Considerations for Establishing a Pavement Preservation Program

Maintenance crews for transportation agencies have been performing pavement preservation for many years, but without a programmatic structure, agencies cannot systematically related activities, cost, and condition evaluation to quantify benefits and service life extension. A programmatic framework enables optimization and defensible pavement preservation decisions by providing the information needed to analyze and justify budget trade-off decisions. This paper discusses the essential characteristics of pavement preservation programs along with common pavement preservation strategies. The information was synthesized by reviewing programs at eight state transportation agencies and is expected to be useful to agencies that are considering the establishment of a pavement preservation program. Moreover, the paper discusses the potential obstacles and barriers that agencies may face in establishing a pavement preservation program.