Prioritization of Low-Volume Pavement Sections for Maintenance by Using Fuzzy Logic

TLDR: A pavement management system formulated according to the specific needs and resources of a highway agency should ensure satisfactory pavement performance with minimal maintenance cost as discussed by the authors, which is the most labor intensive, time-consuming, and costly component is the collection of pavement condition data.

Abstract: A pavement management system formulated according to the specific needs and resources of a highway agency should ensure satisfactory pavement performance with minimal maintenance cost. The success of a pavement management system depends on the pavement condition data, accuracy of the prediction of pavement performance, and project-and network-level rehabilitation planning. Of these, the most labor-intensive, time-consuming, and costly component is the collection of pavement condition data. The inventory data include roughness, skid resistance, and surface distresses. Although mechanical instruments are available for rapid collection of roughness and skid resistance data, the collection of distress data for low-volume rural roads is still manual and hence labor-intensive and time-consuming. Subjective rating techniques prove to be a solution to this problem, but their reliability is poor due to the subjectivity associated with them. Therefore, there is a need for a rapid and cost-effective yet reliable met...