Prediction of Inter-Provincial Trade Flow and Passenger Traffic to Support Multi-Criteria Pavement Management

Transport infrastructure has significant association with regional economy by generation economic activities through construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of transport infrastructure in the short term and by changing the spatial patterns of relative prices and production (Vickerman, 1987). The broader function of regional transport infrastructure can be categorized into two groups—transportation of people by passenger vehicles and transportation of goods by freight transports. Historically, freight travel demand has not been given adequate research interest by the regional planners, geographers and scientists comparing to the passenger travel demand. Freight travel demand was considered as the classic case of derived
demand of economy and assumed that good prediction of economic
outputs is sufficient enough to determine the regional transportation
policy for freight transport (Vickerman and Monet, 2003).

Transport infrastructure components represent major capital infrastructure investments that must be protected in order to ensure adequate return on expenditure. The deterioration of transport infrastructure is progressive and is influenced by several factors including traffic axle loading, environmental condition, and original design and construction standards. Pavement maintenance is an essential function that should be implemented as soon as each stage of construction has been completed and should continue throughout the entire life of the structure. However, a well-planned maintenance operation is not only the function of accumulated traffic loads and environmental exposure during the life span of road infrastructure, but is also subjected to community benefits.

This study integrates the regional economy, land use, socio-economic factors with transportation to support the multi-criteria based pavement management system for regional road network of the Atlantic Canadian provinces—New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia and Quebec.