Critical Assessment of the Lateral Offset Overestimation on Rut Depth Measurement Accuracy

Rutting is one of the dominant pavement distresses, and the accuracy of rut depth measurements can substantially impact on the maintenance and rehabilitation (MR as expected, the overestimation increases for larger vehicle wandering. Among the three rut shapes, the overestimation percentage can be as high as 86.0%, 93.3% and 67.5% per section type, respectively. An in-depth analysis shows that the upheaval in the middle is a dominant shape factor which affects the accuracy of rut depth measurements, while it also reduces the overestimation error. Calculation of the severity error judgment E shows that the errors are mainly governed by the offset distance, the maximum ratio is 13.0% for 300mm, and dramatically increases up to 61.3% for 500mm. Therefore, the maximum acceptable offset within which reliable M&R decision can be taken is 300mm.