Hybrid System for Prioritizing Pavement Maintenance and Rehabilitation of Wyoming County Roads

Abstract Despite advancements at the state level, many local highway agencies administering county roads lack an established pavement management system. This is often due to insufficient resources, technical expertise, and challenges related to data availability and quality. This research paper introduces a hybrid system for prioritizing pavement maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) of Wyoming county roads, integrating pavement condition data, expert perspectives, and road characteristics. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to compute the relative significance of pavement conditions and various road characteristics. The results reveal that traffic volume is the most influential factor, accounting for 27% of the overall importance, underscoring its critical role in M&R prioritization. Speed limit and land use also play significant roles, each contributing approximately 20% to the decision-making process. The findings reveal a preference for prioritizing pavement condition over road characteristics, with a correlation coefficient of 0.85 between rankings based solely on pavement condition and those derived from the hybrid system. A 20% discrepancy was observed between the top third pavement segments identified by the two approaches, with even greater differences noted in the second-top-third segments. This research provides a robust framework that not only assists Wyoming counties in effective and efficient road management but also offers valuable guidelines for other states to enhance their pavement M&R strategies.