Abstract Manager

Maintenance activities are of the utmost importance in the pavement lifecycle. Pavement assessment methods can be used to discover the main reasons of defects and subsequently select a proper maintenance activity. Agencies tend to use economical and rapid approaches in pavement condition assessment for addressing maintenance needs. It is understood that recruiting pavement engineers or technicians for field surveys or using automatic equipment for data acquisition are costly approaches. Past studies suggest that inspecting pavement condition based on an inclusive subjective index such as Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating (PASER) can be a more attractive solution. Besides, it is also understood that any individual indices do not represent the overall condition of the pavement. For instance, estimation of surface roughness using the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) or identifying the surface visual distresses with the International Roughness Index (IRI) can constitute improper decision-making for pavement maintenance. Therefore, this study proposed a new combined condition index that compensates for the insufficiencies in either of the indices. The pavement conditions in 367 sections in Kermanshah, Iran, were evaluated using PASER and IRI. Then, by combining both indices, an Overall Surface Condition Index (OSCI) was developed that could supremely express the overall condition of the pavement and propose a superior maintenance strategy in comparison to PASER and IRI. This could be a practical approach for road agencies to estimate the road network condition cost-effectively and make proper decisions for pavement maintenance at the network level.