Optimal Strategies for Highway Pavement Management in Developing Countries

Highway pavement design in developing countries is usually based on standards borrowed from industrialized countries. However, it may not be economically feasible to use these high design standards in developing countries, because of significant differences in socioeconomic conditions. Using the World Bank's highway design and maintenance standards model (HDM-III), this paper investigates optimal pavement design and its relationship with the developmental stage of a country. Optimal pavement design can be defined as that which minimizes total transport costs to society, which comprise the sum of agency costs and road user costs. Basic data for the analysis were derived from Chinese conditions, and appropriate adjustments were made to model five classes of hypothetical countries in different developmental stages. It is shown that the optimal trade-off between initial expenditure on construction and subsequent maintenance depends on the developmental stage of an economy. The same high design standards that are suitable for industrialized countries may not be economically justified in developing countries. Developing countries should start with modest pavements and then spend more on maintenance afterwards, which is an overdue, neglected priority today.