Incorporating Dynamic Traffic Distribution into Pavement Maintenance Optimization Model

Xinhua Mao,Jiahua Gan,Changwei Yuan

doi:10.3390/su11092488

Xinhua Mao, Jiahua Gan + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092488

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Abstract

An optimal pavement maintenance strategy can keep the pavement performance at a high level under budget constraint. However, the impact of changes in traffic distribution caused by maintenance actions on user costs is rarely investigated in existing approaches. This research aims to solve the optimization of pavement maintenance strategy using a multi-stage dynamic programming model combined with the stochastic user equilibrium model, which can simulate the dynamic traffic distribution in the life cycle. To deal with the proposed model, a heuristic iterative algorithm is put forward. Ultimately, a hypothetical network is established to test the model and algorithm. The testing results prove that the proposed framework has an advantage in assessing user costs comprehensively and can provide an effective and optimal pavement maintenance strategy in a 30-year life cycle, which improves the efficiency of budget and pavement conditions. Additionally, this research provides quantitative evidence of interdependency in a road network, i.e., pavement maintenance actions on links can interfere with the user costs and traffic flow distribution in the whole network, which should be taken into account in pavement maintenance decision-making.

Highlights

Pavement provides indispensable physical facilities for transport activities, which needs periodic maintenance actions to ensure high levels of performance
An optimal pavement maintenance strategy aims to ensure that the pavements are capable of maintaining high performance in the life cycle with resource constraints, which is a tradeoff between user costs and agency costs
Traffic distribution in a road network changes dynamically because of both the change of user costs caused by pavement performance deterioration and the decrease of traffic capacity brought about by maintenance actions

Summary

Introduction

Pavement provides indispensable physical facilities for transport activities, which needs periodic maintenance actions to ensure high levels of performance. An effective maintenance plan is necessary for road managers. Many studies have been carried out focusing on pavement maintenance management, which is defined as a resource allocation strategy for pavement maintenance of road segments in one or multiple time periods [1]. The main purpose of the strategy is to reduce user costs, prolong pavement life span, and preserve the value of road assets [2]. The decision results are always based on the tradeoff between user costs and agency costs [3]. The former includes fuel consumption, travel delay, vehicle maintenance cost, etc., while the latter is mainly associated with maintenance costs

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