Maintenance Management and Strategy

Many road authorities use a method developed by HELLER to determine the need for maintenance in the course of maintenance planning. The procedure, which can be adapted to the respective local requirements, isolates all sections in need for maintenance from the data of the condition survey and assessment (ZEB) and combines them into so-called maintenance sections. If desired, the engineers at HELLER classify the maintenance sections according to their condition and assign maintenance proposals. These are presented as lists or visualized on maps for further planning and specification of the construction program. The sections can be prioritized on the basis of predefined parameters, such as condition and traffic load. Due to its simplicity and transparency, the process is very popular among the engineers responsible and also among decision-makers in politics.

Pavement management systems are software tools with which the condition development and the implementation of the necessary maintenance measures can be simulated on the basis of models. The tools are primarily used to answer strategic questions, e.g. to determine resource requirements or to develop and review maintenance strategies.
The company's own system PMS Core was specifically developed for the German market. It takes into account the current standards of the federal government and states and makes it possible to determine the resources required for a targeted quality of service (quality scenario). Moreover, it enables to forecast the development of the condition depending on the budgets used (budget scenario). The optimization algorithms are accepted by experts, based on established heuristic methods and deliver reliable results. These can be presented in the form of maps, lists and statistics and be displayed in the OnKo3 online information system for further planning.

HELLER's procedures enable the necessary financial requirements to be determined efficiently and presented transparently to economists and politicians. In many cases, the budget for road maintenance was successfully increased. The experts at HELLER use the existing inventory and condition data, determine the overdue needs for maintenance and forecast the necessary financial requirements for the systematic maintenance of the road network. In addition, HELLER determines the consequences of omitted maintenance and presents them to the political level of decision-making.

The allocation of resources to different investment areas is an integral part of budget planning. As a historically evolved process, it represents a compromise between the identified needs and the resources available. Budgets and distribution keys are traditionally based on subjective criteria. HELLER supports the road authorities in representing their interests and introducing objective and transparent procedures. HELLER uses the established methods of Asset Management and determines reliable key figures for the resource allocation.