Quantifying Extreme Event-Induced Pavement Roughness via Smart Phone Apps

An increase of extreme weather events, such as high precipitation, hurricanes, and floods, leads to frequent water-induced damage to pavement infrastructure. Rapid pavement infrastructure assessments after disaster are regularly based on a qualitative visual inspection and do not provide high-resolution information. Impacts to pavement serviceability can be assessed quantitatively using the International Roughness Index (IRI). The purpose of this study was to evaluate five phone-based applications to rapidly approximate IRI for a pavement by measuring vehicle response in conjunction with evaluating factors that may affect data collection such as phone model, mount, and mount placement in the vehicle. Nine secondary and tertiary roadway sections encompassing a variety of roughness and surface condition levels (good, fair, and poor) were identified and rapid visual assessment of their condition was performed. Their roughness was evaluated using optimum commercially available phone applications and four phone models to assess the consistency of the roughness measurement across multiple hardware and software combinations. It was concluded that a rigid phone mount placed on the windshield was superior. Total Pave IRI demonstrated the most consistency and reliability when recording data across different phone types.