Selecting a road network maintenance strategy to achieve the operator's objectives

Comparing alternative road network maintenance strategies in order to select the most suitable one rely on several decision criteria. The most important of these criteria are the expected distress condition of the pavement after applying a given strategy for several years and the costs it requires. The condition of the pavement is captured by distress indicators whose values are computed by combining the lnormalr evolution of distress (calculated by appropriate evolution models) and the effects of maintenance as defined by the strategy. An important challenge for comparing strategies is that these evaluation criteria are often conflictual: a strategy that improves most of indicators can send the cost soaring, while another strategy that improves one indicator with a moderate cost can be ineffective improving other indicators. Therefore, selecting the better strategy is a multiple criteria decision problem governed by the managerrs preferences regarding the importance of different criteria. In order to solve it, the ELECTRE III multi-criteria decision method is used.