cheng, S.-S. Leu / Automation in Construction 17 (2008) 682690

689

Table 4
The number of bridges in each cluster and their components
(a) Grouped by only bridge location; did not consider cost constraint

(b) Grouped by bridge location, cost, bridge material and type; consider cost constraint

Table 5
Sensitivity analyses for k = 3
(a) Purity validation (entropy measure) for k = 3
Grouping attribute

Material(entropy)
Type(entropy)

0.2933
0.5645

0.2774
0.4680

0.2960
0.5797

0.2774
0.4630

0.1419
0.4424

(b) Total entropy


a

0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1.0

1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0

0.5645
0.5374
0.5103
0.4831
0.4560
0.4289
0.4018
0.3747
0.3475
0.3204
0.2933

0.4680
0.4489
0.4299
0.4108
0.3918
0.3727
0.3536
0.3346
0.3155
0.2965
0.2774

0.5797
0.5514
0.5230
0.4946
0.4663
0.4379
0.4095
0.3811
0.3528
0.3244
0.2960

0.4630
0.4445
0.4259
0.4073
0.3888
0.3702
0.3517
0.3331
0.3145
0.2960
0.2774

0.4424
0.4124
0.3823
0.3522
0.3222
0.2921
0.2621
0.2320
0.2020
0.1719
0.1419

A: consider only bridge location; B: consider bridge location, cost, bridge


material and type; C: no bridge type; D: no bridge material; E: no bridge
location.

employed in this study, the similarity has been defined by the


following four attributes: location, inspection cost, bridge
material and type; the cost limit was the specific constraint for
each group. The user can define any other attributes or
constraints, if needed, in the real case. In the course of future
research, firstly, other optimisation methods such as Tabu
Search can be used. Secondly, since maintenance work is
related to time, adding time series concepts into the cluster
processing remains to be explored.

Table 6
Objective values under different cluster numbers and RV
k Average cost (1)
Objective Coefficient
value
of variation
2 380.98
3 329.19
4 290.99

12.24%
7.79%
11.78%

Average of (1) and (2)

Maximum cost (2)

Objective Coefficient
value
of variation

Objective Coefficient
value
of variation

349.46
329.08
284.67

349.02
326.09
287.99

0.00%
6.96%
12.07%

0.00%
6.39%
9.58%

690

Y.-M. Cheng, S.-S. Leu / Automation in Construction 17 (2008) 682690

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