Determining Priority for Maintenance Program of Asphalt Roads Based on Multi-Criteria Decision Making (a Case Study in Addis Ababa City)

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Date

2018-02

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

The gap between financing need and the fund allocated for maintenance of roads especially asphalt roads places responsible agencies in difficult situations to manage the maintenance hence, a ranking procedure for scheduling the maintenance program is required to optimize the limited fund. In this research, as determining the road maintenance priority is considered as a multi-criteria decision making problem, a comprehensive assessment framework of pavement maintenance project prioritization decision was developed through Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The AHP is a frequently used decision making tool for multiple-criteria problems in transportation and pavement management field. The most commonly accepted criteria of influencing decision making in pavement maintenance management are established from important literatures, and accordingly nine factors are identified through pilot questionnaire surveys and justified through interviewing expertise in the field. The factors were: average annual daily traffic (AADT), vehicle composition, type of distress, severity, extent, project cost, accident rate, drainage condition and land use. Questionnaire surveys of AHP pair-wise comparison among the nine criteria were undertaken with experts and experienced people in pavement maintenance to weight the factors and it was found that accident rate and AADT of a road link play the most significant role by taking the highest share of 21.7% and 19.8% respectively. Next, sample of road sections, which are managed by Addis Ababa City Road Authority (AACRA), were considered and a complex matrix was then developed to evaluate the pavement maintenance priority score (PMPS) and decide which road links to be maintained first according to prescribed criteria. The result showed that from the selected roads for the case study, link R8 (which is the road from Berberetera to Molamaru) had the priority to be maintained. Then comparison was made between the AACRAs’ maintenance project priority rank and the priority rank that was made using the model in this research and the result showed a huge difference in ranks of alternatives.

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Keywords

Maintenance, priority, multi-criteria decision making, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Pavement Maintenance Priority Score (PMPS)

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