Transportation Infrastructure Maintenance Management: Case Study of a Small Urban City

A transportation infrastructure maintenance management system (TIMMS) for a small urban city is developed. Uintah, Utah, year 2005 population 2,000, is studied. As of Fall 2001, this suburb of the Salt Lake City-Ogden urban area featured 12 km of paved roads, 133 traffic signs, 18 street lights, pavement markings, and other transportation infrastructure. A part-time city engineer was responsible for maintaining the transportation and other infrastructure. A formal TIMMS was not in place. A TIMMS emphasizing preventive maintenance on all infrastructure, along with corrective maintenance on all pavements, was estimated to require about 79% of the city engineer's time, at an annual cost of about $88,000, or $7,330/km of road (2002$). About 75% of the expenses would be devoted to pavement preservation. The cost would exceed the city's estimated transport maintenance budget ($55,775) by about 58%, while the time required of the engineer might exceed that available. A simple linear programming TIMMS formulation is developed. One heuristic solution would be to implement a scheduled maintenance program on all transport infrastructure, and corrective pavement maintenance on one major collector street. These two programs would consume the entire $55,775 budget. The budget shortfall may be indicative of a general lack of adequate funding for infrastructure maintenance in the United States. The time shortfall indicates a need for additional manpower. Further study is needed to determine how best to prioritize maintenance actions, optimize maintenance resources, and identify supplemental funding sources.