Highway maintenance managers, at state and district levels, will find this report helpful in the difficult task of establishing levels of service for different elements of a highway that are consistent with regard to multiple and often conflicting conserations such as safety, riding comfort, economics, environmental impact, protection of investment, and aesthetics. Systems analysts will find the report helpful in explaining the application of decision analysis principles to maintenance planning. The report provides a procedure that allows for different levels of service to be established for various maintenance conditions, road classifications, and local values. Local values are reflected in the levels of service through systematic assessment of tradeoffs between different considerations. A given road or system of roads provides varying levels of service to the road user. Maintenance levels of service influence the magnitude of the maintenance work (e.g., pavement patching, mowing, paint striping) and, therefore, the work scheduling requirements, work priorities, and resource allocations. Selection of the maintenance level of service is influenced by a number of considerations that include safety, rideability, economics, environmental impact, protection of investment, and aesthetics. To optimize the expenditure of maintenance resources, there has been a need to develop a systematic and objective method to establish maintenance levels of service guidelines for all maintenance elements of the highway (such as pavement surface, shoulder, vegetation, signs, structure, drainage ditches). Such a method has been successfully developed and demonstrated in two states for pavement edge drop-off and vegetation control. This report describes the method and the procedures to follow in applying the method. (Author).
Abstract