Road Deterioration and Maintenance Effects: Models for Planning and Management

The performance of road pavement and the effects of maintenance are important parameters of the cost of road transport; both determine the direct outlays of the highway authority and affect the operating cost of vehicles plying the roads. Although pavement engineering and design is by now an old art, the specific pavement performance and response to maintenance are less well known, at least in quantitative terms. This is particularly true for roads in developing countries, with their diverse physical and climatic environments, construction methods, and traffic characteristics. This volume presents the results of a methodical series of analyses on an important data set from Brazil. The data were scant in many respects, and, because of the nature of the phenomena investigated, often exhibited large scatter. Through a judicious combination of theory, empiricism, statistical finesse, and engineering judgment, the author has been able to establish important relationships. Of particular significance is the establishment of causality of events; a pavement starts to crack and to ravel; the cracking then increases in extent and intensity; this leads to potholing and other surface disfigurement, which together with rutting, leads to increased roughness--the principal parameter affecting vehicle operating costs. Life-cycle costing of roads, road pricing and regulation policies, pavement management, and verification of design methodologies are discussed at length.