A fuzzy logic expert system for selecting optimal and sustainable life cycle maintenance and rehabilitation strategies for road pavements

João Santos*, Cristina Torres-Machi, Samuel Morillas, Veronique Cerezo

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)
142 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Aged road pavements and insufficient maintenance budgets, along with increasing concerns over the environmental issues related to transportation have introduced additional challenges to highway agencies. Multiobjective optimisation techniques can be used to account for those multiple aspects in the design of maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) strategies. Contrary to the singleobjective optimisation problems where a single solution is optimal, the solution of multiobjective optimisation problems is a set of non-dominated solutions, often referred to as Pareto-optimal set. This set of optimal solutions represents the trade-off between the different and often conflicting objectives, and in many cases is comprised by a vast number of elements. This paper presents the development and application of a fuzzy logic expert system for selecting a single solution from the Pareto set obtained from the multiobjective optimisation of sustainable pavement M&R strategies. It provides decision-makers with an easy and intuitive methodology for the selection of the most preferred solution according to sustainability criteria. The proposed system is applied to a case study from France. Posteriorly, different strategies reflecting the decision-maker’s preferences towards economic and environmental objectives are analysed. Conclusions and recommendations for future improvements are derived from this application.

Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational journal of pavement engineering
Early online date21 Apr 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Apr 2020

Keywords

  • UT-Hybrid-D
  • genetic algorithms
  • life cycle thinking
  • multiobjective optimisation
  • pavement management
  • Sustainable pavements
  • fuzzy logic system

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