Assessment of Use of Automated Distress Survey Methods for Network-Level Pavement Management
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 25, Issue 3
Abstract
The pavement network represents a visible and expensive component of a highway agency’s total transportation investment and, thus, requires proper management. Historically, the agencies managing these investments have relied on manual distress surveys carried out by personnel who drive the network and provide subjective condition assessments. Surveys completed by a highly instrumented vehicle driven at standard travel speeds have become a viable alternative. Questions regarding accuracy and consistency with existing survey protocols still remain with these automated survey methods. This paper reports on the findings from a study to evaluate automated distress surveys. Vendors and manual survey teams have evaluated the distresses along a test loop in North Carolina using two survey protocols: (1) an agency’s standard network level survey, and (2) the long-term pavement performance survey. Communication between the vendor and agency is the single most important factor that allows for the proper utilization of automated surveys for network-level surveys. For best results, agencies considering using automated methods may wish to utilize an initial test loop to calibrate the automated distress results.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The data and analysis presented in this paper were completed under UNSPECIFIEDFHWA/NC/2008-15 Asset Management Inventory and Data Collection. The writers would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the NCDOT and FHWA. The research team would like to especially thank Glen Thomas, Jeff Chinlund, Ed Arrowood, Steve Hinnant, Alan Finger, and Jerry Blackwelder from NCDOT for gathering the reference survey data. Finally, the research team would like to gratefully acknowledge the efforts of Alan Venema and Brock Newitt from Fugro Roadware, Inc., John Caya from Mandli Communications, Inc., and Rudy Blanco from Pathway Services, Inc. for their participation in the data collection efforts.
References
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2000). “1999 status of the nation’s highways, bridges and transit: conditions and performance.” Rep. to Congress, U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), Washington, DC.
Freeman, T. J., and Ragsdale, J. E. (2003). “Development of certification equipment for TXDOT automated pavement distress equipment.” Rep. FHWA/TX-03/4204-1, Texas Department of Transportation, Austin, TX.
Fugro Roadware. (2009). “Laser XVP.” 〈http http://www.roadware.com/lib/pdf/datasheet.laser_xvp.pdf〉 (Jul. 1, 2009).
Kim, Y. R., et al. (2009). “Asset management inventory and data collection.” Final Rep. FHWA-NC-2008-15, North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), Raleigh, NC.
McGhee, K. H. (2004). “NCHRP Synthesis 334: Automated pavement distress collection techniques.” National Cooperative Highway Research Program, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
Miller, J. S., and Bellinger, W. Y. (2003). “Distress identification manual for the long-term pavement performance program (Fourth Revised Ed.).” Rep. FHWA-RD-03-031, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), Washington, DC.
North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT). (2004). Concrete pavement survey manual, Raleigh, NC.
North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT). (2008). Pavement condition survey manual, Raleigh, NC.
Pathway Services. (2009). “Rutting and transverse profile.” 〈http://www.pathwayservices.com/rutting.html〉 (Jul. 1, 2009).
Richter, C. (2001). “Adequacy of rut bar data collection.” Publication FHWA-RD-01-027, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), Washington, DC.
Sayers, M. W., Gillespie, T. D., and Queiros, C. A. (1986). “The international road roughness experiment: A basis for establishing a standard scale for road roughness measurements.” Transportation Research Record, 1084, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 76–85.
Tighe, S. L., Ningyuan, L., and Kazmierowski, T. (2008). “Evaluation of semi-automated and automated pavement distress collection for network level pavement management.” Transportation Research Record 2084, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 11–17.
Timm, D. H., and McQueen, J. M. (2004). “A study of manual versus automated pavement condition surveys.” Highway Research Center, Auburn Univ., Auburn, AL.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 25 • Issue 3 • June 2011
Pages: 250 - 258
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 29, 2010
Accepted: Jun 23, 2010
Published online: Jul 1, 2010
Published in print: Jun 1, 2011
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.