SYSTEM FOR SCHEDULING HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

: The type and number of activities involved in highway construction, the precedence relationships between them, and their estimated durations depend on a multitude of factors. When considered under different conditions, the number of options available in this regard is found to be very high. Computerized support for the generation of construction schedules is currently limited to creating networks for manually defined and sequenced activities. This paper describes a system called ROAD PLANNER that generates activity networks and computes estimated activity durations. Eleven main activities that are present in the majority of highway construction projects have been defined at the root level. Based on information provided by the user, the system generates the precedence relationships between these main activities. It then generates subactivities and estimates their duration by interacting with 14 rule bases. Lead and lag times between activities are also calculated by the system. The rule bases contain expert information on various construction methods and different technologies. They interface with 27 databases that contain productivity information regarding a multitude of construction equipment.