PAVEMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The city of Brisbane is the largest city in the southern hemisphere and among the largest in the world administered by a single authority. Brisbane's annual budget for maintenance and special maintenance of its roads alone (excluding cleansing, grass cutting and drainage maintenance) is now over $17 million per annum. To produce the most effective results from this expenditure on 4,575 kilometres of roads, of very varied quality and use, spread non-uniformly over the 1,069 square kilometres of city, required the formulation and implementation of a detailed road management system. A system was developed for recording the observable physical features of roads, utilising electronic data processing. The next step was to standardise the description of defects in pavements and develop a standard method of visual classification usable by laboratory field workers with a high degree of reliability. This pavement classification system enables technical staff to sort out those pavements that are satisfactory or only need maintenance attention from those that need more expert and detailed examination. This is carried out by Benkelman beam testing, assessment by experienced engineers, soil sampling and laboratory testing if required. The total computer file is used to produce statistics for management planning, submissions for grants, etc. The pavement classification is used to produce schedules of necessary remedial work and estimates for the cost of bringing streets to a good standard. The number of the covering record for the workshop is IRRD no 284059. (TRRL)