Knowledge-based expert system pavement management optimization

Knowledge-based expert systems and dynamic programming are used for development of a comprehensive pavement management system tool to help engineers and planners to make objective, consistent, and cost effective decisions regarding pavement maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. Knowledge-based expert system provide a flexible tool to allow for acquisition of knowledge from experts in the field and incorporate that knowledge in building an efficient pavement management decision support tool. Knowledge-based expert systems are used to develop a pavement condition forecasting model and a treatment strategy selection model. The forecasting model is capable of predicting pavement condition in the future based on both historical data and expert opinion. The treatment strategy selection model considers the forecasted condition and other inventory parameters to select feasible treatment strategies for each pavement section for all the years in the planning or analysis period. The expert system will also determine a cost and improvement in condition due to the application of the selected treatment strategy. Finally, a dynamic programming model takes the output from the treatment strategy selection knowledge based expert system and determines a list of projects and their associated treatment strategies, cost, and time to implement each. The dynamic programming model can consider different objectives functions (minimize cost or maximize benefits for example) to achieve optimal allocation of resources. This research established procedures for the integral operations of the three different models to makeup the comprehensive pavement management system. The research also established a measure of the benefits of implementing a knowledge-based expert system pavement management optimization through the evaluation of pavement condition.