Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI)

Permanent URI for this community

https://hdl.handle.net/10919/5524

Browse

Browsing Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) by Author "AgileAssets Inc."

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Developing Optimized Maintenance Work Programs for an Urban Roadway Network using Pavement Management System
    Beg, Muhammad A.; Banerjee, Ambarish (2015-06-04)
    Pavement management systems (PMS) are used by highway agencies to establish best possible network level maintenance and rehabilitation work programs for the road network. PMS also help in establishing the funding levels required to meet agency desired pavement performance or level of service goals. Pavement management involves the identification of optimum maintenance strategies at various management levels. It aims to determine the most efficient maintenance program that yields maximum benefit for the public funds expended. However, the PMS generated maintenance programs can vary significantly based on underlying variables, decision trees, models and overall rationale exercised by pavement management engineers. Producing a network level work program that applies the right treatment at the right time on each network section is central to the success of a pavement management program. Uncertainties and constraints imposed on the maintenance funding levels underscore the need for implementing optimal maintenance programs. Having more accurate knowledge about the funding levels for future years, reliable pavement condition models, and reliable engineering inputs, can help an agency adopt an aggressive and efficient pavement preservation program that will extend the useful life of the pavement network. This paper evaluates a variety of pavement work program scenarios for an urban road network which typically have large number of routes, most of them short in length and consequently have large number of short management sections in the network. Moreover, engineers need to account for network aberrations like intersections, turning lanes, curbs & gutter and similar features. This paper discusses several network analyses options available for establishing optimized work programs for urban road networks and outlines their individual strengths over other analysis methodologies.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Measures of Pavement Performance Must Consider the Road User
    Hudson, W. Ronald; Haas, Ralph; Perrone, Eric (2015-06-04)
    In 1960, Bill Carey and Paul Irick developed the Present Serviceability Index (PSI) as a user-based performance measure to define pavement quality and failure at the AASHO Road Test, a controlled load experiment that cost $300 million in 2014 dollars (1). The Canadians used the same approach in creating their Riding Comfort Index, but on a 0 to 10 scale. The PSI method was adopted and used worldwide to define pavement quality until the early 1990's when FHWA arbitrarily adopted International Roughness Index (IRI). It was intended as a measure of quality for HPMS (Highway Performance Monitoring System) data because IRI was touted to be standard and universal by the World Bank. PSI is still used by many agencies around the world but most state DOTs felt forced to follow FHWA and adopt IRI. The IRI is not standard state-to-state and more importantly the levels of "acceptability" and "failure," which must be set to define performance, vary from state-to-state. The US Federal MAP-21 requires state DOTs to do broader "performance" management and develop acceptable pavement performance measures (2). PSI is tied to road user response but IRI is not. This paper examines these indexes and how they derived. It contends that PSI can serve all levels of need while IRI does not, because it is not understood by highway users and legislators. PSI reflects human rider response and IRI does not close that gap.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Quantifying the Benefits of Good Pavement Asset Management
    Hudson, W. Ronald; Haas, Ralph (2015-06-04)
    In the 1970s it became clear that pavements could not actually be designed for 30-50 year life; and that they had to be managed. It was found necessary to consider construction, maintenance, rehabilitation, and even reconstruction in the life of pavements, not just a design. The concept of pavement management was thus born. The authors have jointly about 8 decades of experience in pavement management, and, with others have seen many agencies and engineers realize the qualitative benefits of pavement management. As a result some states, provinces, counties, and cities have adopted PMS but many others have been reticent because we could not quantitatively show them the benefits of changing the way they do business. Defining benefit is required for pavement and asset management. Otherwise, agencies can feel they are doing a good job because they had done it that way for many years. In the last few years enough research and data collection have been done on active PMS programs to quantify the benefits of pavement management systems and to be able to calculate the benefit/cost ratios and/or the return on investments. In turn, this enables agencies to save large sums of public funds by adopting pavement management. This paper presents the results of 20 years of evaluations of PMS in several active agencies. It shows the benefit/cost ratios to range from $5 to $20 million for each $1 million spent on the pavement management process in their agency.