Highway Resurfacing Research Articles

Towards Road Sustainability—Part II: Applied Holistic Assessment and Lessons Learned from French Highway Resurfacing Strategies

Roads are major transportation infrastructure whose sustainability of maintenance practices has never been holistically assessed due to a lack of a proper method. This paper applies a newly developed assessment method (see article part I) on a 10-km-long section of French highway to fully compare the performance of various types of pavement resurfacing policies, for all the maintenance stakeholders, and considering pavement–vehicle interaction (PVI). After presenting the highway section and the parametrization of the model, four alternative resurfacing frequencies are compared to the French standard maintenance scenario over the pavement lifespan. Results show that increasing resurfacing frequency generates gains in terms of domestic production and employment, environmental damage (health, biodiversity, resources), user budgets, and local residents’ health damage created by traffic noise. Conversely, it entails financial losses for the road operator and government (tax revenues and net present value), as well as time losses for users. On the contrary, the consequences of a decrease in this frequency are the opposite. Excess fuel consumption due to PVI governs the scale of the environmental and financial gains or losses of highway maintenance policies. Optima in terms of health returns on investment and user savings appear to be around a 50% increase in maintenance funding: for each additional euro spent by the operator, there is a user gain of 3.5 euros and a human health gain of 710 euros. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the marginal gains are highly sensitive to the thickness of the resurfacing technique for macroeconomic indicators, global Net Present Value, and operator savings, while the gains are proportional to the traffic and International Roughness Indicator deterioration speed for tax revenue, users’ savings, time savings, noise, and environmental metrics. The other indicators are either slightly or not sensitive to these parameters. To conclude, the entire road maintenance system must be redesigned, from the tax system and funding schemes to the prioritization of road “green practices”, to align all the stakeholders’ interests towards a globally more sustainable road system.

Environmental Benefits of Cold-in-Place Recycling

The conventional highway resurfacing technique of mill and overlay (M&O) partially removes the existing pavement and replaces it with asphalt derived from some recycled but mostly virgin materials. Cold-in-place recycling (CIR) is an alternative highway resurfacing method that partially mills the existing pavement and uses it beneath a thinner layer of new asphalt. CIR has become widely used for convenience and cost benefits, but the environmental impacts are poorly quantified. The objective of this study was to quantify the environmental life cycle benefits of using CIR for highway resurfacing instead of M&O. Material quantities and equipment used for CIR and what would have been used in M&O for the same project were provided by contractors for nine highway resurfacing projects in Wisconsin. With this information, a life cycle assessment (LCA) tool was used to determine the relative environmental impacts of the two methods, with energy consumption, water usage, and carbon dioxide emissions chosen as the metrics of the LCA. Results show average environmental savings of 23% in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions and 20% in water consumption when using CIR instead of M&O for highway resurfacing. Additionally, CIR reduced virgin aggregate consumption by 37%. Environmental savings achieved by using CIR were found to be directly related to the reduction in volume of new hot mix asphalt (HMA) used, and to the reduction in transportation of materials to and from the site. Linear correlations that can be used to estimate savings of future CIR projects were projected.

Costs and benefits of highway resurfacing: a case study of Interstate 465 in Indiana, USA

Highway restoration projects reduce subsequent agency maintenance costs while providing user and community benefits through travel time savings, safety enhancement and reduced emissions. However, in implementing the project, significant costs are borne by the agency (paying the contractor), the user (workzone delays) and the community (emissions associated with the production process). It is useful to quantify these impacts and to assess the benefit–cost trade-offs that exist within and across the various stakeholder categories. This paper presents a case study that carries out evaluation of a highway pavement resurfacing project in terms of the various costs and benefits that are incurred by three key stakeholders: the agency, user and community. Recognising that most costs and benefits are strongly related to the pavement condition, the paper first determines the impacts of the resurfacing project on the pavement condition. This paper not only provides an assessment of the overall economic efficiency of a resurfacing project, but also sheds light on the trade-offs that highway decision makers implicitly encounter in terms of the stakeholder costs and benefits.

Do federal davis-bacon and disadvantaged business enterprise regulations affect aggressive bidding? evidence from highway resurfacing procurement auctions

Previous empirical studies examine the effect of asymmetries across bidders on auction outcomes. This paper tests for asymmetries in behavior when bidders are confronted with different regulatory environments. Data from federal and state highway resurfacing projects in Colorado are used to determine if bids are more aggressive when contractors switch from federal projects, with Davis-Bacon prevailing wage and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise regulations, to less-regulated state projects. Results from fixed effects estimates of winning bids indicate that the level of aggressive bidding is not altered with a change in regulations, at least not with respect to the policies and types of projects examined here.

Simulation-based model for optimizing highways resurfacing operations

Work zone length in the highways’ resurfacing is an important factor that should be determined before the start of work. This factor influences the time and cost of the project. This paper presents a framework that is dedicated for determining the optimum length of highway resurfacing work zone. The framework estimates the total duration and total cost of resurfacing by conducting simulation analysis to model the resurfacing operations of highways to account associated uncertainties. The framework analyzes resurfacing of highways and divides them into zones. The lengths of these zones depend on minimum total cost and minimum duration. The framework consists of two modules; simulation and optimization. Simulation module is responsible for estimating total duration for each work zone. Whereas, optimization module optimizes the total cost including direct resurfacing operation, indirect/overhead costs, and the impact of work on road users’ costs. The latter costs include queuing delay cost, moving delay cost, accident cost. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the practical use of the framework.

Prices of Highway Resurfacing Projects in Economic Downturn: Lessons Learned and Strategies Forward

AbstractIt was observed that economic downturns were typically associated with oil price shocks. Based on historical construction data from highway resurfacing projects in Kentucky, this paper investigates the relationship between oil price, Kentucky diesel price index (KDPI), Kentucky asphalt price index (KAPI), and construction cost of highway resurfacing projects. It was found that the bidding price of a commonly used asphalt mixture was significantly affected by four factors: KDPI, KAPI, number of bidders, and a recession factor primarily attributable to the “sticky prices” effect. The KDPI and KAPI can be estimated from the oil price by regression models. The sensitivity of the asphalt mixture and resurfacing project costs to oil price variation was analyzed. On the basis of the analysis result, it is suggested that the highway agencies may avoid the oil price peak typically preceding a recession and take advantage of the oil price plunge after the recession starts. However, in the long run, the agen...

Statistical Modeling of User Perceptions of Infrastructure Condition: Application to the Case of Highway Roughness

In determining certain infrastructure rehabilitation needs, it is sometimes important to consider user perceptions along with physical measures of infrastructure condition. Pavement roughness is one such case. A critical determinant of public satisfaction, user perception of pavement roughness can potentially play a critical role in the allocation of resources to competing highway resurfacing projects. In this paper, to gain a better understanding of user perceptions of pavement roughness, users were placed in real-world driving conditions and asked to rank the roughness of specific roadway segments. Coupled with individual-specific, pavement-specific, and vehicle-specific data, users’ roughness rankings were modeled using a random effects ordered probit specification. The model identified a number of key factors influencing user roughness rankings. The results indicate that, while physical roadway-roughness measurements, such as the measured International Roughness Index, provided a strong indication of user roughness rankings (as one might expect), other factors such as the type of vehicle used, vehicle speed, individual’s age, individual’s gender, and interior vehicle noise levels were also significant. This study fills an important gap in the literature by linking physical infrastructure measurements with individual perceptions of infrastructure condition.

Work Zone Optimization for Two-Lane Highway Resurfacing Projects with an Alternate Route

Pavements on two-lane two-way highways are usually resurfaced by closing one lane at a time. Vehicles then travel in the remaining lane along the work zone, alternating directions within each control cycle. In an earlier work, Chen and Schonfeld developed a work zone optimization model for two-lane highways with time-dependent inflows and no detours, based on simulated annealing. In this paper, several alternatives are evaluated, defined by the number of closed lanes and fractions of traffic diverted to alternate routes. The algorithm referred to as SAUASD (simulated annealing for uniform alternatives with a single detour) is developed to find the best single alternative within a resurfacing project. The algorithm referred to as SAMASD (simulated annealing for mixed alternatives with a single detour) is developed to search through possible mixed alternatives and their diverted fractions, to minimize total cost, further including agency cost (resurfacing cost and idling cost) and user cost (user delay cost and accident cost). Thus, traffic management plans are developed with uniform or mixed alternatives within a two-lane highway resurfacing project.

Work Zone Optimization for Two-Lane Highway Resurfacing Projects with an Alternate Route

Pavements on two-lane two-way highways are usually resurfaced by closing one lane at a time. Vehicles then travel in the remaining lane along the work zone, alternating directions within each control cycle. In an earlier work, Chen and Schonfeld developed a work zone optimization model for two-lane highways with time-dependent inflows and no detours, based on simulated annealing. In this paper, several alternatives are evaluated, defined by the number of closed lanes and fractions of traffic diverted to alternate routes. The algorithm referred to as SAUASD (simulated annealing for uniform alternatives with a single detour) is developed to find the best single alternative within a resurfacing project. The algorithm referred to as SAMASD (simulated annealing for mixed alternatives with a single detour) is developed to search through possible mixed alternatives and their diverted fractions, to minimize total cost, further including agency cost (resurfacing cost and idling cost) and user cost (user delay cost and accident cost). Thus, traffic management plans are developed with uniform or mixed alternatives within a two-lane highway resurfacing project.

Holistic enhancement of the production analysis of bituminous paving operations

The construction and repair of highways are becoming very important in these days of crumbling infrastructure. Costs for these projects have continued to increase. In order for contractors to stay competitive, it is essential that their construction operations be as productive as possible. Money for research usually does not exist for the average contractor. An inexpensive solution for production studies is process simulation, which can help improve the productivity of construction operations. This paper focuses on the paving cycle of a highway resurfacing project, using MicroCyclone simulation software. The process modelling using MicroCyclone is applied readily to any construction cyclic process, and aids the engineer in determining the most economical and efficient way to plan resources for processes. Different production parameters are measured and translated to a utility factor that indicates the performance of the system. Results from the utility factor perspective are considered more sensitive in decision making, owing to the holistic nature of the utility factor. Numerous statistical runs were undertaken, and parameters were weighted and averaged. Based on the holistic analysis, it was possible to establish that 12 trucks were optimal for the system, a determination that cannot be made using deterministic analysis, but that a 7% waste of resources was unavoidable with the existing system of resources. This paper highlights the analytical method of using MicroCyclone output to generate useful information that can be used to compare in detail the performance of different scenarios.

Integrated System to Develop Highway Rehabilitation Projects

Highway resurfacing, restoration, rehabilitation, and reconstruction can extend the life of an existing facility. At the same time, enhanced safety can be engineered into a project by making improvements to other features that relate to, for example, bridge improvements, minor widening of lanes and shoulders, and minor alterations to horizontal and vertical alignment, in addition to pavement resurfacing and repair. Recent rehabilitation projects in California that were expanded to include safety enhancements resulted in original projct-cost estimates underestimating costs, often by millions of dollars. This paper presents an integrated database-management expert-system computer program (4RSCOPE), which is a design tool to address this problem. The program has been developed to allow Caltrans engineers to gather data from both office records and field assessments, determine the design features to be included, and thus determine the project scope. The program is expected to become the standard system used by district engineers statewide in California to develop rehabilitation projects.

System Preservation Needs

Transportation planning has traditionally emphasized the analysis of major capital investments involving new facilities or significant capacity increases. In recent years, however, transportation system management and system preservation improvements have received increasing attention. It is generally acknowledged now that the basic transportation systems are in place and that, as these facilities grow older and the costs of new major investments increase beyond affordable levels, the funding levels devoted to preserving and rehabilitating the existing transportation facilities will become a larger proportion of transportation agency budgets. The most important system preservation expenditure categories and the approach used to estimate needs by the Maryland Department of Transportation are described herein. In Maryland, the largest system preservation needs are highway resurfacing and bridge rehabilitation. The largest nonhighway system preservation needs are for bus replacement, representing about 10% o...