USE OF EXPERT SYSTEMS IN MANAGING PAVEMENT MAINTENANCE IN EGYPT

An attempt to apply expert systems to management of pavement maintenance in developing countries is presented. The development of this system is based, however, on data from Egypt. A twofold system has been developed to assist highway agencies that lack in-house experts in evaluation of asphalt pavements and assessment of maintenance and rehabilitation needs. The evaluation sybsystem is an interactive algorithmic computer program, the output of which is an index-type rating of pavement condition--namely, the pavement condition index--calculated from distress data obtained from visual condition surveys. The maintenance and rehabilitation subsystem is an expert system that simulates a consultation between the engineer and an expert in the field of pavement maintenance. This expert system can be run as a stand-alone program with input data supplied by the user engineer, or it can be called from inside the environment of the algorithmic program to analyze its data base. The system has been developed and verified using data from portions of the Egyptian road network where comprehensive visual inspection data are available.