This research highlights the vital role of Pavement Management Systems integrated with Geographic Information Systems in planning and managing road maintenance in Lattakia, and getting a flexible local system by following a new method in processing a
nd viewing information that supports maintenance decision.
This study included applying a pilot project for managing pavement maintenance over a group of roads following The General Establishment for Road Communications. Those roads were divided to links and segments then evaluated using the " Asphalt Institute Method ", which gave us a numeric pointer that led in turn to the type of maintenance needed for a particular pavement. In this research, we depended on the Geographic Information Systems to design and build a comprehensive database, that reflected the present condition of the studied roads, and enabled us to store, analyze and document pavement surface condition and link it to the digitized maps of the studied roads. This guaranteed easy and direct access to various kinds of data and solutions as every segment appeared in a different color reflecting its conditions according to the theme of the map. By doing so, we could support the process of taking right maintenance decisions.
The maintenance and repair of road networks became a key and very important issue,
because of the large increase in length and the limited budget available for maintenance.
This research aims to develop an optimal strategy for maintenance of road i
n order to
distribute the annually limited budget on maintenance programs of road network as a
whole according to multiple objectives.
The proposed mathematical model ensures raising the performance of the road
network in Lattakia for the multiple targets, taking into account the constraints imposed on
the maintenance process, using goal programming technique.
To validate the proposed model we have studied the central road case, and the
samples were Lattakia-Qurdaha and Lattakia-Haffa-Slinfa roads, we have got results
represented by the number of meters can be maintained for each type of maintenance for
every degree and their locations on the road network within the funds available.
A commercial software called lingo has used to solve the linear programming model
(phase 1) and Excel program has used to design the interface for data entry required and
the formation of equations model, Excel program have also used to determine the segments
which have to maintain first on the road network (phase 2).
The proposed model may apply for the different situations of the budget (open,
closed) and for policies and multiple options in order to reach results related to sensitively
model.
The importance of this research lies in establishing an integrated system to support
decision making of bituminous road surface maintenance in Lattakia within the
environment of Geographic Information Systems, which leads to improve the level of
p
erformance and reach better conditions of road safety and comfort.
In a former research, the bituminous surface condition data was conducted and filled
in the Asphalt Institute Form by which we obtained an overall condition rating that led in
turn to the type of maintenance of each studied segment and link them to the digitized
maps where every segment appeared in a color reflecting its condition according to the
purpose of the map.
In this research we depended on the " Project Priority Methodology " to view and
query different alternatives to support decision making of which road segments should be
maintained first by using five categories each one gives us a weighing value, then we
collected the total weighed value for the five categories together, and link that to digitized
maps that guaranteed fast and direct reach to various solutions to choose the best, insuring
as a result that the traditional way in maintenance which begins with the worst segment is
not always the best, and that its time to move towards new pavement maintenance
management systems.
