Investigating the benefits of considering the payload spectra of freight vehicles on pavement costs based on weigh-in-motion data

© 2017 Jing RenTruck traffic is a crucial factor that contributes to pavement damage. The urbanization and globalization promote the higher level of daily consumption for goods, thus increasing the derived demand for freight transport. In some countries, such as Australia, there is a trend towards using larger vehicles, which raised the road authorities’ concern about their effect on pavement because of the lack of pavement maintenance and rehabilitation funding. Therefore, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of Australian road freight market and optimize the allocation of freight for different types of trucks to reduce the total pavement damage. Weigh-in-motion (WIM) system, which measures and records detailed vehicle information operating on road, was the data source for this study. The data was provided by the State Road Authority of Victoria (VicRoads). This thesis gave out a prototype filtering strategy for WIM database to improve the accuracy. Also, it investigated the efficiency of freight transport by comparing the effect of six-axle semi-trailers and nine-axle B-doubles with regards to pavement performance when carrying various payloads. Mathematical models were developed to help decision makers consider how to distribute the road freight task more efficiently to minimize the pavement damage induced by freight vehicles. A simplified pavement performance prediction model was utilized as a basis to determine the future pavement maintenance & rehabilitation schedules and thus, help compare the long-term pavement treatment costs for different traffic loading scenarios. The outcomes of the research showed that it would have considerable advantages in reducing the overall pavement damage by decreasing the percentage of empty trucks, changing the proportion of freight carried by B-doubles as well as optimizing the payload distributions. In addition, there would be significant benefits in the pavement maintenance & rehabilitation costs over the pavement service life by improving the allocation of freight for trucks