STATE INCREMENT METHOD OF LIFE-CYCLE COST ANALYSIS FOR HIGHWAY MANAGEMENT

The authors present a state increment method of life-cycle cost analysis (SILCCA) for project-level evaluation of highway infrastructure maintenance options. SILCCA involves: 1) characterization of facility's physical and functional features into discrete states; 2) specification of treatment alternatives for each state; 3) estimation of facility life-cycle performance as a series of state transitions; and 4) application of dynamic programming for life-cycle cost analysis. The advantages of SILCCA are fourfold: 1) a systematic procedure is employed to identify treatment options based on assessed condition; 2) engineering expertise is used to capture the effect of treatments on pavement condition and in turn improve the accuracy of prediction; 3) analytical and computational efficiency over traditional, Markov, and semi-Markov techniques; and 4) a convenient framework for integration with network-level optimization methods. The findings from a case study suggest that SILCCA is a systematic, accurate, and efficient means of highway management.