The Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) pooled fund study, led by South Dakota and now including thirteen state Departments of Transportation, developed an operational MDSS for winter maintenance. While generally perceived to be beneficial, it is important to more formally determine the tangible benefits and costs that are associated with the implementation ofMDSS, and determine whether MDSS is a good investment. This paper presents the results of a benefit-cost analysis of the pooled fund MDSS. The development of the analysis method includes the identification of benefits andcosts, definition of base case and alternatives, and the development of abenefit-cost model. A base case (without MDSS) and two other alternatives(with MDSS) are defined for the analysis. The developed method consists of two parallel modules: a baseline data module and a simulation module. Results from a case study by applying this method show that the implementation of MDSS brings more benefits than costs.
Samenvatting