Procedure for Making Paving Decisions with Cluster and Multicriteria Analysis

For many years, much research has been carried out to assess the affordability of paving a road. Now, increased construction and maintenance costs for traditional asphalt pavement systems have persuaded many civil administrations, regional councils, and agencies to replace pavement with gravel surfaces. Low-volume roads (LVRs), as they are presented in this paper, constitute a significant proportion of the total road network in Italy (around 80%) and in many other countries. Such infrastructures are vital parts of the road network, but their construction can have significant adverse effects on the environment. As a result, these roads must be well planned, well designed, well constructed, and properly maintained to create minimal adverse effects, to be cost-effective in the long term, and to have acceptable maintenance and repair costs. Limited resources often exist for LVRs, and a frequent question is whether to use paved or gravel surfaces. In many cases, the choice depends only on economic considerations, which must take maintenance costs into account. A complete procedure that applies cluster analysis and multicriteria analysis is presented for deciding whether to pave gravel road surfaces on the basis of different geometric, traffic, and environmental layouts.