Multibenefits Evaluation of Pavement Maintenance Treatments Based on Performance and Evolutionary Game Analysis

Life-cycle management and maintenance is essential to ensuring the long-term serviceability of pavements. To investigate the mechanism of performance-based maintenance, two evaluation indicators based on pavement performance deterioration prediction models were established to assess long-term benefits, including the effort of efficiency (EOE) and safety rate (Rs). Considering benefits of stakeholders, a performance evaluation system was developed using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and scores of hot in-place recycling (HIR) and milling and resurfacing (MR) maintenance were calculated. On this basis, system dynamics and game simulation were conducted to predict the long-term benefits and cooperation probabilities between owners and contractors under different scores and standards. Comparisons were also made with traditional maintenance. Results show that under repeated applications of the same maintenance type, the EOE of MR is 1.6 times higher than that of HIR. However, the Rs of HIR is more stable. It is recommended that maintenance strategies be combined based on long-term benefits. HIR and MR received scores of 81.89 and 88.68 in AHP evaluation, which was input into game model. It demonstrates that the performance-based maintenance increases contractor benefits and slows performance deterioration. Higher scores result in greater benefits for both parties. Moreover, the long-term cooperation probability converges to 1. In contrast, the traditional maintenance leads to fixed contractor profits and faster performance degradation. Therefore, this mechanism can assist owners in setting reasonable standards and selecting maintenance strategies with better long-term performance, while also enabling contractors to achieve higher benefits.