Overview
In the field of Life-Cycle-Costs regarding road maintenance, which includes the topic of road equipment and its maintenance, only highly specialized solutions for the high-level road network are currently available. Decisions concerning the procurement of road equipment on state- and municipal-roads are for the most part being made based on acquisition costs without properly considering consequential costs and potential negative effects (e.g. inefficient energy and resource consumption).
At present there is no technical solution available which covers the optimization of Life-Cycle-Costs in the field of road equipment based on a generic model in an objectified and standardized way and also be easily understandable for the end user. Hence the objective of the research project Street Life is the development of a comprehensive model to forecast and optimize the whole Life-Cycle-Costs of road equipment and road maintenance for state- and municipal roads. This model will be developed based on the requirements of consumers in the public sector (province of Lower Austria and municipalities in Tennengau, Salzburg) and prototypically implemented and evaluated based on existing data. In addition, the forecast and optimisation model also targets to support the ongoing road maintenance since decisions regarding the condition of roads and consequentially the maintenance cycles and exchange scenarios should underlie the consideration of Life-Cycle-Costs.
Street Life shall provide consolidated criteria for the overall consideration of costs in a comprehensible manner for decision-makers. Based on these criteria the assessment of road equipment can be evaluated in terms of long-term cost-, energy- and resource-efficiency and thus enhance positive effects regarding quality and availability of road infrastructure. The developed model will be tested and evaluated with strongly integrated experts of public-sector consumers (province of Lower Austria and municipalities in Tennengau, Salzburg). Hence the project team of Street Life expects to gain key insights for subsequent advancement of the prototypical solution into a marketable product.