Model for Benchmarking a Pavement Maintenance Budget for Sustainable Road Transport Infrastructure

Abstract

Road agencies worldwide are investing billions of dollars on road maintenance. Pavement management system is often used to forecast the pavement maintenance cost and for prioritisation of the road sections for rehabilitation. This paper examines an approach for forecasting road network maintenance budget using road network condition as a basis for estimating future maintenance cost. The study establishes the relationship between the road pavement maintenance budgets with the pavement condition indices for road networks for several local government authorities in Southeast Queensland. A budget projection model will be developed using the maintenance cost and condition indices relationship. In addition, a pavement sustainability index will also be developed to demonstrate the gap in the maintenance funding. The budget projection model enables local councils to benchmark their maintenance expenditure and road network condition with other councils nationwide.