Integrating sustainability into pavement maintenance effectiveness evaluation: A systematic review

Based on the publications from two databases during 1998-2020, this paper presents a systematic literature review on pavement maintenance effectiveness evaluation to summarize the current trend and identify the research gap that must be addressed for a sustainable maintenance management. This review has analyzed and synthesized maintenance thresholds and their mechanisms, the measurement methods of effectiveness in terms of performance, cost and environmental impacts. In particular, this paper has critically examined the state-of-art maintenance effectiveness optimization strategy that has included environmental concerns and sustainable goals, in comparison with the traditional cost-effectiveness evaluation method. The study has revealed the ambiguous definition of pavement maintenance effectiveness and data availability have caused inconsistencies in the evaluation process; moreover, the embryonic pavement life cycle assessment studies and limited study on pavement use phase have set obstacles in the expanding system boundary of sustainable maintenance effectiveness evaluation.

Automated summary

This paper presents a systematic literature review on pavement maintenance effectiveness evaluation, analyzing and synthesizing maintenance thresholds, measurement methods of effectiveness, and the comparison of optimization strategies. The study reveals inconsistencies in evaluation process and limitations in expanding the system boundary of sustainable maintenance effectiveness evaluation due to ambiguous definition and data availability.