MANUAL FOR THE SELECTION OF OPTIMAL MAINTENANCE LEVELS OF SERVICE

The research conducted under NCHRP Project 14-5 developed a formal methodology to assist in decisions regarding optimal maintenance levels of service for those highway elements that are subject to the constraints of available money, manpower, and equipment. This report contains a user manual that was developed to provide detailed instructions for highway agency personnel in the application of the methodology to their specific highway system. The manual is organized to be self-sufficient and comprehensive. Each step consists of a description of how the step is to be completed, a statement of what is intended to be accomplished as a result of completion of the step, and completion of the step in the form of an illustrative example. Appropriate forms have been designed for recording the information obtained in each step. A complete set of blank forms is provided in an appendix. Forms completed for the illustrative example are included in each step. A draft of the user manual was initially tested in Arizona and Virginia and the manual was revised to reflect the review comments. The methodology was then successfully implemented and the commputer program was executed by the New Jersey Department of Transportation personnel without any outside assistance. A major achievement of this study was the simplified and yet theoretically sound procedure for value assessments. The value assessment provides a formal mechanism for inviting the participation of different impacted groups (highway managers, engineers, legislators, and lay persons) in establishing the relative importance of various factors that affect the selection of maintenance levels of service. Two major constraints on the use of the methodology are: (1) a working maintenance management system should be available, and (2) the total number of alternative levels of service for all maintenance conditions combined should not exceed 100.