Comparative Performance Measurement: Pavement Smoothness

This report presents results of the second in a series of comparative performance measurement efforts sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Standing Committee on Quality (SCOQ), Performance Measurement and Benchmarking Subcommittee. The purpose of these efforts is to identify states that have achieved exemplary performance, find out what practices have contributed to their success, and document these practices for the benefit of other states. This effort focuses on pavement smoothness, and was co-sponsored by the AASHTO Standing Committee on Planning (SCOP) Subcommittee on Transportation Asset Management. Pavement smoothness is an important performance measure for all states – travelers and shippers place high value on it, and several studies (Sime, 2000; Parera, 2002) have concluded that smooth pavement reduces vehicle operating costs. Because of the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) requirements, all states collect and report International Roughness Index (IRI) data for their National Highway System (NHS) roads. Planned changes to HPMS will encourage greater accuracy and consistency in measurement and reporting of IRI. The importance of this measure to states and the availability of relatively consistent data across agencies made pavement smoothness a good candidate for comparative performance measurement.

• Record URL:
  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/archive/NotesDocs/20-24(37)B_FR.pdf
• Summary URL:
  https://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=1972
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This research was sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration, and was conducted in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, which is administered by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies.
• Corporate Authors:

  Spy Pond Partners, LLC

  1165R Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 103
  Arlington, MA  United States  02476

  Applied Pavement Technology, Incorporated

  115 West Main Street, Suite 400
  Urbana, IL  United States  61801

  University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute

  2901 Baxter Road
  Ann Arbor, MI  United States  48109-2150
• Publication Date: 2008-5-18

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Pagination: 72p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Best practices; Pavements; Performance measurement; Smoothness; State departments of transportation
• Identifier Terms: International Roughness Index
• Uncontrolled Terms: Comparative analysis
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pavements;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01673764
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: NCHRP Project 20-24, Task 37
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 26 2018 5:02PM