Pavement management

Pavement management is the process of overseeing the maintenance andrepair of a network of roadways. In effect, every highwaysuperintendent does pavement management. [Pavement Management - A Manual for Communities, U. S. Department of Transportation, Metropolotan Area Planning Council, Boston MA., 1986] Pavement management incorporates life cycle costs into a more systematic approach to minor and major M&R projects. The needs of the entire network as well as budget projections are considered before projects are executed. [Pavement Management for Airport, Roads, and Parking Lots, 2nd Edition, M.Y. Shahin, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2002] Pavement management encompasses the many aspects and tasks needed to maintain a quality pavement inventory, and ensure that the overall condition of the road network can be sustained at desired levels. [Hillsborough County Pavement Management Strategy, Hillsborough County Fl, Ch.1 - Introduction, pg1., R. Cox, P.E. 2006]

The recent introduction of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s (GASB’s) Statement 34 [ [http://www.gasb.org/repmodel/index.html GASB Welcome Page ] ] is having a dramatic impact on the financial reporting requirements of state and local governments. Introduced in June 1999, this provision recommends that governmental agencies report the value of their infrastructure assets in their financial statements. GASB recommends that government agencies use a historical cost approach for capitalizing long-lived capital assets; however, if historical information is not available, guidance is provided for an alternate approach based on the current replacement cost of the assets. A method of representing the costs associated with the use of the assets must also be selected, and two methods are allowed by GASB. One approach is to depreciate the assets over time. The modified approach, on the other hand, provides an agency more flexibility in reporting the value of its assets based upon the use of a systematic, defensible approach that accounts for the preservation of the asset. [Proceedings of the 2003 Mid-Continent Transportation Research Symposium, Ames, Iowa, August 2003. © 2003 by Iowa StateUniversity.] Pavement management and pavement management systems provide agencies with the tools necessary to evaulate the pavement asset and meet the GASB34 requirements under the modified depreciation approach.

Management approach

The pavement management process has been incorporated into several pavement management systems. The following management approach evolved over the last 30 years as part of the development of the PAVER management system (U.S. Army COE, Construction Research Research Laboratory, Micro PAVER 2004).

The approach is a process that consists of the following steps: [Pavement Management for Airport, roads, and Parking Lots, 2nd Edition, M.Y. Shahin, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2002]

# Inventory Definition
# Pavement Inspection
# Condition Assessment
# Condition Prediction
# Condition Analysis
# Work Planning

References