Abstract Manager

Canadian municipalities are increasingly challenged to sustain roadway levels of service under constrained and uncertain funding, rising lifecycle costs, and evolving policy priorities. While project-level multi-criteria prioritization is widely applied, it does not fully address strategic questions of how limited resources should be allocated across road classes, programs, and time horizons to support long-term service outcomes and organizational objectives. This study presents an innovative, portfolio-level planning approach developed for the City of Ottawa’s 6,500 centreline-km roadway network, aimed at strengthening the linkage between asset performance, risk, and long-term financial planning.

A multi-criteria funding allocation scenario evaluation framework was established to assess alternative 10-year investment strategies, informed by the City’s pavement management system and risk assessment framework. Fourteen scenarios were developed, representing different budget levels, performance targets, temporal distributions, and functional-class investment splits. Scenario outcomes were evaluated using a consistent set of performance, financial, and risk indicators, including network Pavement Quality Index, deficiency, backlog, cost-effectiveness, and risk exposure. A normalized, weighted scoring and scenario ranking tool was then applied to enable transparent comparison of trade-offs under varying strategic priorities.

The results indicate that different funding strategies may lead to distinct network condition trajectories, backlog distributions, investment efficiencies, and risk profiles, and that they differ in their effectiveness in aligning service objectives with long-term financial capacity. Overall, the framework supports the integration of emerging planning practices, data-driven scenario analysis, and multi-criteria decision-making into organizational asset management processes, providing practical insights to inform strategic investment discussions and long-term infrastructure reliability.