Design and Feasibility Analysis of an Urban Pavement Management System for the City of Valencia, Spain

Nowadays, the urban pavement network of the city of Valencia, Spain, is based on a “worst first” approach. Under this approach, pavements showing bad condition are given higher priority to receive maintenance. In the pavement management field, this approach has been widely recognized as the least effective maintenance strategy. Given this situation, the main purpose of this study is to design and determine the general convenience of the implementation of a urban pavement management system (UPMS) in the city of Valencia. In order to do so, a basic framework of this system is proposed. This framework is aimed to be adaptable to the requirements and characteristics of the city. In order to show the potential benefits of the development and implementation of the proposed system, a feasibility analysis is also undertaken. This feasibility analysis takes into account the existing maintenance backlog derived from the current reactive policy and a life-cycle cost analysis. Results highlight the benefits derived from the implementation of this kind of systems, enabling a better definition of maintenance plans and the optimization of available funds.