PAVEMENT MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS By JOHN W. McCREE Illinois Department of Transportation

Two decades of underinvestment in road and bridge repair has caused a staggering backlog of deferred maintenance. The National Council on Public Works Improvements estimates nearly $20 billion per year in new spending over and above the $60 billion per year already being spent will be required to "catch up" with deferred maintenance. The burden of solving this problem will fall heavily upon the 38,000 local and county governments maintaining approximately 70 percent of the nation's roadway miles. This problem of underinvestment in maintenance and repair is widely recognized and being attacked by methodical approaches to management along with the use of new construction materials and technologies.

Within the last five years, the concept of pavement (or surface) management has become increasingly important in the highway community. A comprehensive pavement management program consists of a coordinated set of activities directed toward achieving the greatest possible return on invested public funds while providing smooth and safe highway networks. Typical activities include road and street inventory, pavement condition assessment, selection of maintenance and rehabilitation strategies, prioritizing needs and requirements, and budgeting necessary funds.

The first step in developing a pavement management program is to take a hard look at your current procedures and needs. You, as city engineers, county superintendents of highways and township road commissioners, are already managing your pavements. Decisions, whether motivated by public pressures or based on knowledge and experience, have been a part of your normal operations regarding such things as what pavements will be maintained, what materials will be used, and when the work will be done. Identify the shortcomings in your current roadway evaluation procedures and begin improving them while building upon the roadway surface data already collected.

Up to this point, the word "system" has been purposely avoided because people tend to associate it with high-technology computers when talking about pavement management. Pavement management programs do not need to be computerized to be useful. One must realize that a pavement management program is basically an information management program. It should be recognized that when a program attempts to collect a large amount of data and perform sophisticated project prioritizing along with programming decisions, the computer can be a very useful and economical tool. The most important fact to remember is that information and decisions provided by a computerized pavement management program, that little "black box", are dependent upon the value of data collected and inputted (the Garbage-In-Garbage-Out Factor). Programming decisions utilizing data collected from "windshield" surveys will obviously be less accurate than those decisions made from programs based on data collected from automated surface evaluation vehicles or deflection tests. Up-to-date data concerning pavement conditions is the most significant factor in any pavement management program (computerized or not).

In some cases, portions of the initial cost of a computerized program involving automated data collection can be quickly recovered by utilizing the collected data in recommending alternative rehabilitation or maintenance strategies. Knowing that the existing roadway contains some structural value and is in good condition, an agency can cut costs by utilizing a 2-inch overlay

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rather than a 4-inch overlay. In another situation, flaws detected in the roadway bed would indicate that an overlay is really not the proper rehabilitation strategy to implement, thus avoiding a waste of funds.

A wide range of options are available in selecting or upgrading your pavement management program. The analysis of these options will depend upon available funding, size and complexity of road network and the sophistication of program desired. Keep in mind, that each agency's program must be developed to meet its needs. Why buy a backhoe when a hand shovel will do? Through interagency cooperation, you can evaluate successful pavement management programs already established in various cities and counties within your area and then choose a program that's right for your agency. A successful pavement management program is not born overnight, it is a constantly evolving process; so take it slow but sure when planning your program. Until you make that step towards computerizing your program, remember that accurate and meaningful data collection is still the most important activity; for without accurate data, the most sophisticated equipment becomes useless. •

Page 16 / Illinois Municipal Review / April 1989