Abstract
The French national road network, which is 28,000 km long, is subject to heavy traffic, sometimes under difficult climatic conditions. An ambitious policy for rehabilitating this network has been in effect since 1969, and since 1972 a preventive maintenance strategy has been applied. In this paper are described the reasons that led to that choice of strategy, and figures drawn from 15 years of experience are supplied. The preventive maintenance system includes a rigorous follow-up study of pavement behaviour based on data obtained with powerful measuring devices. The Road Data Bank collects and processes the data, and information is made available in a technical guide to ensure coherent implementation of the selected strategy.