Modeling asset deterioration is a crucial business process within Transportation Asset management. A cost-effective Pavement Management System (PMS) requires adequate models to predict pavement deterioration. However, uncertainties related to the pavement data acquisition and condition assessment methods profoundly influence the pavement deterioration process. This research intends to evaluate the effect of pavement condition uncertainties on pavement performance and the effectiveness of maintenance treatments aiming to cost-effective management strategies based on the analysis of pavement construction available records of individual pavement sections. Data cleansing and quality policies would be discussed to efficiently integrates pavement and uncertainty considerations to provide recommended pavement preservation policies within pavement road agencies. The analysis used more than 191,000 records from the Virginia Department of Transportation pavement management system. This research will also discuss the advantages of preventive maintenance strategies over the traditional strategy of fixing the "worst first" proposing cost-effective strategies focused on preservation without exceeding budgetary limits.
This research will attempt to fill the existing gap in the current-state-of-practice, and it would assess the variability on the measurement of pavement performance using a probabilistic approach.
A significant result of the research would be the development of a comprehensive framework to determine public network and subnetwork characteristics and the use of cluster analysis for the selection of pavement sections with similar criteria, "pavement sets" of sections. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) tools would be used to enhance the pavement management process (e.g., geo-localization of pavement sections, data integration, pavement information dissemination, handling of historical pavement data).
This research will make an essential contribution to state of the art due to the use of VDOT comprehensive PMS database (with pavement historical data since 2002 collected with both manual and automatic pavement collection methods) and thanks to the expertise of the CSTI - VTTI research group.
VDOT database analysis will help to determine objective criteria for manage pavements at the network level. Funding would contribute to continuing the work done by the proponent in CSTI research group. As a result, reliable pavement performance models and pavement preservation strategies would be obtained from the European panorama, where there is still a substantial gap in the knowledge.
The results of this project address the adverse economic, environmental, and social impacts associated with today¿s urban mobility patterns as part of the European framework H2020's topics.
This research would support some capitals of the European Union that is being started to take reliable measure of their pavement network to establish criteria for the development and implementation of infrastructure management models in the most critical corridors of their pavement systems (e.g. the city of Rome, "Gara d'Appalto Sorveglianza e di monitoraggio della rete stradale di Grande Viabilità", 23.12.2017, Roma Capitale)