Optimization Models for the Maintenance Management of Tropical Paved and Unpaved Roads

The degradation of paved and unpaved roads stands as a critical concern in contemporary infrastructure management. When faced with limited budgets, it is important to identify the optimal combination of road preservation strategies to minimize the lifecycle cost of the road network. Specific studies are necessary to improve the maintenance management systems and analyze the behavior of road surface deformation. To narrow these knowledge gaps, this study investigates a management system that focuses on the application of optimization techniques for managing both paved and unpaved tropical roads. Probabilistic deterioration models were constructed using the Markovian process, resulting in precise degradation curves in the context of 18 unpaved road segments in the Zona da Mata County of Minas Gerais (Brazil), along with 88 paved roads located in Minas Gerais. An optimization algorithm was proposed for the prediction of maintenance resources for unpaved and paved roads, emphasizing the cost-effectiveness of preventive and minor rehabilitation treatments over reconstruction. Comparisons between the maintenance costs of unpaved and paved roads indicated that the full rehabilitation costs of paved roads were approximately 10 times higher per kilometer compared to those of unpaved roads. The models effectively captured the trend wherein a major treatment leads to minor additional treatments being necessary for the subsequent several years in both scenarios. The findings of this study provide future directions for the optimized allocation of resources in the management of transportation infrastructures.