What is Pavement Management?

Pavement management is the process of planning the maintenance and repair of a roadway network or other paved infrastructure to improve road conditions throughout the network. It is also used on runways and airports. Every highway superintendent undertakes walkway management. Traffic management includes the cost of living cycles in a systematic way of repairing minor and major roads and reconstruction projects. The needs of the entire network and budget estimates are considered before the projects are undertaken, as the cost of data collection can change significantly. Pavement management incorporates many of the features and functions required to maintain the quality of the paved material as well as to ensure that the entire road network can sustain itself at the required levels. Although pedestrian management involves the life cycle of commuting from planning to maintenance of any transport infrastructure, road asset management, and road maintenance planning is primarily aimed at road infrastructure.

Contractors repairing pavements and road repairs are still operating during the COVID-19 epidemic. In the city of Vancouver, due to a lack of funding due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, road maintenance projects scheduled for 2020 were delayed.

Raised sidewalk beside a 2000-year-old paved road, Pompeii, Italy.
CC BY-SA 3.0 | Image credits: https://en.wikipedia.org | Paul Vlaar

Pavement Management System

The Pavement Management System (PMS) is a planning tool used to assist with road management decisions. The PMS software programs are an example of a future road demolition due to traffic and weather and recommend maintenance and maintenance of a paved roadway based on the type, age and, various quality standards available. Measurements can be made by low-lying people, visually from a moving car, or using automatic sensors installed in a car. PMS software usually enables the user to perform compact patch quality measurements based on footpath quality measurements on the roads or sections of the road. Recommendations are often biased towards predictable repairs, rather than allowing the road to deteriorate to the point where it needs extensive reconstruction.

Typical functions performed by traffic control systems include:

  • Inventory pavement conditions, which identify safe, efficient, and bad travel routes.
  • Provide important traffic segment estimates, based on traffic volume, road performance category, and community needs.
  • Organize good road maintenance to provide it in good condition.
  • Plan for the repair of bad and proper roads as the remaining funding allows.

Studies have shown that it is far less expensive to maintain a good road than to repair it once it has deteriorated. That is why road management programs prioritize road safety, rather than rebuilding poor roads. In terms of lifetime costs and long-term walking conditions, this will lead to better system performance.

The California region was one of the first to adopt PMS in 1979. Like some of its contemporaries, the first PMS was based on a large-scale computer and contained comprehensive website offers. It can be used to determine long-term maintenance needs and to evaluate results in a network environment if funding is insufficient.

Management Approach

The road management process is embedded in several paved asset management systems. The next method of administration emerged 30 years ago as part of the development of the PAVER management system (Micro PAVER 2004).

The process consists of the following steps:

  • Inventory Definition
  • Pavement Test
  • Status Check
  • Status Prediction
  • Situation Analysis
  • Work Planning
  • Inventory Definition

Typically, traffic management requires that a road inventory is created and integrated with the Asset Location Referencing System (ALRS). The roadmap covers a roadway area using both parallel reference systems and lines, road width, road length, and foot type.

Status check

Pavement scenarios can be divided into structural and operational scenarios for a variety of scenarios. The working condition can be divided into dusk, texture, and skiing while the structural condition includes mechanical properties and road stress. To quantify such indicators, expensive laser-based tools are widely used while the development of inexpensive tools significantly reduces the cost of data collection.

Status prediction

Pavement forecasts are often referred to as road damage simulations, which may be based on mechanical or powerful models. Also, parameterized hybrid models are popular. More recently, alternatives based on the Markov models and machine learning have been proposed beyond their previous counterparts. The deterioration of the paved road is caused by overcrowding and the weather. Also, material selection and construction affect the deterioration process. It has been shown that models are designed in a way that surpasses mechanical and hybrid models in the predictive environment.

Work planning

Work planning is a road maintenance project where repair work is provided both geographically and temporarily in terms of requirements such as low cost to the community.

Pavement management and performance

Program areas

Various organizations work to manage and control the performance of the pavement. These programs cover vast areas and details regarding the aim of the project, participation by organizations, and research over the topics related to pavement management by them.

Program support

The team provides technical assistance and information sharing to States and other professionals in the field of pedestrian management. Current activities include a highlighting project for many years, a project for pavement management data applications, and a review of the traffic management software catalog.

Participating in national efforts

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is actively involved with several national transport organizations, the Transport Research Board (TRB), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and others. The paved area management team represents the agency in activities related to road management plans. Some of the ongoing efforts are interim measures to measure road slip, error, and cracking. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) guidelines provide preservation as a planned activity and are carried out to improve or maintain the transport environment in an efficient state.

Research and development

The pavement management team conducts and supports the study of emerging approaches and technologies in the measurement and application of foot-level network data. Current activities include the development of ways to analyze pedestrian performance from pedestrian management data and to explore the relationship between preventive maintenance and pedestrian management data. Pavement maintenance is required to have a good condition of the pavement network. It describes the development and validation of the empirical model predicting the International Roughness Index (IRI) over time. Predicted road crime is modeled on the function of initial IRI and walking years.

Context and Applications

This topic is important for professional exams in both undergraduate and postgraduate studies and in particular:

  • Bachelors in Civil Engineering
  • Masters in Civil Engineering

Practice Problems

1. Which of the following is not a type of adjustment to the pavements?

  1. Pavement maintenance
  2. Pothole analysis
  3. Slurry seal maintenance
  4. Preventive maintenance

Answer: Option d

Explanation: Preventative maintenance is software maintenance.

2. What type of test is used to determine the state of the pavement?

  1. Slurry seal
  2. Pavement management information system
  3. Roadway network system
  4. Pavement condition index

Answer: Option b

Explanation: PMIS stands for pavement management information system. Multi-year PMIS stress data is used to assess the performance history of the entire network of the pedestrian system.

3. What is a function related to serving the traffic over a period of time?

  1. Pavement network
  2. Transportation analysis
  3. Pavement performance
  4. Slurry seal

Answer: Option c

Explanation: The main purpose of pavement is to serve traffic.

4. Which assessment is responsible for identifying the cause and performing remedial activities?

  1. Pavement
  2. Slurry seal
  3. Pavement condition index
  4. Preventive maintenance

Answer: Option a

Explanation: Pavement assessment is responsible for identifying the cause and performing remedial activities. The test can be in two different categories. It is understood that the possible causes of road damage or pothole are then rehabilitated.

5. Why paved road is sufficiently thick?

  1. To resist the wheel load
  2. To resist the axis load
  3. To distribute the load on the wheels
  4. For slurry sealing

Answer: Option c

Explanation: The efficiency of the pavement structure lies in its ability to optimize the load on the wheel at a safe value to the subgrade. Only if it can distribute, the load can be maintained or the road can overlay the load.

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