Australian experience with the swedish laser road surface tester

Pavement management systems being implemented by Australian state road authorities (SRA's) require input on pavement condition. In 1987, staff of three SRA evaluated the ability of the swedish road surface tester (rst) to provide data on roughness, rutting, cracking and macrotexture. From a control study where the rst outputs were compared to traditional measurement methods it was concluded that the rst: a) can estimate international roughness index (iri) and NAASRA roughness but minor modifications are needed to improve performance. B) can estimate rut depth but the rutting is generally higher than obtained with a 1.2 M straight edge. More data is required to obtain a reliable correlation between the two methods. C) cannot reliably determine the extent or severity of cracking in a network. D) the rst fine macrotexture can be used to estimate sand patch texture depth. Following the control study, the rst measured over 12,000 km of roads in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland at an overall cost of $15/km. Modifications have recently been made to the rst which may improve its performance (a).