The price of uncertainty in pavement infrastructure management planning: An integer programming approach

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Man Wo Ng - , Old Dominion University (Author)
  • Zhanmin Zhang - , University of Texas at Austin (Author)
  • S. Travis Waller - , University of Texas at Austin (Author)

Abstract

Currently there is a true dichotomy in the pavement maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) literature. On the one hand, there are integer programming-based models that assume that parameters are deterministically known. On the other extreme, there are stochastic models, with the most popular class being based on the theory of Markov decision processes that are able to account for various sources of uncertainties observed in the real-world. In this paper, we present an integer programming-based alternative to account for these uncertainties. A critical feature of the proposed models is that they provide - a priori - probabilistic guarantees that the prescribed M&R decisions would result in pavement condition scores that are above their critical service levels, using minimal assumptions regarding the sources of uncertainty. By construction of the models, we can easily determine the additional budget requirements when additional sources of uncertainty are considered, starting from a fully deterministic model. We have coined this additional budget requirement the price of uncertainty to distinguish from previous related work where additional budget requirements were studied due to parameter uncertainties in stochastic models. A numerical case study presents valuable insights into the price of uncertainty and shows that it can be large.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1326-1338
Number of pages13
JournalTransportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies
Volume19
Issue number6
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2011
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-2939-2090/work/141543818

Keywords

Keywords

  • Infrastructure, Integer programming, Maintenance, Markov decision process, Pavement, Price of uncertainty, Rehabilitation