Partner und Internationale Organisationen
(Englisch)
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DRI, LCPC, VTT, TRL, Anders Nyvig NS, UoC, Viagroup
Coordinator: Danish Road Directorate (DK)
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Abstract
(Englisch)
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PAV-ECO is a part of the Project entitled Pavement and Structure Management System, which covered two separate, but related, research projects, carried out under partial funding from the Transport Research and Technological Development Programme of the Fourth Framework Programme of the Commission of the European Communities. The two Projects were PAV-ECO (Economic Evaluation of Pavement Maintenance - Life-cycle Cost at Project and Network Level) and RIMES (Road Infrastructure Maintenance Evaluation Study). PAV-ECO was initiated by the Forum of European National Highway Laboratories and officially started on 14 October 1997 and ended on 13 October 1999.
The PAV-ECO Project aimed at developing economic models for evaluation of life-cycle costs of pavements, and to study the effects on road infrastructure maintenance when new road links are added to a network. The project objectives were accomplished considering:
· Optional application of different maintenance measures
· Impact of changed traffic flow on maintenance needs
· Social economic effects from maintenance of the road infrastructure
· Allocation of funds to different geographical regions and infrastructure components
· Vehicle operating costs appropriate to European conditions.
These objectives were addressed by Work Packages, each one was handled into several research tasks. A sixth Work Package addressed dissemination and exploitation of the Project findings.
The PAV-ECO Project was carried out by a consortium consisting of the Danish Road Institute (Denmark), manager of the project, Anders Nyvig A/S (Denmark), Technical Research Centre of Finland (Finland), Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées (France), University of Cologne (Germany), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), Viagroup S.A. (Switzerland) and Transport Research Laboratory (United Kingdom).
The first part of the PAV-ECO Project dealt with interviews of representatives from road directorates in fifteen European countries and a literature review, in order to set up a basis for the work on optional application of different maintenance measures. The interviews displayed a need for models for economic evaluation of alternative pavement maintenance and rehabilitation strategies for individual road projects. Furthermore, most road authorities in Europe recognised the need for developing economic models for estimating additional user costs due to maintenance works as well as pavement preservation, even though such models are used only in a few countries. A framework was developed for comparison of life-cycle costs of different maintenance strategies at project level, which involves calculation of road owner and user costs over the length of the selected analysis period that is regarded as the road pavement life.
Estimation of traffic volume and distribution is important in pavement life-cycle cost analysis. Most current pavement management systems use simple linear traffic forecasts without considering the risk of reaching the capacity limit. PAV-ECO provides a description of the determinants for traffic forecasts and suggests new traffic simulation models for both network and project level. A simple prototype traffic assignment model has been developed to illustrate the distribution of traffic during maintenance works at project level.
PAV-ECO presents a method for determining the most effective maintenance strategy considering not only investment costs, but also social costs, considering user's lost time, vehicle operation, accidents, air pollution, and CO2 emission. A case study including road sections in Denmark, France and Germany illustrates the use of this type of analysis and shows impact of maintenance measures in terms of cost-efficiency.
The problem of establishing appropriate fund allocation for highway networks was investigated with a literature survey and the development of a spreadsheet-based model.
Vehicle operating costs (VOC) form a significant component of the life-cycle costs associated with each link in a road network. VOC depend upon the condition of the pavement, the physical characteristics of the road link and the traffic flow on the road. The variation of the rising costs relative to the deterioration of the road network is of worthwhile interest to determine, rather than their amount. Therefore, a range of European VOC models have been evaluated to assess their suitability for inclusion in life-cycle cost models for roads in Europe. A comparison study between a complex and a simple VOC model was carried out, which showed that the simple model was sufficiently accurate for high-standard European roads.
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