The state of pavement management as practiced by state highway agencies (SHAs) is explored. A survey was conducted of each SHA to determine the stated and implicit objectives of its state-wide pavement management system; if the SHA uses a ranking system for priority ranking and selecting projects, what are the mechanics and variables of the ranking system? If the SHA uses an optimization methodology for selecting projects, what is the methodology, what constraints areused, and what is the objective function? At the time of the survey (Fall 1991), about a third of the SHAs had developed and were operating a pavement management system that includes network optimization. Sophisticated pavement management systems apply a mixture of the sciences of pavement design, highway maintenance/rehabilitation, and systems analysis. Clearly, SHAs understand the conventional sciencesof pavement design and highway, maintenance and rehabilitation. However, SHAs are less familiar with system analysis and the science ofpavement management systems. As a result, the promotion of the science of pavement management is recommended, as is the development of standard terminology, standard data collection procedures, and structured analysis methodologies. In general, the same is true for the promotion of the science of maintenance management of all types of public infrastructure. (A)
Abstract