Cross asset resource allocation framework for pavement and bridges in Iowa

With all the challenges facing U.S departments of transportation (US DOTs), especially the scarcity of resources and the deteriorating infrastructure systems, DOTs started to divert from separate assets decision making strategies to a more comprehensive resource allocation approach. This also resulted from the fact that the optimal allocation for each asset type separately is not the optimal allocation for all assets in the network. Specifically speaking about Iowa, about one quarter of Iowa’s primary roadways fail to meet a sufficiency rating considered minimally acceptable, furthermore the rural Interstate system in Iowa was ranked 38th in the nation in 2010. The case in bridges is not better, where one of every five bridges in Iowa are rated as structurally deficient. By that, Iowa has the third worst state record in the nation. As a result of that, this research will focus on proposing a new simple and applicable cross asset resource allocation framework for pavements and bridges in Iowa, utilizing Pavement Management Information System (PMIS) and National Bridge Inventory (NBI) data. The objective function of this framework is to maximize the network monetary value by changing the proportions of total budget allocated to each asset type, while the resulting budgets are allocated in a need-based approach across importance groups and in a worst-first basis within each importance group. The final output of this research is a MATLAB simple tool that allocates five years of funding across interstate, U.S, and state pavements and bridges. This tool also provides a list of pavement mileage and bridge deck area that need to be treated by each maintenance action at each budget level. It also compares the impact of different pavement and bridge valuation definitions on the solution that maximizes the network monetary value. The results show that the proposed framework is not sensitive to the valuation approach. It also shows that at low budget levels, most of the budget is allocated to pavements. This condition is reversed at moderate budget levels, and equal allocation is achieved at very high total budget level, i.e. 1 billion dollars