Alternative decision-aid tool for pavement management

Abstract

This paper presents the development and implementation of a new decision-aid tool to be used in the pavement management system of Oliveira do Hospital in Portugal. This system includes the following components: a road network database; a quality evaluation tool; a costs model; a pavement performance model; and a decision-aid tool. The current decision-aid tool uses a deterministic section-linked optimisation model with the objective of minimising the total expected discounted costs over the planning time-span while keeping the road pavements within given quality standards. The new decision-aid tool uses a deterministic section-linked optimisation model with the goal of maximising quality, performance or user benefits over the planning time-span for given annual budget levels. This new approach is suitable for road administrations that strictly adhere to known annual budgets for maintenance and rehabilitation. The current pavement quality and the constraints defined by the annual budgets determine the future quality and level of performance of the road pavements. The new decision-aid tool also uses the deterministic pavement performance model used in the flexible pavement design method of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, which allows the gap between project and network management to be resolved.