Using Pavement Management to Support Maintenance and Engineering Policy Decisions for Small and Mid-Sized Municipalities

Abstract

This article presents the development of a pavement management system (PMS) for the town of Christiansburg, VA, and the effectiveness of pavement management applications as a decision support tool. Researchers worked with personnel from the town of Christiansburg to gather inventory data and past work history on all of the pavements within the town’s network. First, the network was defined by importing existing GIS data into commercially available PMS software. The expected pavement performance was then modeled using age data along with surface condition information gathered during a survey of the network. The surface condition, age, and performance data were all combined to develop several maintenance and rehabilitation scenarios for the pavement network. The results indicated that implementing the PMS provided a framework that significantly enhanced the ability of the municipality’s engineers to determine the optimal work types and work scenarios for long-term budgeting and planning.