Engineering Criteria and Standards for Key Pavement Performance Indicators (KPIs) Used in Pavement Management

Abstract

This report presents the findings of the 2010 Highway Infrastructure Innovation Funding Program project, on Engineering Criteria and Standards for Key Pavement Performance Indicators (KPIs) Used in Pavement Management . The project is a joint effort between the Canadian Centre for Pavement and Transportation Technology (CPATT) at the University of Waterloo and the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) as part of the Highway Infrastructure Innovation Funding Program (HIIFP). This research study investigates the variability in performance evaluation and maintenance decision made for pavement sections due to change in section length. It considers rut depth, Pavement Condition Index (PCI) and International Roughness Index (IRI) as performance indices for data from twenty seven road segments with a total length of 172.5 km selected in Ontario. The distribution and mean values of these indices are compared with respect to the length of sections changing from 50m, 500m, 1000m and 10000 m. The variations of performance assessment due to changing section length are investigated based on their impacts on maintenance decisions. A Monte-Carlo simulation is carried out by varying section lengths to estimate probabilities of the needs for maintenance work being triggered. Results of such empirical investigation reveal that most of the longer sections are evaluated with low rut depth and the shorter sections are evaluated with higher rut depth. Monte-Carlo simulation also reveals that 50m sections have higher probability of maintenance requirement than that for the 500m section. This study has revealed that the main limitation to the MTO performance monitoring process to be the long section lengths. It is recommended that for condition reporting a maximum 100m section length should be used and 500 m sections are to be used in the pavement management system for future planning of maintenance. This change will require a significant restructuring of the pavement management database, but given the modern computer storage capabilities, it is entirely possible and practical