Road pavement upgrade scheduling accounting for minimizing congestion

• Published in: Scientific reports 2023-09, Vol.13 (1), p.15386-15386, Article 15386
• Main Authors: Rupasinghe, Bhagya, Wallace, Mark, Gange, Graeme, Senthooran, Ilankaikone
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/705/117; 639/705/258; 639/705/794; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Roads; Roads & highways; Schedules; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-40945-5

Road pavement maintenance and upgrades (RPU) need to be scheduled in a way that minimises congestion across the road network and matches the schedule with the availability of equipment and skilled labourers to ensure that they are completed on time. RPU should not introduce unbearable congestion around blocked lanes or roads, and increased traffic due to ongoing road upgrades needs to be transferred to alternative routes. In situations where multiple upgrades are planned together, the scheduled road closures should be coordinated to not block alternative routes. While extensive studies have been conducted separately on scheduling and routing, limited research has linked these processes together, and only in restricted scenarios. In this paper, we investigate how to minimise the disruption of a set of road maintenance tasks based on their interaction with other tasks. We propose a new approach for scheduling a set of road maintenance tasks, some at the same time and others at different times, to minimise overall disruption. The proposed approach has two phases: (1) identify the local area affected by the RPU, and (2) determine which upgrades can be planned together to minimise congestion. The comparison of the results shows how the novel optimized approach identifies a better schedule to minimise congestion.