Project Summary: This invention relates generally to a system for evaluating infrastructure and minimizing overall repair costs. In particular, the present invention relates to a system that uses enumerated criteria for determining infrastructure condition and pre- diets the costs associated with repairing and maintaining the infrastructure if various repair/ maintenance plans were to be implemented. In addition, this system minimizes overall costs of repair and maintenance and maximizes overall infrastructure quality while considering budget constraints. Roadway and street managers face the daunting task of maintaining a transportation infrastructure that includes approximately six hundred thousand bridges and nearly four million miles of public roads and streets in the United States alone. Moreover, budgets for infrastructure maintenance are facing widespread shortages. As a result, these managers have to become increasingly proactive in analyzing maintenance scenarios and determining corrective measures while considering the various economic impacts and recognizing probable future trends. Various proposals for systems that analyze pavement maintenance costs are found in the art, such as in United States Patent Number’s 5,189,606; 5,737,227; and 6,584,414. While assumedly effective for their intended purposes, these systems do not minimize overall costs of repair and maintenance or maximize overall infrastructure quality while considering budget constraints. Nor do they take into consideration the entire transportation infrastructure; instead they focus solely on pavement.

A system for analyzing transportation infrastructure and minimizing repair costs according to the present invention comprises steps for: associating a plurality of condition indicators with each bridge and roadway; determining costs involved with first repairing each bridge and roadway at two or more points in time considering the associated condition indicators; determining costs involved with maintaining each bridge and roadway over a time interval if the bridges and roadways are first repaired at two or more separate points in time; comparing the costs involved with first repairing each bridge and roadway at the different points in time; comparing the costs involved with maintaining each bridge and roadway over the time interval with the first repair occurring at the different points in time; determining when to repair the bridges and roadways to minimize costs involved with maintaining the bridges and roadways over the time interval; comparing various costs to current and future budgets; associating priority values having predetermined condition parameters and secondary predetermined condition parameters with each bridge and roadway; comparing the predetermined condition parameters and the secondary predetermined condition parameters to the condition indicators; and determining which bridges and roadways are in need of repair and which are in definite need of repair. In a preferred embodiment, a software product has instructions, stored on computer-readable media, wherein the instructions, when executed by a computer, perform steps for analyzing transportation infrastructure, including: instructions for associating a respective plurality of condition indicators with each bridge and roadway; instructions for deter-mining costs involved with first repairing each bridge and roadway at a first point in time considering the associated condition indicators; instructions for determining costs involved with maintaining each bridge and roadway over a time interval if the bridges and roadways are first repaired at the first point in time; instructions for determining costs involved with first repairing each bridge and roadway at a second point in time considering the associated condition indicators; instructions for determining costs involved with maintaining each bridge and roadway over the time interval if the bridges and roadways are first repaired at the second point in time; instructions for comparing the costs involved with first repairing each bridge and roadway at the first point in time to the costs involved with first repairing each bridge and roadway at the second point in time; instructions for comparing the costs involved with maintaining each bridge and roadway over the time interval if the bridges and roadways are first repaired at the first point in time to the costs involved 'with maintaining each bridge and roadway over the time interval if the bridges and roadways are first repaired at the second point in time; instructions for determining when to repair the bridges and roadways to minimize the costs involved with maintaining the bridges and roadways over the time interval; instructions for associating a respective priority value with each bridge and roadway, each priority value corresponding to a respective set of predetermined condition parameters; instructions for comparing the predetermined condition parameters associated with each bridge and roadway to the condition indicators associated with each bridge and roadway; instructions for determining that bridges and roadways having associated condition indicators beyond associated predetermined condition parameters are in need of repair; instructions for determining the aggregate cost of repairing all bridges and roadways in need of repair; instructions for comparing the aggregate cost of repairing all bridges and roadways in need of repair to a budget; instructions for associating a respective set of secondary predetermined condition parameters with each priority value; instructions for comparing the secondary predetermined condition parameters associated with each bridge and roadway to the condition indicators associated with each bridge and roadway; instructions for determining that bridges and roadways having associated condition indicators beyond associated secondary predetermined condition parameters are in definite need of repair; instructions for determining an aggregate cost of repairing all bridges and roadways in definite need of repair; and instructions for comparing the aggregate cost of repairing all bridges and roadways in definite need of repair to the budget