Development of a technico-economic optimization model for pavement maintenance works

Road network operators must take into account the needs for sustainable development, while offering a high level of service to users. Hence the importance of including, in the road maintenance decision tools, functions allowing a technical-economic optimization taking into account the various costs undergone by the road owner (direct and indirect costs of works), the road users (comfort, safety, travel time, consumptions), the local residents (noise and other disturbances) and the environment (local pollutions, greenhouse effect gases). This concerns the road under works as well as under normal operation. The model whose principles are described in the present paper is under development by LCPC within the framework of the SAGIR software (French acronym for System of Assistance for the Management of the Road Infrastructures). It comes in two different levels: "network" and "worksite". The optimization at the "network" level consists in adding up, for all the concerned roads, the costs and benefits of every maintenance operation applicable to every unit section. The results then allow the decision-maker to establish in an interactive way the list of the desirable construction works, by taking into account profitability, as well as budgets and other constraints, such as the grouping of the work sections or the equity in the geographical distribution. The second level consists in assessing the so defined worksites, on the basis of a complete description of the available options, with calculation of all the resulting costs and benefits. For the covering abstract see ITRD E144473.