Quality Assurance of Performance Data for Pavement Management Systems

Quality of pavement condition data is critical to the effectiveness of a pavement management system (PMS). Normally, if there is an error in the pavement condition data, it will affect the prediction of pavement conditions for future years. It may also affect the maintenance and rehabilitation treatment selection strategies and the budgeting and needs estimation at the network level. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) of the San Francisco Bay area developed a pavement management program that now has more than 400 users in the United States. To enhance its existing data quality management plan and increase its effective use of pavement management program, MTC implemented a new quality acceptance (QA) program in 2013. This program is expected to significantly improve the quality of the PMS data. The QA program includes (1) developing a Rater Certification Program that ensures good quality data by using certified and trained technicians for the PMS, (2) hiring a third party and neutral institution to audit the various contractors' quality control plan, and (3) verifying the data collected by contractors and checking data collected against pavement deterioration models and curves in the PMS database. The methods used in the MTC's QA program should potentially benefit other agencies that are using pavement management systems.