City of Saskatoon’s Pavement Management System: Network-Level Structural Evaluation

Pavement management systems (PMS) combine economics and engineering to derive cost-effective solutions for road maintenance and reconstruction. Since 1993, the City of Saskatoon (COS) has employed a PMS that focuses on pavement surface deterioration and ride quality to measure the performance of the city’s road network. However, reliably predicting the structural condition of roads based on surface distress information can be very difficult; furthermore, structural road issues are the most intensive and costly to rehabilitate. The COS started using heavy weight deflectometer (HWD) measurements to assess the structural condition of the COS road network in 2006. Since it is difficult to distinguish between certain surface distresses, like top down cracking, from structural distresses, such as fatigue cracking, HWD structural information may be beneficial in assessing the condition of the road structure and the corresponding treatment needed. Therefore, using COS network level PMS surface distress data and condition ratings, the effect of using structural data as measured by HWD is examined in this paper. Two neighborhoods in Saskatoon were analyzed using typical COS PMS surface distresses and HWD deflection measurements. The results of structural condition assessments complement and enhance the findings of surface condition assessments. The risks posed by using surface condition assessments can be mitigated by using structural condition assessments in addition to surface condition assessments. Ultimately, the use of structural asset management will reduce the risk of a significant road failure and subsequent high expenditures to fix such a failure.

• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFD10 Pavement Management Systems
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Prang, Colin
  • Podborochynski, Diana
  • Kelln, Roanne
  • Berthelot, Curtis
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
• Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 15p
• Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Condition surveys; Pavement distress; Pavement maintenance; Pavement management systems; Reconstruction; Structural analysis; Structural health monitoring
• Uncontrolled Terms: Heavy weight deflectometers; Road networks
• Geographic Terms: Saskatoon (Canada)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Pavements; I61: Equipment and Maintenance Methods;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01366082
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 12-1369
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 27 2012 8:09AM