Benefit Formula

In Pavement Analyst, “Benefit” is usually used in the network analysis as a measure of how much “good” effect there are from a treatment, and often used as an objective in the optimization analysis.  By default, Benefit is defined as the area under the performance curve (note that performance may have threshold for benefit calculation) from designated performance attribute. However, customized benefit calculation methods can be defined and assigned to calculated fields using PMS Analysis Column window, using “Groovy Script for Calculated Columns”.

Using Performance Attributes for Benefit Calculations

In the Performance Attributes tab of Performance Models window, if a performance attribute has “Used for ben. Calc” field checked, then the attribute is used to determine benefit.

Condition Threshold

Since pavement sections in a very bad condition don’t provide any benefit to the users, a condition threshold is usually defined, and the benefit is not calculated for the part of area that is under condition threshold.

In Benefit Threshold Groovy Script field of performance models attributes pane of Performance models screen (depicted below) provides a drop-down list that contains the various ways that the benefit threshold may be determined. This threshold is the lower boundary below which benefit is not calculated. This list contains all scripts configured in the Groovy Scripts window that are of the PI Threshold for RSL or Benefit type.

The groovy script is developed in “PI Threshold for RSL or Benefit” of Groovy scripts screen as seen below.