A maintenance priority approach for highways: Case study.

The aim of highways' maintenance is to preserve the network of roads by retaining their performance in a way that enhances the transport needs and provides an environmentally positive contribution to the service standards. This target is performed by many activities which are presented in the state-of-the-art form to illustrate the approaches and techniques that are used for maintenance performance measurement and which maintenance techniques are optimal for evaluating maintenance strategies. The lack of structure and maintenance records have been discussed and took into consideration as a major step in performing accurate highway maintenance. This lack of records shows the gap between academic research and industrial application in maintenance policies. The paper is intended to provide multiple maintenance strategies and suggest the suitable ones that can fit highway conditions in Iraq by giving useful references for highway agency and academic research in this field. A case study including evaluating the performance of some streets and determining the priority of maintenance in one of Iraqi southern cities (Al-Shamiyah town) was presented and discussed. 10 sections of highways being studied. It is shown from the results of investigation that majority of highways lay in the range of good-to-poor condition (given 3-6) as categorised by AASHTO tables. This could result from many reasons such as poor shoulder work, improper compaction and drainage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]