Methodologies for highway maintenance cost-effectiveness: A review

Highway maintenance cost-effectiveness analysis is critical in highway maintenance management. It provides the methodologies for highway managers to make decisions on the time, location, actions, and feasibility of maintenance implementation for a single maintenance section or the whole highway network. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the methodologies used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of highway maintenance, assess the applicability of various methods, pinpoint research gaps in existing literature, and offer research directions for the future. First, the cost-effectiveness hotspots are analyzed using bibliometric methods, and then highway maintenance effectiveness indicators, maintenance cost indicators, and methodologies for evaluating maintenance cost-effectiveness are reviewed. Four types of highway maintenance effectiveness indicators are considered: performance indicators, time indicators, environment indicators, and social indicators. Maintenance cost indicators are categorized into three categories: maintenance treatment costs, maintenance expenditures, and user costs. To analyze maintenance cost-effectiveness, the life-cycle cost approach (LCCA) and the combination of cost and effectiveness approach (CCEA) are two ways that have been investigated. According to the findings, it is essential to select an appropriate performance index and then forecast the performance of highway assets, which is the premise of calculating many kinds of maintenance effectiveness indicators. Additionally, studying from a life cycle perspective is a research hotspot, but there is a lack of utilization of maintenance cost prediction models, and user costs are not fully considered. Especially, the respective weight of maintenance expenditures and user costs. It is suggested that future maintenance cost-effectiveness evaluation should trade off the four dimensions of technology, economy, environment, and society from a life cycle perspective. Besides, more hybrid approaches capable of leveraging the merits of multiple approaches should be studied for cost-effectiveness analysis. These findings give some suggestions for further study of cost-effectiveness and also provide a theoretical basis for scientific highway maintenance management.