Validation Of Pavement Performance Measures Using Ltpp Data

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.(1) 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 study was to validate the proposed pavement performance measures and demonstrate their use within asset management. Performance and distress data from the Long-Term Pavement Performance database were translated into the pavement condition metrics used by the performance measure proposed by FHWA. The performance measure validation considered review of the performance measures over time to determine if they followed a logical trend; comparison of performance measures against maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) activities to demonstrate if the performance measures are impacted by M&R activities; and review of the performance measures against thresholds for logic and reproducibility, temporal analysis, effects of alternate thresholds, and identification of performance measure drivers. Standalone guidelines for informing decisionmaking to affect pavement performance measures were also developed based on the study findings; they are provided in a companion report.