Lessons Learned in Developing a Highway Condition Assessment and Maintenance Quality Assurance Program

Compass is the maintenance quality assurance program developed and implemented statewide by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) since 2002. This program provides a comprehensive overview of highway operations conditions based on analysis of data from field reviews, condition surveys, and expenditures. Compass reports are tools to visualize and communicate trends and conditions, to prioritize resources, and to set targets for future condition levels. At the executive level, Compass demonstrates accountability of expenditures and illustrates consequences of funding and policy shifts. Researchers at the Midwest Regional University Transportation Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been working with the Compass program managers of WisDOT since 2002 to develop the analysis, reporting, and quality assurance procedures for the annual Compass Operations and Executive Overview reports. During these development years, several design and procedural adjustments improved the data collection and performance analysis. Some of these adjustments include redesigning the rating sheet for field data collection and revising the approaches to define, measure, and calculate maintenance backlog. After experimenting with alternative methods, one recent and significant change concerns the method for calculating trends in pavement condition. One of the most critical success factors for a maintenance quality assurance program is communicating results to maintenance managers, program managers, agency executives, the legislature, and the public. With this in mind, the charts, tables, and outlines of the annual Compass reports have undergone successive revisions to make them meaningful, relevant, and easily understood. The development of maintenance quality assurance programs is still in its infancy. As agencies implement these programs, a peer community and vocabulary have evolved. As the members of that community discuss results of data analysis, new ideas emerge leading to improvements in their programs and the maintenance quality of roadways. In this paper, we present our lessons learned in the evolving development of maintenance quality assurance programs.