Pavements are complex structures subjected to diverse loading and environmental conditions. Pavement structural design should handle this complexity in a rational way. The evaluation procedure used must enable the selection of a pavement design option that provides adequate performance as well as adequate distribution of life cycle cost. The research described in this paper was based on the development of an evaluation model that incorporated future maintenance activities in the initial design concepts to achieve structural safety, riding comfort, and economical costs during the life cycle span of flexible pavement structures, which is the predominant type of pavement in Egypt. Due to the complexity of the problem and the amount of data to be analysed, a computer program was developed to calculate the life cycle costs of different flexible pavement design alternatives. A second program was developed to transform the first program from a cost model to a decision support model. This program uses two decision support models to select the design option that achieves the best combination of cost, performance, and time for the considered maintenance policy. Other models are provided to help the decision maker analyse the information and make the optimal selection among all possible maintenance policies.
Abstract