Pavement Resurfacing Intervals in Work Zone Optimization

Lane closures for highway resurfacing involve some intricate tradeoffs between the maintenance cost to highway agencies and the costs of delays and disruptions to motorists. Careful optimization of work zone configuration and dimensions, work schedules and traffic management plans can significantly reduce the overall costs. In addition to previously considered factors, this paper shows how the durability of the pavement and the resulting resurfacing intervals can be considered in optimizing resurfacing plans. Here a work zone optimization model is developed for multiple-lane highways with time-dependent inflows, a detour, access lanes, and time constraints as well as considering resurfacing intervals and preferred pavement thickness. The algorithm SAUASD (Simulated Annealing for Uniform Alternatives with a Single Detour) is used to find the best schedules for successive work zones. The objective is to minimize total cost, including agency cost and user cost. In the numerical examples with uniform alternatives in successive zones, thinner pavements are preferred at higher interest rates and thicker pavements are preferred at higher traffic volumes. For different priorities regarding total cost, agency cost, or user cost at different traffic levels, various resurfacing interval alternatives are recommended based on the numerical analysis.