Evaluation of Cost-Effectiveness of Pavement Surface Maintenance Activities: Fid-Bau Portal

Evaluation of Cost-Effectiveness of Pavement Surface Maintenance Activities

I. M. Mouaket / A. Al-Mansour / K. C. Sinha

The study covers pavement surface maintenance on three surface types: rigid, flexible and composite (asphalt overlay on rigid pavement). It addresses 3 main issues as follows: (1) Do routine maintenance activities make a difference in terms of pavement serviceability. If yes, how much. (2) Are chip and sand seal coating cost-effective. What is their optimal timing. (3) What management criteria should be used as a guide to make seal coating decisions on specific roadways. In resolving Issue No. 1, a stratified 2-stage sample of observational data was used in a statistical before/after comparison. SAS-General Linear Model was used due to its flexibility in treating continuous and class variables. Most activities showed significant effect (either alone or in combination with others) on Pavement Serviceability Ratings or Roughness Numbers. In resolving Issue No. 2, Life Cycle Cost Analysis was applied using agency and user costs. Results showed that optimal timing for seal coating is in the PSI range of 3.0 to 2.7, dependent on AADT. In resolving Issue No. 3, a literature search, telephone interviews and expert opinion survey were used to augment the findings on Issue No. 2 in generating a decision tree. The developed tree uses the available data at INDOT, although surface distress related criteria would be superior.