Relating Cost to Condition in Routine Highway Maintenance

When transportation agencies prepare a design for new highway construction or major improvements to existing highways, the life-cycle, agency, and user costs are considered in project design decisions. However, after highway projects are completed, maintenance budgets often do not keep pace with maintenance needs since they are rarely adjusted to accommodate the routine maintenance of new lane miles. Instead, maintenance budgets per lane mile remain relatively constant, regardless of increase in the number of vehicle miles traveled per highway mile. Thus, disparity increases between maintenance budgets and maintenance requirements, leading to difficult choices for maintenance priorities. Concerns about safety and mobility tend to trump preservation of capital investment. A study is presented of the relationship between maintenance cost and condition. With use of regression tree analysis, the study identified physical, environmental, operational, and socioeconomic parameters that influence maintenance costs for asphalt and concrete pavements, shoulders, litter pickup, vegetation control, and ditches. As a result, valid model equations will show just what kind of effect a certain investment has on the level of service. Other models will show how much investment is needed to get to a certain level of service. These models will provide information to maintenance managers about the trade-offs they will get based on the relationship of cost and maintenance, so they can make the best decision in allocating available funds.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.3141/2044-01
• 
• Summary URL:
  • http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Relating+Cost+to+Condition+in+Routine+Highway+Maintenance&author=E.+Juni&author=T.+Adams&author=D.+Sokolowski&publication_year=2008
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780309113120
• Authors:
  • Juni, Emil
  • Adams, Teresa M
  • Sokolowski, David
• Publication Date: 2008

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 3-10
• Monograph Title: Infrastructure Maintenance
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
  • Issue Number: 2044
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Asphalt pavements; Concrete pavements; Costs; Decision making; Ditches; Highway maintenance; Investments; Level of service; Maintenance management; Regression analysis; Road shoulders; Vegetation control
• Uncontrolled Terms: Fund allocation
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Finance; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; I60: Maintenance;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01108908
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780309113120
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Aug 20 2008 2:29PM