Pavement maintenance prioritization using analytic hierarchy process

Abstract

The prioritization of maintenance activities is commonly applied in pavement maintenance planning. A widely adopted practice is to express maintenance priority in the form of a priority index, computed by means of an empirical mathematical expression. Though convenient to use, empirical mathematical indices often do not have a clear physical meaning and cannot accurately and effectively convey the priority assessment or intention of highway agencies and engineers. In an attempt to overcome this limitation, this study explores the use of an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for the prioritization of pavement maintenance activities. The main aim is to identify an approach that can reflect the engineering judgment of highway agencies and engineers more closely. Three forms of AHP are examined, namely, the distributive-mode relative AHP, the ideal-mode relative AHP, and the absolute AHP. The applications of the three methods are illustrated by using an example problem, and the results are compared with the priority assessments obtained by a direct assessment method in which the raters make the evaluation by directly comparing all maintenance activities together. The study concludes that the absolute AHP is suitable for the pavement maintenance prioritization process, on the basis of its ability to provide priority assessments for pavement maintenance activities in good agreement with the priority assessments obtained by the direct assessment method and its operational advantage in evaluating a large number of maintenance activities.