A STATE-OF-THE-ART TOOL FOR SUSTAINABLE REBUILDING OF AGING INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS

Agency efforts to deliver projects in a timely manner have been furthered by use of innovative software analysis programs and scheduling techniques like CPM (Critical Path Method) or PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique).A more recent tool arising from these efforts is a state-of-the-art tool called CA4PRS (Construction Analysis for Pavement Rehabilitation Strategies), which has come into use because of its ability to analyze schedules, costs, and work zone traffic impacts.In some innovative states like California, CA4PRS has been widely used as the main decision-support tool from the initial planning and design stages to implement the most economical rehabilitation strategies for the projects.This paper presents schedule and cost saving aspects of utilizing CA4PRS used to achieve faster project completion with less traffic disruption as applied on three experimental long-life highway pavement rehabilitation projects in California.The implementation of CA4PRS on the three urban large-scale projects has demonstrated its value on tremendous monetary savings in agency cost and road user cost by selecting the most economical construction strategy, geared to balancing schedule, cost, and traffic aspects.The CA4PRS's scheduling module estimates highway project duration (total number of closures), incorporating alternative strategies for pavement designs, lane-closure tactics, and contractor logistics.CA4PRS's traffic module quantifies the impact of construction work zone closures on the traveling public in terms of roaduser cost and time spent in queue.Its greatest value lies in its capability of providing information to the planner/designer to optimally balance pavement design, construction constraints, traffic operations, and transportation agency budget -especially during the planning and design of rehabilitation projects.The schedule and cost saving benefits of CA4PRS addressed in this paper will promote the use of CA4PRS in the planning stage to develop the most economically feasible construction strategies in an attempt to maximize construction productivity and to minimize inconvenience to the traveling public during construction.