In recent years, a major emphasis has been put on the maintenance of existing road network of Vietnam in an appropriate and systematic way through various major projects such as the Highway Management Capacity Improvement Project (HMCP, 2002), the Road Network Improvement Project (RNIP, 2003), and the Third Road Improvement Project - Implementation of Sector Development Policy (ISDP, 2005). Highway Development and Management System HDM-4 (PIARC, 2001) has been used for strategy and program analyses of the road network under unconstrained and constrained budgets as well as for optimization of pavement maintenance alternatives at project level for a specific road section. Therefore, this lecture paper presents pitfalls and guidelines of HDM-4 analyses and also shows future directions in order to apply HDM-4 effectively according to the Vietnamese conditions.
