Using a Service-Oriented Approach to Simulate Integrated Urban Infrastructure Systems

This paper explores service-oriented architectures as an approach for simulating integrated urban infrastructure as a system of systems. Models representing three individual infrastructure systems (water, transportation, and structures) are written as web services so that they can be linked through the exchange of data into an integrated system. An example application is presented in which the service-oriented approach is used to simulate an integrated urban infrastructure system in Columbia, South Carolina, during a flooding event that causes road closures. Findings of this work are that (1) service-oriented architectures are well suited for urban infrastructure system integration, primarily because of the benefit in handling model heterogeneities including differences in conceptual design and technical implementation, and (2) it is possible to extend an existing web service standard to expose models as web services to achieve a service-oriented modeling system. Results of the example application demonstrate the improvement in alleviating traffic congestion due to flooding by automating the exchange of data between the urban water modeling systems with other components of the civil infrastructure system. (C) 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.