Predicting Road Wear in Hot Climates: A Smart Approach

In hot and humid places, roads take a beating. The main issue is something called rutting, where tire tracks get deep over time. This is a big deal because it affects how we plan road maintenance. But predicting this has been tricky. A group of researchers decided to tackle this problem. They gathered lots of data from a highway in Foshan, China. This data included things like how much money was spent on maintenance, how hot the road got, and even the weather. They wanted to see what factors really matter when it comes to road wear.They used a special tool called GM(1, 1)-BPNN to make predictions. This tool combines two different methods to make more accurate guesses. To check if it worked, they compared it to other tools. The results were pretty good. The new tool had lower errors and a higher score, meaning it was better at predicting road wear. But they didn't stop there. They also used something called SHAP to see which factors had the biggest impact. It turned out that things like maintenance money, road temperature, and sunlight played a big role. This research is important because it helps road managers make better plans. It shows that in hot and humid places, we need to consider many different factors to keep roads in good shape.