Pavement Maintenance-Focused Decision Analysis on Concession Periods of PPP Highway Projects

There are dynamic, interactive, and long-term relationships among the highway pavement performance, operator's toll income and maintenance costs, the users' satisfaction or willingness to travel, the government's satisfaction, and decisions during the concession period of the public-private partnership (PPP) highway project. This study adopts a system dynamics (SD) model to simulate such complex interactions among the highway pavement performance and stakeholders' relevant factors during the concession period of the PPP highway project, in which pavement maintenance is emphasized. The SD model is able to evaluate the rationality of the concession period and stakeholders' impacts in terms of the net present value (NPV). Justification and demonstration of the proposed SD model are presented based on an example project and a series of simulation experiments. This study is aimed at providing a methodology to help either the public sector or the private investor evaluate concession decision-making by addressing pavement maintenance of the PPP highway project.