Abstract
Transportation infrastructures are essential for supporting any community activity, from economical function to emergency services. The importance of maintaining the infrastructure in serviceable conditions must be evaluated in relation to the impact that maintenance activities may induce to the communities served by roadways. Pavement repair is composed of different activities characterized by time, efficiencies, performance, and personnel availability, and the optimization of such activities can definitely limit the impact on the overall roadway service. The methodology proposed in this study is centered on fuzzy reasoning and aims to quantify the repair rate and, therefore, the impact of the overall activity. As in the examples proposed in the analysis, based on the repair size and thicknesses, road classification, and traffic, the maintenance agency has the possibility of making a sound choice in road closure or establishing a detour for a limited period of time. Combining the model results with additional knowledge about the repair location and roadway service level at the moment of the repair, agencies have the ability to reassign equipment, crews, or other element, with the objective of minimizing the construction activity impact on the community. The model’s results are promising; successive steps consist of tailoring such a model with each agency-specific scenarios, equipment fleet and related performance, crew skill level, and lastly, roadway network configuration.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.