DEVELOPMENT OF PRIORITIZATION PROGRAMME FOR MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT OF HIGHWAYS

Abstract

In a developing country like India, where the resources available for maintenance are very limited, prioritization of highway pavement is necessary to decide the maintenance programs so that depending upon the availability of the budget, the maintenance of lower ranked sections can be deferred. The cost effective utilization of limited funding, needs a procedure to identify the extent and timing of both capital improvement and periodical roadway maintenance. There is a need to develop a set of procedures that will provide a systematic evaluation of highway needs, develop priorities and rational for funding these priorities and establish short and long-range implementation programs. In the present study, six sections of National Highways are selected for the development of maintenance management system. The data on functional evaluation, structural evaluation and traffic have been collected for all the test sections and economic analysis has been done using Net Present Value (NPV) method. The methodologies used for the prioritization are Subjective Rating Method and HDM-IV. Subjective rating method is based on the Pavement Condition Index (PO) while HDM-IV is based on the maximization of the net present value of benefits per unit cost. The output of this study provide the prioritization of six highway segments depending upon the maintenance needs of the pavement. Besides prioritization, information with respect to current pavement condition, type of maintenance activity and cost required for the present as well as future needs is also obtained. Based on the present study, it is recommended to check the versatility of application of HDM-IV in Pavement Management System for Urban Areas and Low Cost Roads.