Impact of Performance Goals on the Needs of Highway Infrastructure Maintenance

Although it is widely accepted that establishing suitable performance goal is critical for system maintenance and preservation, a framework that considers the inter-relationship between conflicting objectives of minimum maintenance and rehabilitation costs, deferred maintenance costs, and vehicle operating costs to the users does not exist. This report proposes a methodological framework that is aimed at assisting highway agencies with the problem of objectively analyzing policy decisions in terms of the performance goals for their highway networks that would minimize the total transport costs to the society. In a case study of the proposed framework, the highway network managed by the Texas Department of Transportation was examined for different performance goals. The results from the case study indicate that setting lower performance goals lead to savings in the M&R needs, but at the same time, they also significantly increase the exogenous costs such as deferred maintenance costs and the vehicle operating costs.