Highway Maintenance Fund Allocation: Tabulated Manual Procedure

Abstract

Several variables are usually considered when fund is allocated for highway improvement programs. Among these variables are the project improvement alternatives for each highway, the different locations available, and the annual maintenance budget. The different improvements and location alternatives provide the flexibility needed to optimize the costs or benefits of improvement projects within the constraint of a given budget. Integer programming techniques and computer programs are the basic requirement for solving the fund allocation problems. These programs and the appropriate computers, despite the decrease of hardware and software costs, may not always be available, especially in developing countries. There can also be a shortage of professionals who can use the integer programming techniques to solve the problem. This paper presents a developed tabulated manual procedure to get the optimum or “nearly optimum” solution for the highway maintenance fund allocation problems. A sample project solved by the computerized integer program is given, and the result is compared with that obtained by the developed tables.