MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF STATE HIGHWAY SYSTEMS

During the three immediately preceding decades, the U.S. highway system has been characterized by steady growth in total travel, increased system mileage and capacity, and net investment in both pavement strength and surface quality. The pattern for the coming decades is already becoming apparent, and it will be characterized by approximately stable overall traffic levels, maintenance and reconstruction of existing mileage, and probably some net disinvestment in the system as a whole. The data and the methods that highway planners have used to guide decisions during the previous phase of development of the highway system are unsuited to the problems of the coming decades, and state-level monitoring and evaluation functions will require a major reorientation in data collection and analytic tools.