Chapter 3

Pavement Management
System

Tahir Abdi. (MSc)

Institute of Technology
Civil Engineering Department
A Pavement Management System (PMS) is designed to provide

objective information and useful data for analysis so that road

managers can make more consistent, cost-effective, and
defensible decisions related to the preservation of a pavement
network.
While a PMS cannot make final decisions, it can provide the

basis for an informed understanding of the possible

consequences of alternative decisions.
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Pavement management, in its broadest sense, encompasses all the
activities involved in the:
 planning,
 design,
 construction,
 maintenance,
 evaluation and
 rehabilitation of the pavement portion of a public works program.
A pavement management system (PMS) is a set of tools or
methods that assist decision makers in finding optimum strategies
for providing, evaluating, and maintaining pavements in a
serviceable condition over a given period of time.
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The function of a PMS is
 to improve the efficiency of decision-making,
 to expand its scope,
 to provide feedback on the consequences of
decisions,
 to facilitate the coordination of activities within
the agency, and
 to ensure the consistency of decisions made at
different management levels within the agency.
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Levels Of Pavement Management
Analysis
PMSs used in decision making are distinguished
into three reference levels:
1. the project level, considers a specific section (or sections) of the
road network.
2. the network level, considers the road network of a wide area
such as a district or county and
3. the strategic level, considers the entire road network of a region
or even of the whole country or state.
Some modern integrated PMSs are developed to
operate at all levels depending on the requirements.
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1. Pavement Management At The Project
Level
Pavement management at the project level involves decisions
regarding the maintenance and rehabilitation of specific
pavement sections, defining the ‘project’.
The decisions are made by operation engineers with good
technical background and based on technical merits rather than
on resource requirements and budget projections.
In a PMS at the project level,
 a detailed functional and structural evaluation of the pavement
sections is conducted,
 the causes of deterioration are identified,
 followed by the selection of the appropriate intervention (routine
maintenance, maintenance, rehabilitation or reconstruction).
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 The functional evaluation of the pavement is usually carried out by
 a visual condition survey,
 coring and
 the use of necessary devices measuring surface characteristics such as
skid resistance and transverse/longitudinal evenness.
 The decisions are usually based on
 the deterioration rate of the pavement section,
 assisted by historical maintenance and construction data.
 When alternative solutions are considered, life cycle cost analysis is
applied.
 All collected data from the sections at the project level are stored in a
main data bank in which data from other projects and from the road
network are also stored.
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At the project level, the decisions
are focused over a short time frame
(e.g., 2 years) and can include
 the selection of maintenance
activities,
 materials, and
 pavement design thicknesses.
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 In particular, a PMS at the project level
a) Considers all basic pavement design parameters such as subgrade strength, traffic
volume, properties of materials, climatic conditions, cost of materials, age of
pavement and remaining life
b) Deals with detailed pavement analysis, determines the cause for each individual
distress and specifies corrective measures or suggests alternative solutions
c) Applies life cycle cost analysis when alternatives are considered
d) Decides whether maintenance, rehabilitation or reconstruction will be
implemented at each specific pavement section and establishes priorities
e) Selects the type of materials to be used and specifies rehabilitation thickness
f) Presents pavement condition, results and recommendations in tabular or
graphical form
g) Feeds the main data bank with inventory data, pavement characteristics,
pavement behavior and corrective measures taken in the specific project sections.

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2. Pavement Management At The
Network Level
Pavement management at the network level
 deals with summary information related to the network
concern,
 aimed at prioritization of maintenance and
 rehabilitation works with respect to the amount of funding
available.
The decisions are made by senior executives.
They make decisions that play a part in:
 Determining pavement performance targets,
 Distributing funds among regions or districts and
 Establishing pavement preservation policies.
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The evaluation of the functional and structural
condition of the network pavements is carried out by
 traffic speed moving devices;
 limited coring and
 falling weight deflectometer (FWD)
Measurements are conducted only to
 confirm the findings from moving devices and
 obtain more structural details on pavement layers at
selective locations.

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Basically, the pavement management
system deals primarily with network level
where key administrative decisions that
affect programs for road networks are made.
It allows one to evaluate and compare series
of maintenance activities, and maintenance
and rehabilitation alternatives, and to test
them with regard to budget constraints.
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 A PMS at the network level
a) Depicts the current pavement condition of the network
b) Predicts and projects future needs
c) Identifies candidate projects for improvements
d) Prioritize the candidate projects
e) Determines budget requirements for short- and long-term needs
f) Estimates the consequences of the alternative fund investments on the future
behavior of pavement
g) Determines the final work plan, usually by an iterative process that involves
moving neighboring projects from one year to another, or combining similar
actions, to gain economy of scale
h) Presents network pavement condition in map and tabular form
i) Feeds the main data bank with all data collected from the network and with the
final decisions made regarding corrective measures.
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3. Pavement Management At The
Strategic Level
Pavement management is used nowadays on strategic
decisions made by
 government officials,
 transportation boards,
 city councils, or
 an agency’s upper management.
All are charged with long-term decision making based on
 pavement performance targets,
 fund requirements to achieve the performance targets,
 distribution of funds among regions or districts and
 pavement preservation policy.
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Traditionally, strategic decisions have been less
structured than decisions made at other levels and
the information on which decisions are based is
more speculative, requiring the ability to predict
future conditions under a variety of scenarios.
In the absence of reliable information to serve as
the basis for sound business decisions, political
priorities may prevail.

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These decisions may include
 increasing the proportion of roads that are
rated as being in good condition,
 improving road safety.
Strategic targets are usually concerned
with time scales of five years or more.

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Pavement Management Components
A PMS, irrespective of the analysis level,
is composed of the following components:
a) Pavement inventory
b) Pavement condition information (survey)
c) Traffic data
d) History of past works
e) Database
f) Analysis module
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a) Pavement Inventory
 The minimum pavement characteristics to be recorded are as follows:
 Jurisdictional information, such as concessionaire, district, region or city.
 Location information, which includes the beginning and end point of
each pavement segment.
 Road classification,
 The type of pavement and type of shoulder (if it exists).
 The dimensions of the road (branch), for example, length, width and
number of lanes, width of shoulders (when they exist) and so on.
 The historical construction data, for instance, year/month of construction,
one stage or planned stage construction, maintenance/rehabilitation
history, materials used, layer thickness, bearing capacity of formation
layer material and anything else considered useful.
 Past traffic data.
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b) Pavement Condition Information
Pavement condition information is perhaps the most
fundamental of all input data, as it will define the present
and future needs for maintenance or rehabilitation works.
Pavement condition is assessed by pavement condition
surveys carried out
 visually or
 by the use of appropriate static or mobile devices,
measuring functional and structural pavement properties.
The techniques range from visual-windscreen subjective
surveys to mechanistic (use of automated devices operating
at near-traffic speeds) objective surveys.
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It is up to the agency to decide which approach to use
considering
the length of pavement to be surveyed,
availability of devices and
running expenses.
The agency should also consider the importance of
updating the pavement condition frequently.
In all cases, survey procedures should be consistent from
one survey to another in order for the information
gathered to be comparable.
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c) Traffic Data
Historic traffic data and traffic counts are also very important
because they are necessary to determine past traffic and predict
future pavement condition and remaining pavement life.
Historic traffic data are relatively easy to be found in most
countries.
If not available, past traffic can be estimated from
 traffic counts executed during surveying period,
 the average annual increase of commercial vehicles from date of
construction or
 last intervention and
 number of years elapsed.

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d) History of past works
The history of past-construction works, if carried
out, must be known in detail.
This provides valuable information on estimating
rates of deterioration for locally existent
conditions.
Initial construction details and history of past-
construction works link the differences in
pavement performance to pavement structure
characteristics.
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e) Database
The inventory, pavement condition, traffic and historic works
data should be stored in a database.
The data storage can range from simple spreadsheets to a
rational computerized database.
The latter is advantageous since retrieving, sorting and
updating data become an easier task; it also provides access
and the possibility of distant sharing by all agencies’ offices.
A fundamental characteristic of a database is its location
referencing system (LRS) and its segmentation.
Existing LRSs are almost exclusively linear and highway or
street oriented.
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The presentation of the content of a database
may be conducted in various ways, such as
a) Text and tabular format (the simplest format)
b) Diagrammatic format (graphic representation of tables)
c) Road profile format (linear graphs showing information
along the linear representation of the pavement)
d) Network maps format (specialized map drawings, may
be GIS linked, showing pavement characteristic
features)

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f) Analysis Module
The analysis module is the heart of a PMS since, after processing
and analyzing the data, the maintenance/rehabilitation program is
optimized within given constrains, usually funding limitations.
Project-level optimization and network-level optimization may
share the same methods: ranking or benefit/cost analysis.
However, the interface between project level management and
network-level management cannot be managed easily.
To support the analysis and prior optimization, some parameters
must be established.
The most common ones are the pavement performance models,
the treatment rules, the impact rules and cost information.

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Purpose Of Pavement Management
The purpose of pavement management is to
get:
 financial,
 technical, and
 organizational benefits.

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1. Financial Benefits
Pavement management should aim to maximize net financial profits
in relation to the financial restrictions imposed.
This is achieved by the following:
a) Appropriate management of the available funds
b) Programming the maintenance/rehabilitation works in accordance
with the available funds
c) Determination of the impact of various maintenance/rehabilitation
alternative solutions to the cost of the proprietor and to the cost of
the user
d) Determination of the impact of construction quality to the user cost
e) Objective evaluation/selection of the optimal choice, based solely
on cost/benefit analysis
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2. Technical Benefits
 Pavement management should offer technical benefits.
 To achieve technical benefits, a PMS should
a) Be composed of an extensive and integrated database (data bank)
that should be constantly updated
b) Be reformed using the experience of the past and the technological
advances of the present, by ameliorating the maintenance and
construction techniques and avoiding the same mistakes
c) Choose the most appropriate maintenance/rehabilitation method
d) Use reliable forecast models of the pavement behavior and reliable
cost/benefit estimation models
e) Use criteria that aid decision making, such as desired level of
pavement condition, warning level and intervention level
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3. Organizational Benefits
In pavement management, there should also be
organizational benefits; to achieve this, a PMS should
a) be able to reasonably determine the pavement condition at the
network or project level
b) plan and program both the present and future maintenance
activities
c) use the most effective and efficient methodology of systematic
monitoring of the pavement condition
d) predict the consequences that will result from different financing
e) provide an objective basis for political decisions

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Costs of PMS
The costs associated with pavement
management can include:
 software acquisition and installation,
 personnel training,
 data collection,
 database building, and
 system maintenance and updates.

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Pavement management process
Pavement management process is a key
component in the effective planning and
management of a pavement network.
The process shall be systematic and
repeatable.
Pavement management process basically
comprises the followings.

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1. Define the Roadway Network and
Collect Inventory Data
The first step in designing a pavement management process is to
define the roadway network.
A roadway network is comprised of an inventory of the physical
characteristics of the roadways being managed by the agency.
After segments are defined in a manner that best fits the needs of
the given agency, the inventory information for each segment is
collected by either estimating the data or collecting all needed
information.
The exact type of inventory information required by an agency
depends on what data will be used by the agency to support its
decisions.

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2. Collecting Condition Data
 Pavement condition data are a major factor in any data-driven, decision-
making pavement management process.
 Within the pavement management process, the condition data can be used
to:
 identify current maintenance and rehabilitation needs,
 to predict future needs, and
 to assess the overall impact on the network.
 Therefore, the type of condition data required and the level of detail
depends on the agency and the pavement management process used.
 Condition data will be collected using either
 manual or
 automated data collection methods.
 With either method, distress data will be estimated or measured.
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3. Predict Condition
With current pavement condition assessed, agencies
are equipped with the information needed to predict
the future condition of a segment.
In pavement management, conditions are predicted in
terms of performance models that estimate the
average rate of pavement deterioration each year.
Pavement conditions can be predicted for the
pavement network using either average deterioration
rates or performance prediction models.

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4. Select Treatments
The fourth step in designing the pavement
management process is to select appropriate
treatments for the roadway network.
Treatments are selected using cyclical schedules
or treatment trigger rules.
The recommended treatments are then
prioritized using ranking or benefit/cost
analysis.

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5. Report Results
Project results can be reported using different methods to highlight
important factors which will assist decision makers with their final
decisions.
Data reporting is an effective method of communicating not only
the recommendations from the pavement management process
but also transferring related information to decision makers.
The data can be used to generate reports and charts to extract
relevant information pertaining to any segments under
consideration.
The results can be presented either by using standard charts and
reports or customized summaries.

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6. Select Pavement Management Tool
The selection of a pavement management tool is influenced by
the requirements of the agency and users needs.
The tool provides a platform to store the pavement management
information and to perform different types of analysis depending
on whether
 a spread sheet,
 GIS tool, and/or
 a pavement management software is selected.
Depending on the needs of the agency, a local agency can also
adopt to use a combination of pavement management software
and customized spreadsheets and/or GIS software to suit their
requirements.
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7. Keep the Process Current
Pavement management is a dynamic process
that requires regular updates.
Pavement management is not a one-time
activity, so agencies must make an effort to
update the information incorporated in the
pavement management process.
Data management is a key component to
maintaining the database and keeping the
information current.
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Impact Of Roads On Economic
Development
 Transport investment reduces the cost of raw materials, labor and other
products, reducing the cost of production directly.
 Improvements in transport extend the distance to break-even locations,
thereby expanding the area of land under cultivation, and expanding the
production of exports.
 Reduced cost and improved quality of services should also reduce the
delivered price of products and, hence, promote regional and
international trade.
 Resulting increases in farm-gate prices should raise farmer incomes,
although the extent of this depends on the competitiveness of the
transport sector market.
 Transport investment also contributes to economic diversification, and
increases the economy’s ability to handle risks.
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However, the road networks of
developing and emerging countries are
sparse compared with those of
developed countries, yet their upkeep
and development require a much larger
share of available resources.

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This relationship may be interpreted in two ways: the supply of
paved roads promotes wealth, or wealth allows a nation to provide
its population with superior roads.
Both interpretations are valid, since the relationship between roads
and development is not a simple one-way causality, but is a series of
complex interactions over time.
It is found out that roads put a much higher maintenance burden on
poor countries than on rich ones, since the maintenance of each
kilometer of road represents a much larger share of national income.
Against this background, the perennial difficulties with securing
sufficient funds for the maintenance of roads in the third world are
hardly surprising.
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