Expert (advisory) systems are designed to improve productivity and the quality of decisions by making computers more useful. The objectives are accomplished by providing the user with a better understanding of the program knowledge base through enhanced explanation facilities. An effort at the pennsylvania transportation institute (pti) of the pennsylvania state university to develop an advisory system for pavement management activities is described. The knowledge base for the advisory system incorporates the current treatment decision criteria of the pennsylvania department of transportation's roadway management system, the systematic technique to analyze and manage pennsylvania's pavements. Pti researchers emphasized the integrationof a data base with the advisory system. If users of this system have access to a data base, they can quickly obtain physical, traffic, and pavement condition information for a particular roadway segmentfor review and then concentrate their efforts on selecting appropriate maintenance strategies. The application was developed using a commercially available expert system shell. It is currently limited torigid pavements and provides an interactive environment to assist the user in determining appropriate maintenance strategies, includingestimated cost, for a particular roadway segment. The application can also analyze multiple roadway segments to assist an engineer withproject development activities. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1276, Maintenance management 1990: proceedingsof a workshop, jackson, mississippi, july 25-27, 1990.
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