Louisiana-Vision 2020 serves as a benchmark for improving highway pavements over a 20-year period. Cost-effective pavement preservation is emphasized in the current Louisiana state law and the federal law. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD) and the FHWA strategic plans also emphasize cost-effective pavement preservation. In an effort to improve the pavement management system (PMS), the Louisiana Transportation Research Center (LTRC) initiated a two Phase research study to evaluate the overall performance and effectiveness of the system. This paper focuses on the Phase I study and addresses the-state-of-the-art practice of LADOTD's PMS and the results of departmental survey to assess the needs of the various districts. Three location reference systems are being used by various units in the department which make it difficult to link different sets of database. Although many of the districts engineers do not have any concerns about all the referencing systems, most would prefer to have a unified reference location system. All the districts have access to the PMS data and the majority of them utilize it, however, the degree of use varies from one district to another. This paper also discusses the types of PMS output and reports, the degrees to which the outputs are analyzed, the accuracy of the information currently available, and the degrees to which the current PMS data tracks and differentiates between different preservation actions.
Abstract