Optimization of Routes for Road Surface Inspection - An Application to the Portuguese National Road Network

Abstract

Infraestruturas de Portugal S.A. (IP) is responsible for managing the Portuguese rail network infrastructure and a significant part of the road network. An annual inspection must be performed on every road segment for which IP is responsible, which sums up around 14,000 km. This is a costly operation regarding time, human and monetary resources. An optimization model that incorporates the problem technical constraints was developed and a cost analysis performed to compare the distinct scenarios that IP may face in the general layout of the inspection programme.