Pitfalls of HDM-4 strategy analysis

Abstract

Strategy analysis using the Highway Development and Management Tool (HDM-4) is a powerful means for exercising pavement management planning at the network level. However, since good/bad practices are not well documented, practitioners are often confronted with various pitfalls in conducting strategy analyses using HDM-4. This paper discusses three such pitfalls and proposes remedial guidelines for avoiding them using a case study. They pertain to the generation of good maintenance alternatives, defining appropriate analysis periods of HDM-4 runs in relative to planning periods, and obtaining more or less uniform outlays of investment over the analysis period as benchmarks for strategy analyses. The first problem is particularly acute with the dynamic sectioning approach for the representation of a road network. It is often preferred for its potential accuracy but tends to generate a large number of sections and requires the generation of good alternatives for each of them.

Keywords:

• Strategy analysis
• Strategic plan
• Pavement maintenance
• Life-cycle cost
• Economic analysis
• Developing countries

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the World Bank and the Vietnam Road Administration for their cooperation.

Notes

^¶Tel.: [phone]. Fax: [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Riaz Ul-Islam

¶ ¶Tel.: [phone]. Fax: [email protected]