INTEGRATING MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES INTO PAVEMENT MANAGEMENT

Pavement maintenance is traditionally the most expensive function of a highway-operating agency. However, the long-term benefits of maintenance strategies are typically not quantified. More is known about the initial improvements associated with a given maintenance strategy than is known about its impact on a pavement's performance and life. This is one of the main reasons given for not integrating maintenance activities into pavement management systems. This paper discusses procedures used to quantify the improvements and costs associated with typical maintenance strategies and activities and demonstrates the benefit of utilizing these relationships in pavement management, specifically the tradeoffs between pavement rehabilitation and maintenance. Iowa Department of Transportation contract maintenance and in-house maintenance records are used to quantify improvements and costs associated with individual maintenance strategies. The authors intend to use the results of this study in a multi-year prioritization program used by the Iowa Department of Transportation as its pavement management system software. The paper demonstrates the benefits of using maintenance data in the pavement management process.