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Evaluation of Highway Performance Measures for a Multi-Study Corridor - A Pilot Study

Table of Contents

• Foreword
• Executive Summary
• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1 Overview
  • 1.2 Report Organization
• 2.0 Data Acquisition and Analysis Plan
  • 2.1 Scope of Data Collection Effort
  • 2.2 Data Collection Methodology
  • 2.3 Potential Issues with Data
  • 2.4 ICAT Integration
• 3. Data Collection and Integration
  • 3.1 Data Collection Results
  • 3.2 Data Structure and Content
  • 3.3 Data Issues
  • 3.4 ICAT Integration
  • 3.5 Data Analysis
• 4. Analysis and Evaluation of Alternative Condition Indicators
  • 4.1 Data Analysis
  • 4.2 Data Collection, Validation, and Interpretation
  • 4.3 Measures Available in ICAT
  • 4.4 Conclusions and Recommendations
• 5. Design Report: Condition Indicator Display Capability in ICAT
  • 5.1 WebCAT Environment
  • 5.2 WebCAT Design
  • 5.3 Web-Based Training
• List of Figures
  • Figure 4.1 Bridge Probability Distributions - All States
  • Figure 4.2 Bridge Cumulative Distributions - All States
  • Figure 4.3 Weighted Bridge Distributions - All States
  • Figure 4.4 Delaware Pavement Distress Conversation Tables
  • Figure 4.5 Pavement Distributions - Delaware
  • Figure 4.6 Pavement Distributions - Maryland
  • Figure 4.7 Pavement Distributions - Virginia
  • Figure 4.8 Weighted Pavement Distributions - Delaware
  • Figure 4.9 Pavement Distributions - All States
  • Figure 4.10 OPC versus CCI in Virginia
  • Figure 5.1 WebCAT User Interface
• List of Tables
  • Table 2.1 Available Data from States
  • Table 2.2 Sources for Pavement and Bridge Data
  • Table 4.1 Basic Bridge Statistics - Not Weighted
  • Table 4.2 Basic Bridge Statistics - Weighted
  • Table 4.3 Bridge Correlation Coefficients
  • Table 4.4 Basic Pavement Statistics Part 1 - Not Weighted
  • Table 4.5 Basic Pavement Statistics Part 2 - Not Weighted
  • Table 4.6 Basic Pavement Statistics - Weighted
  • Table 4.7 Pavement Correlation Coefficients - Delaware
  • Table 4.8 Pavement Correlation Coefficients - Maryland
  • Table 4.9 Pavement Correlation Coefficients - Virginia
  • Table 4.10 Delaware Pavement Distress Definitions for Severity
  • Table 4.11 Delaware Pavement Distress Definitions for Extent
  • Table 4.12 Maryland Pavement Distress Condition Indexes and Descriptions
  • Table 4.13 Virginia Pavement Crack Severity Definitions
  • Table 4.14 Virginia CCI and IRI Condition Categories
  • Table 5.1 Bridge Database Structure
  • Table 5.2 Pavement Database Structure

Presented by

FHWA-HIF-10-015

Foreword

Notice

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the use of the information contained in this document. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.

The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trademarks or manufacturers' names may appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the objective of the document.

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Metric Conversion Factors
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Executive Summary

Determining an appropriate set of performance measures to use for managing the nation's highway network is a vital component of the work to preserve our existing transportation infrastructure. Recent research, such as National Cooperative Research Program (NCHRP) Project 20-74 describing an asset management framework for the Interstate Highway System (IHS), has highlighted the importance of establishing a consistent set of performance measures for communicating physical conditions of our roads, bridges, and other highway assets.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Asset Management developed this project to analyze bridge and pavement data across a multi-state corridor, evaluate the quality of existing performance measures, and recommend additional measures as well as further avenues of research in this area. A key deliverable involved using the Integrated Corridor Analysis Tool (ICAT), previously developed by the I-95 Corridor Coalition, as a platform to display bridge and pavement performance data. ICAT provides a map-based application, accessible via the Internet, that allows users to view, analyze, and compare performance data along an entire corridor or at a specific location.

For this project, Cambridge Systematics (CS) performed a statistical analysis of bridge and pavement data received from Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. This analysis included looking at individual values as well as comparing values both within a state and across states. CS concluded that:

• International Roughness Index (IRI) does not provide adequate information to judge overall pavement condition;
• Composite measures of pavement condition (i.e., measures that combine multiple distress readings into a single number) are better than individual measurements but still may not correlate well with structural adequacy; and
• Sufficiency rating and health index both provide adequate, albeit slightly different, measures of the condition of a bridge.

Based on the analysis and conclusions, CS recommended that FHWA:

• Modify the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) to obtain element data from states and use these data to calculate bridge health index on a national level;
• Develop one or more health index calculations for pavement using Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) 2010+ data elements;
• Test sample road sections to determine whether a relationship exists between pavement health indexes and actual road condition and use this information to develop a true measure of structural adequacy for pavement; and
• Define models of roadway functional obsolescence and public importance that are simple to use and interpret.