Incorporation of National Pavement Performance Measures Into Decision-Making Process

Abstract

State highway agencies (SHAs) are required by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to develop Transportation Asset Management Plans (TAMP) in which the performance targets for roadway assets are determined. FHWA also developed national performance metrics to use in determining performance targets for pavements. However, for pavement assets, most SHAs employ their own performance metrics for pavement condition data reporting and performing maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) analysis. Therefore, there is a need to incorporate national performance measures into SHAs’ pavement management system to support the development of TAMP. In this study, new pavement performance metrics were proposed to assist SHAs in conducting M&R analysis. The relationships between the new metrics and existing pavement metrics used in the State of Tennessee were investigated. Comparison between the new metrics and the State’s metrics was made with reference to network-level condition summary and performance prediction models. Results indicated that the new performance metrics appeared to be stable and less sensitive to sectioning method. Similar time-series patterns of network-level performance deterioration were found between the State’s metrics and the new metrics. It is recommended that performance models be established based on the new metrics, as the deterioration rates from the two metrics were not well correlated.