Cost-Benefit Highway Pavement Maintenance

Many methods used in highway maintenance plans are complex, and many agencies exclude work zone user cost components, such as vehicle operating costs, delay costs and crash costs when making project improvement decisions. The methodology developed here is intended to assist public works officials and highway engineers in the decision making process to prioritize highway maintenance funding for projects including user costs. Highway users are taxpayers, and considering the user costs in any project rehabilitation, resurfacing, and reconstruction provides the greatest return on project tax dollars spent. A simplified five-step procedure that includes user work zone costs in the selection of highway maintenance projects is developed and applied to the City of Gainesville, Florida, roadway improvement network projects. The steps are: (1) collect distress data; (2) prepare roadway networks inventory forms; (3) prepare maintenance cost plan; (4) prepare project improvements priority rankings; and (5) select and implement project rehabilitation based on priority ranking. The five steps detailed in this paper will assist highway agencies in implementing a simplified maintenance program in light of the limited funding of their agencies.