Using simulation to understand the impact of deferred maintenance

This paper describes the development of a framework and methodology to use dynamic simulation to understand and help quantify the impact of deferred maintenance on a highway system and the effect on user and non-user benefits. This type of simulation allows the testing of policies and/or assumptions to gain insight into the problem solution. With this framework, better structured decisions can be made on utilizing scarce resources to provide for an area's total infrastructure needs. Using the simulation model, policy decisions regarding deferring maintenance can be viewed for their impact over time, thus affecting the decision-making process. A hypothetical region is used to demonstrate the use of the framework, and possible measures of effectiveness, such as total net benefits per capita, revenues less expenditures, and benefit-cost ratio, are introduced that could be utilized to help decision- makers understand the impact of funding decisions. The dynamic modeling framework can then be applied and calibrated to a region or state based on the area to be studied.