ABSTRACT

In order to find out the suitable course of action and suitable time for maintenance, the
significance of Life cycle Cost Analysis has increased in recent times. To achieve a safe,
comfortable and cost effective transportation system, an effective maintenance policy is
required. Maintenance of road and highway networks ranges from routine check or periodic
check and maintenance to rehabilitation and eventually reconstruction of the network. There
are a number of factors upon which economic analysis of a road or highway network depends
and which help in devising the road serviceability level. In order to determine best available
maintenance activity to be carried out within the available budget, a cost benefit analysis is
made with the help of Optimization model which is an analytical model. The cost benefit
analysis of different activities is compared with different available alternatives before being
undertaken in the field.

In this thesis, the main focus is on to the development of a general optimization model in
order to determine the most cost-effective activity. The maintenance policy is divided into
four main groups ranging from ‘no action at all’ to ‘complete rehabilitation.’ Different factors
including but not limited to weather and environmental conditions, growth of traffic,
International Roughness Index etc. are taken into consideration.

The model is formulated using ‘C’ language program.

Introduction

Researches are being carried out throughout the world by Road and Highway Authorities to
find out the innovative ways to tackle with the soaring cost of maintenance of road network,
the ever increasing demands of the traffic and the ever changing traffic type and volume.
The contribution of smooth road and highway network in the economic, cultural, social and
environmental development of a country, is enormous. In order to make the road and
highway network suitable for future, well maintained road or highway is needed.
Management of road or highway maintenance has become very important in developing
nations such as Pakistan.

In order to decide the execution of a roadway or highway, Life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is a
financial analysis instrument. This analysis examines different monetary alternatives of
various maintenance plans for a roadway.

As per Bangasan (2006), Life-Cycle Cost Analysis is a process for finding out the total
financial worth of a usable project portion by analyzing the initial costs on the portion and
the future costs to be incurred on the maintenance, rehab, reconstruction, restoration and
resurfacing over the life of the project portion.

The previous studies carried out by Bangasan (2006), Lamptey (2005), were more focused on
case specific cost analysis. A much required general form of such analysis is need of the hour
which will be very useful in future. In this study, an attempt is made to generalize the LCCA of
roads.

Objectives

The main objective of study is to develop a general form of model to analyze life cycle cost
analysis of roads by reviewing few literatures on the said analysis. An optimization model
will be more useful if, in addition to reducing the cost of maintenance, it helps in improving
the condition of the road so that it may remain serviceable for longer period of time during
its design period.

There are a total of five chapters in this thesis of which introduction and objective is the
first. A review of the previous work done in this domain is presented in the second chapter.
The second chapter also expresses the literature model development and the motivation for
the thesis.

The data calibrated for thesis work are described in third chapter. The governing and
important factors such as maintenance works’ cost and distress values and their limitations
are prescribed.

The fourth chapter describes the proposed Cost Analysis model of roads in detail. The model
is defined and the results obtained from the model are presented in this chapter. The results
obtained are used for validation of the model.

The fifth chapter summarizes the work done in the thesis and includes results and
discussions.
Literature review and motivation of work:

Jain et al. (2004) presented that the flexible maintenance strategies after an analysis period
of twenty years can save more than thirty three percent highway agency cost than that of
scheduled maintenance strategies. They compared their adopted model with predefined
models on selected pavement sections. As the fund granted for maintenance management
is only 60percent of the fund required, they prepared an optimized and prioritized work
process for 60 percent budget availability. They showed us that the average roughness value
of the highway network increases with reduction in budget levels, which in turn can lead to
a very high road user cost values.

Zhang (2009) developed a new life cycle optimization model for pavement asset
management system. He evaluated three potential overlay systems. One of these is a
concrete overlay system. He observed the application of dynamic programming as an
optimization tool in life cycle optimization of pavement overlay systems, which obtain
outputs considerably faster and more accurately compared to conventional methods. His
results demonstrate the importance of including user costs and roughness effects in
pavement management accounting.

Whiteley-Lagace et al. (2011) attempted to show us the challenges and successes of

implementing a pavement management system for roads. Their project team developed a 5
and a 10 year budget plans for road network and developed a number of recommendations
to improve the level of detailed data to be added to the system to refine the models. They
collected data for four years. They collected performance based data, which included the
distress data for asphalt and concrete, gravel and native roads. They calibrated decision
trees and cost models for