Simplified Deterioration Modeling for Highway Sign Support Systems

Abstract

Road sign support systems are not usually well managed, because bridges and pavements have budget and maintenance priority while the sign boards and sign supports are considered miscellaneous items. The authors of this paper developed a simple deterioration prediction model and a repair priority list for sign support systems. For asset management risk analysis, data were collected from the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) asset management database. Asset ages, repair history, installation and repair costs, and other administrative information were collected. While there were many advanced and complicated structural deterioration prediction models, the Weibull function was used in this research because it is a simple probability distribution function that has been widely used in reliability theory. Assuming that the primary factors of the deterioration prediction are age and initial installation quality, the repair priority list was developed based on the risk analysis of the assets. Asset risks were calculated based on the deterioration prediction model and traffic impacts of the failure.

Keywords

• sign support
• asset management
• deterioration modeling
• preventive maintenance