Effects of Uncertainty to Road Maintenance

Road maintenance is a complex issue with many uncertainties involved. Frequently, the analysis of good maintenance strategies is carried out in deterministic frameworks assuming that a deterministic model captures the ‘most probable’ scenario and therefore corresponds to the expected values in stochastic models. Since it is agreed upon that expected net-benefits are to be maximized, the introduced simplifications are assumed to be of minor importance to some overall performance of maintenance actions. This argument is generally false as we demonstrate with help of a simple model concerned with the timing of a maintenance measure when the deterioration of the road is some stochastic function of time. We also argue that the natural fluctuations in traffic give a value to the maintenance of existing roads which is in addition to the values usually accounted for, if reconstruction of the roads is considered.