Modeling traffic hindrance caused by road maintenance

The past decades have shown an exponential increase in the use of the road network. The increased loading requires more frequent maintenance work, whereas the demand for undisturbed traffic flows restricts the opportunity for doing roadwork. However, road maintenance is required to keep roads in acceptable condition. As a result, maintenance activities do have more frequent and more severe impacts on society. These impacts involve both traffic obstructions and traffic externalities, together defined as traffic hindrance. Road agencies are currently facing the problems of coping with traffic hindrance on a network level. Effectively estimating traffic hindrance is essential to accurately schedule and perform maintenance with reduced traffic hindrance. To assist road agencies in deciding on maintenance methods, traffic management and scheduling, we develop an infrastructure management system that will provide the trade-off between total costs and traffic hindrance. For this aim we work on a theoretical framework that is able to define the relationships between road maintenance characteristics, traffic effects, maintenance costs and traffic hindrance for road works. The paper describes a literature survey after models and systems that combine road maintenance works with traffic management. Additionally, the paper focusses on the development of a theoretical framework that is based on a combination of state-of-the-art research in the fields of road construction, traffic modeling and impacts on society. The paper further describes the development of alternative traffic assignment definitions in relation to traditional traffic assignment. We think that the alternative traffic assignment forecasts traffic behavior more accurately, at least in order to study regions in which road works are to be scheduled.