As highway agency budgets shrink, more and more highway agencies are moving toward a policy of pavement preventive maintenance and away from worst-first programming (in which pavements are allowed to deteriorate to a highly distressed condition before any restorative work is performed). Preventive maintenance is a systematic process of applying a series of preventive maintenance treatments over the life of the pavement to maintain a good condition, extend pavement life, and minimize life-cycle costs. Although pavement preventive maintenance is believed to result in lower agency costs, improved pavement conditions, and increased customer satisfaction, these programs continue to face many obstacles. Among these obstacles are lack of proof that preventive maintenance is cost effective and insufficient guidance on when preventive maintenance treatments should be applied. Consequently, highway agencies need a procedure that can help to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of preventive maintenance treatments and to provide guidance on the optimal timing of such treatments. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting