Life Cycle Cost Analysis on pavement inspection intervals considering maintenance work delay

Abstract

Inspection strategy has a significant effect on the entire working process of pavement management. Most countries or road agencies casually define their inspection intervals without careful consideration. Moreover, most conventional pavement management analysis models do not treat inspection strategy as an important issue. Thus, with an economic analysis of inspection intervals, this paper aims to give a wider publicity to the importance of inspection strategy. An improved LCCA (Life Cycle Cost Analysis) model has been developed as an analytical tool. This model can take delays into consideration, as well as estimate various LCC contents and decision indicators. Both the hypothesis and the developed LCCA model have been empirically tested with pavement data from Korean National Highways. As a result, we can confirm that 1) the inspection interval affects overall management activities and LCCA results, 2) the suggested method shows an improvement in estimation results which consider the effects of delay in maintenance, and 3) either a 2 year or 3 year interval is the most beneficial interval, from both engineering and economical perspectives. In conclusion, the inspection interval needs to be carefully determined by analysis works. It is potentially a critical index that will improve current management strategy by in-house efforts.