Improving FHWA’s Ability to Assess Highway Infrastructure Health: Development of Next Generation Pavement Performance Measures

This study was conducted as part of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Task Order “Improving FHWA’s Ability to Assess Highway Infrastructure Health.” This portion of the study had the objective of developing a next generation pavement performance measure that provides an accurate and repeatable assessment of the functional condition of the roadway. The measure is to combine ride quality, cracking, and rutting or faulting and rely entirely upon data from the Highway Performance Management System (HPMS) database. Over the course of the study, the effort shifted away from a single composite index of ride quality, cracking, and rutting or faulting to using these distresses individually. This report provides recommendations for collecting, processing, reviewing, and storing each of these distresses. Further recommendations are made with regard to assessing pavement condition based upon the stored values.