Developing sustainable road infrastructure performance indicators using a model-driven fuzzy spatial multi-criteria decision making method

Abstract

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd

Road infrastructure performance is closely associated with passengers and freight transportation systems and socio-economic development. The performance of road infrastructure is commonly measured by sensor-monitored indicators, and the ability of monitored indicators in revealing actual performance is generally determined by decision makers and road users. However, it is usually unreliable to directly apply monitored indicators in road performance evaluation, due to the limited aspects of individual sensor-monitored indicators, and potential biases and uncertainties of human experience. To address the issues, this study proposes a model-driven fuzzy spatial multi-criteria decision making (MFSD) approach to derive a comprehensive and accurate indicator of sustainable road performance. In this study, the MFSD approach is applied in exploring the road network in the Wheatbelt region in Western Australia, Australia. Spatial variables of road properties, traffic vehicles and climate conditions are used as criteria in the decision making. Four sensor monitored indicators are collected for estimating contributions of criteria. Results show that the MFSD-based indicator can more comprehensively and accurately characterize sustainable road infrastructure performance. In the study area, the MFSD-based indicator can improve 30.46% of the correlation with road maintenance cost compared with roughness, which is the optimal sensor monitored indicator. At the local government areas, the MFSD-based indicator can explain 45.8% of practical road maintenance cost. Sensitivity analysis from multiple aspects indicates that MFSD is a reliable and accurate method in decision making. The proposed method and analysis have broad potentials in the network-level sustainable infrastructure management.