Both federal and state funding for highway rehabilitation efforts in the United States are insufficient to bring the nation's aging roads and bridges to acceptable conditions. Decision makers therefore need to spend this limited rehabilitation funding sensibly in such a way that maximizes the societal benefits from the highway rehabilitation efforts. The allocation of rehabilitation funding can have a significant impact on providing safer roads, easing traffic congestion and reducing traveling costs for the public while controlling and minimizing road closures during highway construction works. This paper investigates the expected impact of fund allocation decisions, such as the selection of rehabilitation projects, contract types of highway construction projects, and scheduling of construction works, on the benefits and costs of highway rehabilitation efforts. In addition, the paper presents the development of a multi-objective optimization model for planning highway rehabilitation efforts that is capable of maximizing both the net benefits from rehabilitation efforts and the performance of the transportation network undergoing construction works during rehabilitation. An application example is analyzed to: (1) describe the impact of rehabilitation decision making on both the societal benefits and the performance of transportation networks; and (2) illustrate the use of the developed optimization model and demonstrate its capabilities in planning highway rehabilitation efforts.
