Optimization of pavement preservation activities.

Alberta Transportation has initiated a pavement preservation calling for the proactive management of the condition of pavements, from time of initial construction, throughout its entire life, to the time of rehabilitation or reconstruction. A review of best practices found that Life Cycle Cost Analysis in the planning and programming of projects is becoming the accepted practice in the United States, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Coupled with this has been the development of sophisticated decision support systems to aid transportation agencies in the creation of optimized, integrated multi-year work programs; notably the World Road Association's HDM-4 and, more recently, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration's HERS-ST. Alberta Transportation conducted a pilot study in the summer of 2003 to determine how such an approach could be applied in Alberta. For the covering abstract of this conference see ITRD number E211395.