Prediction of Routine Maintenance Needs of Urban Expressways from Minor Repair Data Using Markov Chains

With the growth of operating time, routine maintenance efforts and financial needs of urban expressways are constantly rising. In order to more effectively develop routine maintenance plans and prepare appropriate funding budgets, it is necessary to make reasonable predictions about future routine maintenance needs. This study collected minor repair data of urban expressway in Shanghai for more than a decade, including maintenance records of the main structures of expressways and the maintenance and replacement records for various ancillary facilities. After careful data preprocessing, Markov chains were used to forecast the routine maintenance needs of urban expressways. Routine maintenance needs were expressed in terms of the number of different types of maintenance work. It was concluded that the Markov chain developed for predicting routine maintenance needs of urban expressways in this study was mathematically acceptable and predicts routine maintenance needs with reasonable accuracy.