Priority ranking of road pavements for maintenance using analytical hierarchy process and VIKOR method

Pavement maintenance and rehabilitation to provide the desired level of service for the road users is the most challenging problem faced by the authorities. The development of a reliable pavement deterioration model is essential to formulate the appropriate maintenance policies. This exploratory paper presents the network-level pavement performance prediction models for the district roads of Odisha state, India. Three cycles of pavement distress data were collected for developing the reliable pavement deterioration models using a multi-linear regression (MLR) analysis. The developed models can benefit the authorities in predicting the pavement conditions within the network for building a comprehensive pavement management system. The pavement condition index (PCI) model was developed using IRI, deflection, cracking, rutting, and raveling as the distress parameters and validated using the deduct value method mentioned in ASTM D6433-18. The analytical hierarchy process approach was used for ranking the pavement sections in estimating the maintenance costs consistently. Also, prioritization was done using the ‘VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje’ (VIKOR) method, and the ranking was rational compared to the PCI predicted ranking.