Publication Details
Interstate Highway Pavement Sampling Final Phase 2 Report 
Primary Topic: Pavement Management
Description: With the passing of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has proposed that the Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) data set is the data source for the national pavement performance measures. In 2015, a sampling study of the pavements on the Interstate System was conducted to determine whether the HPMS provided adequate information to determine performance of the nation's highways. In 2017, this second study was commissioned to evaluate changes over the period and to establish a baseline of performance for the Interstate pavement network. As in the original study, the objectives of this project are to: 1. Collect an unbiased baseline study of a statistically significant sample of the entire Interstate Highway System (IHS) and produce a report indicating the pavement condition on the IHS nationally and in each State where data were collected. 2. Determine if HPMS is an unbiased representation of the pavement condition of the IHS. 3. Recommend improvements to HPMS data collection and reporting that are necessary to either make HPMS unbiased or improve its precision, in regard to performance management and FHWA's use of HPMS data.
The project answers the following questions regarding HPMS data collection: What is the typical annual change in conditions to the Interstate System pavements due to usage, weather, and construction activities. Are protocols proposed by FHWA adequate for collecting and reporting distress or do they need improvement? Is there a correlation with the LTPP program sites located on the sampled routes? This report documents the entire research effort, with particular emphasis on the data collection and data analyses activities.
FHWA Publication Number: FHWA-HIF-20-085
Publication Year: 2020
Document Links: PDF (file size: 6.6 mb)