Optimizing Pavement Preservation: An Urgent Demand for Every Highway Agency

Preventive maintenance is a tool that has the potential to both improve quality and reduce expenditures for a pavement network. Preventive maintenance is based on the concept that periodic, inexpensive treatments, such as seals, are more economical than infrequent, high-cost procedures, such as reconstruction. The paper presents a step-by-step procedure for selecting the appropriate preventive maintenance treatment for asphalt pavement and evaluating the optimal timing for that treatment under different pavement, traffic, and climatic conditions. The information presented in this paper is a useful tool for highway engineers and superintendents at various governmental levels throughout the world to develop a preventive maintenance program that would maximize the cost-effectiveness of maintenance treatments. Typical examples of pavement distresses are presented showing appropriate treatments that can be used. A model is presented to provide the basis for the analysis of the cost-effectiveness of a pavement preventive maintenance program.