Guidelines For Informing Decisionmaking To Affect Pavement Performance Measures

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to establish performance measures for the Interstate Highway System (IHS) and the National Highway System (NHS) to assess the condition of the pavement on the IHS and NHS. The performance measures, as proposed by FHWA, to assess the condition of the pavement are based on the percentage of pavements on both the IHS and NHS (excluding the IHS) in good and poor condition. The condition of the pavements is to be determined based on the following metrics: International Roughness Index, cracking percent, rutting, and faulting. The overall objective of the research study that led to the guidelines contained in this report was to validate the proposed pavement performance measures and to demonstrate their use within asset management; this validation study is documented in a companion report. Guidelines for informing decisionmaking to affect pavement performance measures were developed based on the findings from the validation study. The goal of the guidelines is to illustrate to agencies potential strategies to move the overall condition from poor to fair to good. In meeting this goal, the guidelines will enable highway agencies to address critical questions such as the following: What are the drivers of the performance measures? What are the effects of maintenance and rehabilitation treatments on condition metrics and overall condition?