A Two-Phase Maintenance and Rehabilitation Framework for Pavement Assets under Performance Based Contracts

Abstract

Traditional Canadian pavement construction contracts provide detailed specifications for the work that needs to be carried out. This is the case for both maintenance and rehabilitation contracts. However, for many road agencies around the world, this traditional way of contracting had shortcomings. These agencies have been proactive in changing their contracts to maintain the road networks while reducing the cost. The challenge of maintaining the road networks to the highest possible condition while investing the minimal amount of money has promoted innovative contracting approaches. Furthermore, road agencies have increased the private sector involvement through warranty contracts. According to road agencies around the world, there has been a movement over the last two decades towards Performance Based Contracts (PBCs); a long term warranty contract. In PBCs, the client agency specifies certain clearly defined minimal performance measures to be met or exceeded during the contract period and payments are explicitly linked to the contractor successfully meeting or exceeding those performance measures. Therefore, the PBC maintenance and rehabilitation selection differs significantly from that of traditional asset management contracts and more complex due to the pavement deterioration process and probability of failure to achieve the specified level of service for various performance measures along the contract period. This thesis involves the development of a novel framework that facilitates the selection of maintenance and rehabilitation activities for pavement assets under PBCs. The framework consists of two phases. Phase-One, called the Initial Program, uses historical data, performance modeling, and optimization to establish and select the maintenance and rehabilitation program for the bidding stage. Phase-Two, called Project Asset Management, is implemented after the contract is awarded. This phase uses the contract performance monitoring data and the cost estimate from Phase-One as a baseline budget to update and validate the established program through performance modeling and optimization. A case study using data from the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) second generation Pavement Management System (PMS2) is used to illustrate the framework.