Making a Decision Between the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Asphalt Pavements Using the Rough-Set Theory

Every year a great amount of money is expended for the rehabilitation and reconstructionof roads and pavements in most countries. besides, making an ideal decision on this based on thetypes of failures determined, takes too long. the rough-set theory is an eective tool for the analysisof information systems in a pavement management system (pms) database gained by both objective andsubjective methods. a rough-set based analysis acts like a knowledge engineer who sits between data andthe user. this approach appears to capture information on uncertainty, imprecision and ambiguity alongwith precise values in a pms database. this paper explores a new approach to the rough-set theory ina pms database that enables pavement engineers to discover the shortest subsets of condition attributeshaving quality equal to the general quality of dened characteristics in the information system, to assessand describe pavement conditions, and to derive decision rules for rehabilitation and reconstruction of thepavements. to evaluate the results, the best algorithm of dened attributes in the information system isdetermined by making use of a stepwise linear regression method and the result is compared with rough-setones. the results of the research indicate that the rough-set theory has a better and stronger operationalcapability in identifying the eective parameters for the severity evaluation of typical distresses in asphaltpavements and in decision-making for selecting the type of repair.