USING PAVEMENT MANAGEMENT TOOLS TO PROMOTE PAVEMENT PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE

Pavement management is generally accepted as a tool that is used by agencies responsible for pavement infrastructure in their efforts to identify and prioritize pavement maintenance and rehabilitation needs. In recent years, agencies have extended their use of these systems to include what-if scenarios that demonstrate the effectiveness of various maintenance and rehabilitation strategies over time. Agencies adopting, or expanding, pavement preventive maintenance programs are also benefiting from the use of these tools to illustrate the cost-effectiveness of these programs and the benefits to the agency that can be realized. The New York, Michigan, and California Departments of Transportation are examples of agencies that used existing pavement management systems to demonstrate the effectiveness of their proposed pavement preventive maintenance programs. This paper provides examples of the types of analyses these agencies used to promote the benefits of preventive maintenance. In addition, the paper provides other examples of the types of analyses that agencies might consider using to initiate a preventive maintenance program or to demonstrate the benefits of such a program.