Model development for optimization and prioritization of pavement maintenance for provincial road networks

Abstract

Pavement management system is a decision support system that is used by road development agencies to maintain its road networks, extending their useful life within the available budget and resource constraints. Methodology of selecting maintenance strategies for authorities is an integral component of the pavement management system. Most current systems cannot be customized to reflect the local conditions with resources available and required extensive data collection and calibration, which are not sustainable for those authorities especially in developing countries. Thus, the identification of new approaches, which have been suited for the relevant factors in developing countries in pavement management, is a major requirement. This paper proposed a methodology adopting optimization and prioritization models to be used by local provincial road agencies, which assist the decision making for selecting roads for pavement maintenance The study is focused on the existing pavement management systems, their components, institutional characteristics and their methodology to identify the main constraints that affect the pavement maintenance planning and for formulation of the maintenance strategy in the provincial road agencies. Main constraints and priority factors were identified by the opinion survey from the Engineers of provincial road agencies. Based on the opinion survey five main priority factors were finalized namely pavement condition, traffic volume, connectivity to local road network, land use pattern and importance to community. Optimization model was developed to maximize the network performance while considering the budget constraints. The proposed methodology is illustrated with a case study involving the selected provincial road network in Sri Lanka.