Roads are one of the most valuable assets under the care of local government. To be able to care for them properly means that their condition needs to be known. Knowledge of the condition of the road can be achieved by the regular monitoring of several major pavement condition parameters. These parameters may be measured in two ways, manually or in an automated fashion. Manual assessment is often labour intensive, subjective and time consuming however recent developments in technology have made the automated collection of pavement condition data a cost effective alternative. The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of the following pavement condition parameters - roughness, rutting, texture (macro and micro), strength and cracking - and the systems which can monitor these parameters in an automated, non destructive fashion. Mention is also made of the importance of collecting high quality data. (A)
Abstract