This paper pays attention to a research project initiated by the Governmental Service for Land and Water Use and conducted in close cooperation with the Delft University of Technology. Pavement life predictors are being developed for rural roads because of the lack of appropriate structural evaluation and design procedures applicable to these roads. The majority of rural roads in The Netherlands can be characterized by pavements with a hardly identifiable layer structure and substantial variation in layer thickness and layer properties in longitudinal and transverse direction. Quite a number of these roads are located in regions with subsoils with low bearing capacity and high groundwater table levels. The currently table levels. The currently available structural evaluation and design procedures are based on trafficked road and appear to be hardly applicable to rural roads. The research project presented consists of two phases and is currently in the final stage of the first phase. Pavement life predictors are developed for various distress types and levels of acceptable distress for a limited number of pavement sections. This paper presents the data collection, measurements, and preliminary analyses of this first phase. The structure of phase two, in which the majority of the test sections is included, has been made dependent on the outcome of phase one for maximizing testing efforts and minimizing demands on pavement research budgets. (A)
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