Making a Decision Between the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Asphalt Pavements Using the Rough-Set Theory

Authors

1 Department of Civil Engineering,Guilan University

2 Faculty of Engineering,Guilan University

Abstract

Abstract. Every year a great amount of money is expended for the rehabilitation and reconstruction
of roads and pavements in most countries. Besides, making an ideal decision on this based on the
types of failures determined, takes too long. The rough-set theory is an e ective tool for the analysis
of information systems in a Pavement Management System (PMS) database gained by both objective and
subjective methods. A rough-set based analysis acts like a knowledge engineer who sits between data and
the user. This approach appears to capture information on uncertainty, imprecision and ambiguity along
with precise values in a PMS database. This paper explores a new approach to the rough-set theory in
a PMS database that enables pavement engineers to discover the shortest subsets of condition attributes
having quality equal to the general quality of de ned characteristics in the information system, to assess
and describe pavement conditions, and to derive decision rules for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the
pavements. To evaluate the results, the best algorithm of de ned attributes in the information system is
determined by making use of a stepwise linear regression method and the result is compared with rough-set
ones. The results of the research indicate that the rough-set theory has a better and stronger operational
capability in identifying the e ective parameters for the severity evaluation of typical distresses in asphalt
pavements and in decision-making for selecting the type of repair.

Keywords