Optimization in Asset Management: Defining the Objective Function and Constraints

The asset management of highway infrastructure is essential to ensure safety and efficiency of transit. This paper presents preliminary results from a case study involving the introduction of an asset management approach, along with the corresponding information system, developed for a major Italian highway concessionaire. The findings indicate that the objective functions to be considered fall into three categories: service, operational, and economic, and offer a viable model for their optimization. They also show that optimization through genetic algorithms is suitable for solving the problem, especially in conditions of low interdependence between maintenance interventions. A preliminary version of the developed software is also presented.