Post-Treatment Performance and Treatment Costs across Pavement Types and Road Functional Classes: Some Empirical Observations

Agencies routinely face decision contexts including whether a pavement deserves some treatment at a given time, which treatment to apply, the best schedule (combination of treatment types and timings) for a pavement over its life cycle or rest of life, and the optimal timings (performance threshold or year) for any treatment. Before such decisions can be made, however, knowledge on the costs and performance associated with each treatment is critical. In addition, agencies seek to identify and comprehend the factors that influence the costs and performance effectiveness of their standard treatments. As most highway agencies rev up their pavement management systems, treatment cost and performance data are becoming increasingly available. The paper takes advantage of the availability of such data at a Midwestern state in the USA, to describe the post-treatment performance and cost of a number of standard treatments. In developing the models for the treatment outcomes (costs or effectiveness), the paper selects appropriate response variables, determines values of these outcomes for each pavement under study, and estimates the outcome as a function of attributes related to the pavement and treatment. The paper confirms that the post-treatment performance is largely influenced by the pavement condition just before treatment, and the treatment average unit costs are significantly influenced by the project size, road functional class, and the pavement condition just before the treatment. The findings also suggest that the cost economy of scale not only exists but also is sensitive, albeit in different degrees, to the treatment project length and width.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHD18 Standing Committee on Pavement Preservation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Qiao, Yu
  • Kemaw, Hanna
  • Labi, Samuel
  • Fricker, Jon D
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2019-1-13 to 2019-1-17
• Date: 2019

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 22p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Costs; Economies of scale; Pavement maintenance; Pavement management systems; Pavement performance; Types of pavements
• Uncontrolled Terms: Functional road classes
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Pavements;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01698448
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 19-04193
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 2 2019 3:41PM