Analysis of cost effective pavement treatment and budget optimization for arterial roads in the city of Chattanooga

Many transportation agencies lack sufficient funds to maintain and repair roads, which results into increased pavement maintenance cost. Pavement Management System (PMS) has demonstrated to be an essential tool for proper management of infrastructure and proper utilization of available funds. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga utilized Micropaver software as PMS tool to conduct a pavement management analysis of principal arterials in the City of Chattanooga. The study used the City of Chattanooga pavement database to create the current and future pavement conditions. Maintenance and repair (M&R) planning analysis was also performed in order to determine the most cost-effective treatment and suggest the optimum utilization of funds for the city. An analysis of five budget scenarios was conducted for a five-year plan using the critical pavement condition index (PCI) method (ASTM D6433). Results show that the backlog elimination budget would be the best scenario because it increases the pavement condition and eliminates the backlog of major maintenance and repairs over the five-year period. The unlimited budget seems though ideal, it does not improve pavement condition. Maintaining current condition and limited budget scenarios would increase both the backlog and the total cost of maintenance and repairs over the analysis period.