Research on Network Level Pavement Maintenance Decision-Making Based on Matter-Element Model

This paper proposes a matter-element theory-based method to determine the maintenance priority of road sections for network level pavement maintenance decision-making. The method develops a multi-index and multi-objective model capable of incorporating all potential pavement maintenance related factors. A total of five pavement maintenance related indices were considered in the study, including pavement overall quality, pavement structural capacity, pavement age, traffic level, and road functional class. The five indices were normalized to the same scale of 0–100. The weighting values of the five indices were also determined through expert consultation. The matter-element analysis process was conducted to determine the comprehensive correlation degree, which indicates the overall ranking of a road section in the network level decision-making. We clearly demonstrated the applicability and rationality of the matter-element model based decision-making method and can be used as a guideline for pavement maintenance agencies.