Performance Based Road Asset Management System, with a case study: Abu Dhabi

It is common for road authorities to adopt the traditional method of road maintenance contracts that include a typical arrangement of relationships between the Client, the Contractor and the Consultant. The traditional method of road maintenance contracts has been found ineffective and expensive which caused difficulties in controlling road quality, time to finish, and cost of construction.. Escalation of cost and delays in completion of maintenance projects coupled with, lack of proper training in the public sector are the main problems associated with traditional method of contracting. The Performance Based Contracts (PBC) has been recognized as an efficient method of contracts addressing the limitations of the traditional contracting methods. Unlike the traditional method of contracting, in PBC the contractor is generally free to make the decisions of “what to do”, “when” and “how” as long as the specified performance measures are achieved. This will lead to assign the responsibility of completing the contract with its risk of failure totally to the contractors. It has been a challenge for contractors to successfully manage the entire risk of projects particularly with limited resources, limited understanding of PBC, lack of skillful staff, and poor management. In addition, unavailability of accurate pavement condition prediction models to understand and predict pavement performance results in a higher risk to the contractor in PBC. This thesis identifies the main problems and challenges for successfully adopting PBC are discussed and analyzed. In order to assist contractors as well as road managers a methodological framework is developed and examined in this thesis. The developed framework necessitates the identification of many cornerstones to effectively manage pavement conditions in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The main components of the developed framework include 1) developing a robust database of detailed knowledge of the road network, 2) developing practical models to predict the present and future conditions of the pavement, and 3) developing robust models to optimize maintenance strategies. The developed framework was applied on a case study using data from the City of Abu Dhabi.