Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS International Conference on COMPUTERS, Vouliagmeni, Athens, Greece, July 13-15, 2006 (pp535-540)

A Fuzzy-based System for Maintenance Planning of Road Pavements

ATHANASIOS P. CHASSIAKOS
Department of Civil Engineering
University of Patras
Patras 26500
GREECE

Abstract: - This paper presents a fuzzy-based system that is used for maintenance planning of road pavements.
The system has been developed based on knowledge elicitation from experienced maintenance engineers using
fuzzy logic. The system includes functions for pavement condition and deterioration prediction, feasible
treatment assessment in each pavement section, and maintenance planning in a road network. Pavement
condition models have considered pavement age and other influencing factors such as pavement design
characteristics, traffic loads, and construction quality. Feasible treatments are set based on distress type,
severity, and extent, traffic load, foundation soil type, and pavement age. Maintenance planning is based on
a priority list (which is developed considering the distress type and its effect on road safety and functionality,
the current pavement condition and the anticipated deterioration rate), the feasible treatments in each case and
existing budget constraints.

Key-Words: - pavement, maintenance, management, expert system, knowledge-based system, fuzzy system,
decision making

1 Introduction coding) and its limited flexibility to adapt to specific

Pavement management systems have been
developed and implemented in many countries as a
result of the increasing need for optimizing
pavement maintenance and resource allocation
decisions over an extensive road network in order to
provide an acceptable level of safety, functionality
and comfort to road users. Assessing the most
appropriate maintenance strategy for a large number
of pavement sections is a complex problem as there
are several parameters that determine the most
economic solution. As a result, the only efficient
way for effective pavement management is through
the employment of computerized systems.
A first category of such systems performs
mathematical optimization (e.g., linear
programming) to produce an optimal maintenance
programme subject to specific constraints. In
general, the problem is formulated to minimize a
cost function subject to various types of constraints
that refer to the available budget, pavement
condition thresholds, as well as pavement
performance in time. A number of pavement
management systems have been reported in the
literature (e.g., [1]). Systems of this type require in
general considerable time and effort to develop due
to the size and complexity of the problem and its
capability highly relies on fine-tuning of its
component functions. As a result, their application
in practice may be hindered by its data requirements
(in terms of quantity, quality, availability, and
user requirements, local conditions, and agency
information systems.
Alternatively to such systems, more simplified
and flexible approaches have a higher possibility to
be implemented. Simplification can result from
reducing the number of decision parameters
(considering only the main ones), reducing the need
for data collection, or relying on engineering
judgement. Knowledge-based systems, although not
as effective as fully developed pavement
management systems, offer a number of advantages.
First, they are relatively easy to develop and quite
adjustable to any conditions and specific user needs.
In fact, the system development focuses onto
problems that appear in the application area rather
than to all problems under any possible conditions.
In addition, existing expertise is constructively
utilized to improve the system performance.
Existing knowledge-based systems have been
reported in [2-4].
A fuzzy-based system for pavement maintenance
planning is presented in this paper. The proposed
system aims to provide decision support regarding
the prioritisation of maintenance needs according to
specified criteria, the determination of feasible
treatments depending on pavement condition and
other external factors that accelerate deterioration,
and proposals for maintenance selection and
resource allocation in a road network.
Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS International Conference on COMPUTERS, Vouliagmeni, Athens, Greece, July 13-15, 2006 (pp535-540)
2 The Proposed System
The aim of this work is to develop a simple yet
efficient system that can provide decision support to
highway maintenance agencies in their effort to
optimise maintenance planning in a road network.
The system has been developed based on knowledge
elicitation from experienced maintenance engineers
and attempts to model their decisions for
maintaining road pavements. The development of
the system has been based on current management
decision practices in Greece that are merely
empirical. As a result, optimal maintenance
strategies and resource allocation are solely based on
the condition assessment of pavements and the
agency costs associated with pavement repair and
rehabilitation without an explicit representation of
the user and societal costs attributed to the lost
safety, delays, or functionality.
The proposed system includes three modules,
one for pavement condition assessment and
deterioration prediction, another for determining
alternative feasible treatments in each pavement
section, and a third for setting maintenance priorities
and optimizing resource allocation in a road network
(Figure 1). The system input consists of two types of
data, one resulting from pavement inspection and
condition assessment and another describing
maintenance treatments.
System input
Condition Maintenance
assessment treatments
Deterioration Treatment
prediction selection
Maintenance planning
Figure 1: Structure of the proposed system
The pavement performance module aims to
develop condition deterioration curves for each
distress type based on pavement age and other
influencing factors such as pavement design
characteristics, traffic loads, and construction
quality. The second module investigates all
applicable treatments considering the pavement
condition of each section and other factors. A fuzzy
rule-based system has been developed to represent
the expert's decision in each case.
Maintenance planning is based on a priority list
(which is developed considering the distress type
and its expected effect on road safety and
functionality, the current pavement condition and
the anticipated deterioration rate), the feasible
treatments in each case and existing budget
constraints.
3 Pavement Performance Models
Maintenance decisions are mainly based on current
pavement condition and the expected deterioration
rate afterwards. The development of pavement
performance models has considered several
parameters such as, pavement distress type, traffic
loads, environmental conditions, soil type, pavement
material properties and design features, construction
quality, and, most importantly, pavement age.
The development included three phases. In the
first, qualitative data were collected from expert
responses regarding the factors and the way that
they affect distress initiation and propagation. The
procedure led to the determination of 11 distress
types and 15 influencing factors which are shown in
Tables 1 and 2 respectively. The influencing factors
were grouped into four generalized variables, i.e.,
pavement strength, traffic load, pavement
construction quality, and pavement age.
Next, a fuzzy rule-based system was developed
to represent the expert knowledge using fuzzy rules
‘if-then’. The fuzzy method that was used is the
linguistic fuzzy model (Mamdani method). The
system parameters are represented by linguistic
fuzzy sets (e.g., ‘weak’ pavement strength) and
corresponding rules of the form ‘if structural
strength is weak and traffic load is high and…. then
severity is high’ are developed which represent the
impact of the influencing factors on distress severity.
With this procedure, qualitative information is
converted to quantitative data.
In a third phase, several sets of random crisp data
for the independent and the dependent variables
were generated by the fuzzy system. A least square
Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS International Conference on COMPUTERS, Vouliagmeni, Athens, Greece, July 13-15, 2006 (pp535-540)

These coefficients are different for each distress

Distress type Index (leading, thus, to separate models) and determine the
shape and the coordinates of the corresponding
Alligator cracks alcrack curves.
Longitudinal cracks longcrack Following existing models, such as MDOT [5] or
Transverse cracks transvcrack HPMS [6], the general form of individual distress
prediction models is given by:
Slippage crack slipcrack
Rutting rut DI = α0 AGEα1 MSNα2 TRAFα3 QUAα4 (1)
Local depressions ldepr
where
Local upheavals luphe
α0, α1, α2, α3, and α4 : coefficients to be estimated,
Raveling rav AGE : pavement age,
Potholes pot MSN : structural strength parameter,
TRAF : traffic load parameter,
Polished aggregate polaggr
QUA : construction quality parameter.
Bleeding bleed
The above parameters consider a number of
factors using complex mathematical relationships
Table 1: Pavement distress types which are different for each distress. Considering the
notation in Table 2, one can generally write:
MSN = f (d1, d2, d3, t, Easphalt, m2, Ebase, m3, Esubbase,
m4, Esubgrade),
Influencing factors Index TRAF = f (AADT, TR),
QUA = f (asphalt content, air voids, rainfall, frost
Pavement age (years) AGE heave).
Asphalt modulus (MPa) Easphalt The objective of the analysis is to estimate the
unknown coefficients α0, α1, α2, α3, and α4 of
Base modulus(MPa) Ebase
Equation (1). In the absence of numerical data for
Subbase modulus (MPa) Esubbase the parameters involved from measurements or
Subgrade modulus (MPa) Esubgrade experiments, qualitative data were collected by
Asphalt thickness (mm) d1 expert engineers and then quantified through the
employment of fuzzy models. As an example,
Base thickness (mm) d2 existing knowledge and expert responses suggested
Subbase thickness (mm) d3 that the prediction models for transverse cracks
Atmosphere temperature (oC) t should include all variables of Equation (1). The
Moisture to base (%) value range of each generalized variable was divided
m2 into three fuzzy sets with membership functions as
Moisture to subbase (%) m3 shown in Table 3 [7]. The rule base contains 34 = 81
Moisture to subgrade (%) m4 rules which describe the effect of specific
Annual average daily traffic combinations of the explanatory variables to distress
AADT severity (part of this rule base is shown in Table 4).
(veh/day/lane)
The final form of the transverse cracks model is
Truck ratio (%) TR given by the equation:
Asphalt content
Air voids Transvcrack =
Rainfall = 1.869 AGE1.182 MSN-0.139 TRAF0.188 QUA-0.163 (2)
Frost heave
A typical curve for the Transvcrack index over time
is shown in Figure 2. In such a curve, a zero value of
Table 2: Pavement condition influencing factors the index represents good pavement condition (no
distress) while a value of 100 represents a totally
destroyed pavement (in terms of the particular
non-linear regression was applied to these data to distress).
determine the coefficients of the prediction model.
Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS International Conference on COMPUTERS, Vouliagmeni, Athens, Greece, July 13-15, 2006 (pp535-540)

Variable Attribute Fuzzy sets 4 Feasible Treatment Selection

The objective of this module is to determine all
Low 1/0, 1/3.93, 0/6.11
feasible treatments depending on pavement
MSN Medium 0/5.595, 1/6.685, 0/7.775
condition and other factors. A fuzzy rule-based
High 0/7.26, 1/9.44, 1/9.44
system has been developed for this purpose. For
Low 1/0, 1/100, 0/2000 each defect type, information has been gathered
TRAF Medium 0/1600, 1/2550, 0/3500 from maintenance experts regarding the factors
High 0/3100, 1/5000, 1/5000 that are considered in their maintenance decisions.
The results of this investigation showed that
Low 1/0, 1/1, 0/4.5
maintenance decisions are mainly based on:
QUA Medium 0/3.75, 1/5.5, 0/7.25
- the distress type,
High 0/6.5, 1/10, 1/10
- the distress severity,
Low 1/0, 0/10 - the distress extent,
AGE Medium 0/7.5, 1/12.5, 0/17.5 - the traffic load,
High 0/15, 1/25, 1/25 - the foundation soil type, and
- the pavement age.
Low 1/0, 0/40
Transv- Based on this information, decision trees were
Medium 0/30, 1/50, 09/70
crack developed to provide feasible treatments for each
High 0/60, 1/100
distress and combination of the decision
parameters. For each decision parameter, fuzzy
Table 3: Fuzzy sets for condition assessment sets were established as shown in Table 5. For
qualitative parameters that are not directly
measured in numerical terms, an artificial scaling
then was considered.
if and and and transv-
MSN TRAF QUA AGE crack
Parameter Attribute Fuzzy sets
Low Low Low Low Low
Distress Low 1/0, 1/30, 0/70
Low Low Medium Low Low severity High 0/30, 1/70, 1/100
Medium Low Low Low Low Distress Low 1/0, 1/30, 0/70
… … … … … extent High 0/30, 1/70, 1/100
High High High High High Low 1/0, 1/100, 0/2000
Traffic Medium 0/1600, 1/2550, 0/3500
Table 4: Rule base for condition assessment High 0/3100, 1/5000, 1/5000
Foundation Earthy 1/0, 1/30, 0/70
soil Rocky 0/30, 1/70, 1/100
100
Pavement Low 1/0, 1/10, 0/20
age High 0/10, 1/20, 1/30
75
Distress index

Table 5: Fuzzy sets for treatment selection

50

The output of this process is the maintenance

25
treatment which should at least be applied in
every section according to existing distresses and
0 other conditions. Maintenance treatments are
0 5 10 15 considered with respect to their lifetime (the
duration until another treatment is necessary). It is
Years observed that treatments with higher lifetimes
correspond to higher implementation cost (as
Figure 2: Typical condition deterioration curve expected) but also to higher effectiveness, which
Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS International Conference on COMPUTERS, Vouliagmeni, Athens, Greece, July 13-15, 2006 (pp535-540)

is defined by the lifetime to cost ratio. Table 6

shows the rule base and Figure 3 shows the 5 Network-wide Maintenance Planning
membership functions of the treatments that may Budget constraints do not generally allow
be applicable for alligator cracks of low severity addressing all deficiencies in a road network at once.
within a local pavement area. Note that treatment As a consequence, maintenance needs should be
T0 corresponds to the alternative “do nothing”. prioritized for resource allocation. Maintenance
priorities are set based on:
- the distress type and its effect on road safety and
functionality (Table 7 shows the weights that
if and and then have been set for various distresses),
TRAF SOIL AGE TREATMENT - the estimated current pavement condition based
on the appropriate distress index,
Low Rocky High T0 - the expected deterioration rate over the next
Low Rocky Low T1 period as indicated by the tangent of the distress
index curve.
Low Earthy High T1
The maintenance planning module aims to select
Low Earthy Low T2 the most appropriate maintenance strategy for a
number of road sections based on the output of the
Medium Rocky High T1
previous modules and considering any budget
Medium Rocky Low T2 constraints. In particular, starting from the sections
Medium Earthy High T2 with the highest maintenance priority, the best cost-
effective treatment among all applicable ones is
Medium Earthy Low T3 proposed. The process continues until the available
High Rocky High T2 budget is allocated. In case that the available budget
is not sufficient to cover all needs (as it usually
High Rocky Low T3 happens), the practice is to apply lighter
High Earthy High T3 maintenance treatments (among feasible ones)
which, however, present shorter lifetimes. Although
High Earthy Low T3 this is not the most cost-effective selection, it has the
advantage of maintaining a higher number of
Table 6: Rule base for treatment selection sections each year.

Distress type Weight

1,2
Alligator cracks 0.09
1 T0 T1 T2 T3
Slippage cracks 0.04
Memebership value µ

0,8 Edge cracks 0.02

Longitudinal-transverse cracks 0.03
0,6
Rutting 0.14
0,4
Local depressions/upheavals 0.12
0,2 Raveling 0.08
0 Potholes 0.38
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Polished aggregates/bleeding 0.10
Treatment lifetime

Table 7: Distress type weights

Figure 3: Membership functions for maintenance
treatments
Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS International Conference on COMPUTERS, Vouliagmeni, Athens, Greece, July 13-15, 2006 (pp535-540)
6 Conclusion
A fuzzy-based system that is used for maintenance
planning of road pavement sections has been
presented in this paper. The system generates a
maintenance plan with the sections to be repaired
and the urgency of repair under specific resource
availability. The proposed system includes three
modules, one for pavement condition assessment
and deterioration prediction, another for determining
alternative feasible treatments in each pavement
section, and a third for setting maintenance priorities
and optimizing resource allocation in a road
network.
The pavement performance module aims to
develop condition deterioration curves for each
distress type based on pavement age and other
influencing factors such as pavement design
characteristics, traffic loads, and construction
quality. The second module investigates all
applicable treatments considering the condition of
each section and other factors. A fuzzy rule-based
system has been developed to represent the expert's
decision in each case according to distress type,
severity, and extent, traffic load, foundation soil
type, and pavement age. Maintenance planning is
based on a priority list (which is developed
considering the distress type and its expected effect
on road safety and functionality, the current
pavement condition and the anticipated deterioration
rate), the feasible treatments in each case and
existing budget constraints. In particular, starting
from the sections with the highest maintenance
priority, the best cost-effective treatment among all
applicable ones is proposed. The process continues
until the available budget is allocated. If the number
of sections that are treated is less than desirable,
other less costly treatments may be selected so that
more sections are maintained.
Test results indicate that the system can provide
a valuable tool for assisting maintenance decisions
as it provides a basis for consistent decisions and
can handle a large number of pavements sections.
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