On the scheduling of lifecycle network-level pavement maintenance: modelling and applications

Abstract

ABSTRACT Pavement maintenance is a prominent issue in road traffic systems and plays a fundamental role in ensuring the safety, mobility and comfort of road networks worldwide. This paper introduces an innovative approach for scheduling network-level pavement maintenance based on mathematical planning, guided by the principle of lifecycle cost analysis (LCCA). The primary objective is to optimise pavement performance while minimising maintenance costs, ultimately achieving cost-effectiveness. In particular, the method aims to solve the ‘2W1H’ problem (i.e. ‘Which’, ‘When’, and ‘How’), which implies identifying the specific road sections, determining an appropriate maintenance timeline, and selecting the most effective maintenance treatment for long-term pavement maintenance planning. The proposed method comprises a bi-level optimisation model. The upper layer is a multi-objective optimisation model which concurrently maximising the lifecycle pavement performance while minimising the lifecycle costs; the lower layer evaluates the impact of pavement maintenance operations on travellers' route choice behaviour by employing the user equilibrium problem to determine the change in user cost attributable to a specific maintenance scheduling scheme. A meta-heuristic algorithm is utilised to solve the model and acquire a Pareto front for multi-objective optimisation. Furthermore, we discuss the practical engineering applications under budgetary constraints and pavement performance requirements, followed by the consideration of parameter uncertainties in pavement performance prediction models. The numerical experiments demonstrate that our approach can deliver pavement maintenance scheduling outcomes across various scales of road networks, and highlight the promising potential of our approach for future pavement management endeavours.