Kristin Eklöf

National road databases often lack important information for long-term maintenance planning of paved roads. In the Swedish case, latent variables of which there are no recordings in the pavement management systems database are, for example, underlying road construction, subsoil conditions, and amount of heavy traffic measured by the equivalent single-axle load. The mixed proportional hazards model with random effects was used to capture the effect of these latent variables on a road’s risk of needing maintenance. Estimation of random effects makes it possible to identify sections that have shorter or longer lifetimes than could be expected from the observed explanatory variables (traffic load, pavement type, road type, climate zone, road width, speed limit, and bearing capacity restrictions). The results indicate that the mixed proportional hazards model is useful for maintenance planning because the weakest and strongest sections in a road network can be identified. The effect of the latent variables was visualized by plotting the random effect of each section in a map of the road network. In addition, the spatial correlation between road sections was evaluated by fitting the random effects in an intrinsic conditional autoregressive model. The spatial correlation was estimated to explain 17% of the variation in lifetimes of roads that occur because of the latent variables. The Swedish example shows that the mixed proportional hazards and intrinsic conditional autoregressive models are suitable for analyzing the effect of latent variables in national road databases.

Budget restrictions often limit the number of possible maintenance activities in a road network each year. To effectively allocate resources, the rate of road pavement deterioration is of great importance. If two maintenance candidates have an equivalent condition, it is reasonable to maintain the segment with the highest deterioration rate first. To identify such segments, finite mixture models were applied to road condition data from a part of the M4 highway in England. Assuming that data originates from two different normal distributions – defined as a ‘change’ distribution and an ‘unchanged’ distribution – all road segments were classified into one of the groups. Comparisons with known measurement errors and maintenance records showed that segments in the unchanged group had a stationary road condition. Segments classified into the change group showed either a rapid deterioration, improvement in condition because of previous maintenance or unusual measurement errors. Together with additional information from maintenance records, finite mixture models can identify segments with the most rapid deterioration rate, and contribute to more efficient maintenance decisions.

Maintenance planning of road pavement requires reliable estimates of roads’ lifetimes. In determining the lifetime of a road, this study combines maintenance activities and road condition measurements. The scope of the paper is to estimate lifetimes of road pavements in Sweden with time-to-event analysis. The model is stratified according to traffic load and includes effects of pavement type, road type, bearing capacity, road width, speed limit, stone size, and climate zone. Among the nine analyzed pavement types, stone mastic had the longest expected lifetime with a hazard ratio (risk of needing maintenance) estimated to be 36% lower than asphalt concrete. Among road types, 2+1 roads had 22% higher hazard ratio than ordinary roads indicating significantly lower lifetimes. Increased speed lowered the lifetime, while increased stone size (up to 20 mm) and increased road width lengthened the lifetime. The results are of importance for life-cycle cost analysis and road management.

This study estimates the marginal cost of using road infrastructure. Based on a large data set with information on sections of the road network, including age, pavement type, and traffic, a more disaggregate analysis of pavement life than that in the literature is facilitated. The analytical strategy enables identification of major differences in marginal costs across the road network. This establishes that the deterioration of the road quality can be attributed not only to heavy vehicles but also light vehicles such as passenger cars, a possible reason being the widespread use of studded tires in a country with regular freeze-thaw cycles. Due to the limited width of time windows of the dataset observations, no evidence could be found to support the notion that road deterioration is significantly influenced by time alone.