Abstract
When transportation agencies prepare a design for new highway construction or major improvements to existing highways, the life-cycle, agency, and user costs are considered in project design decisions. However, after highway projects are completed, maintenance budgets often do not keep pace with maintenance needs since they are rarely adjusted to accommodate the routine maintenance of new lane miles. Instead, maintenance budgets per lane mile remain relatively constant, regardless of increase in the number of vehicle miles traveled per highway mile. Thus, disparity increases between maintenance budgets and maintenance requirements, leading to difficult choices for maintenance priorities. Concerns about safety and mobility tend to trump preservation of capital investment. A study is presented of the relationship between maintenance cost and condition. With use of regression tree analysis, the study identified physical, environmental, operational, and socioeconomic parameters that influence maintenance costs for asphalt and concrete pavements, shoulders, litter pickup, vegetation control, and ditches. As a result, valid model equations will show just what kind of effect a certain investment has on the level of service. Other models will show how much investment is needed to get to a certain level of service. These models will provide information to maintenance managers about the trade-offs they will get based on the relationship of cost and maintenance, so they can make the best decision in allocating available funds.