U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
202-366-4000
Focus
Accelerating Infrastructure Innovations |
Publication Number: FHWA-RD-03-014
Date: January/February 2003
Pavement Warranties Yield Innovation, Quality
Faced with staff and budget shrinkages and the need to increase pavement quality and life-cycle performance, some State highway agencies are finding that pavement warranties offer an alternative way to assure performance. These warranties guarantee the integrity of the product and the contractor's responsibility to repair or replace defects for a defined period.
Pavement Warranties: Learning from the European Experience
Does your road come with a warranty? Traditional U.S. construction contracts have typically required contractors to provide a project warranty for just 1 year following construction completion. Highway agencies are now increasingly requesting longer term warranty contracts on large asphalt paving projects, with the goal of improving pavement performance and reducing life-cycle costs (see article, page 1).
Meet the New Mobile Asphalt Lab
The Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) new and improved mobile asphalt laboratory will be hitting the road soon with an array of state-of-the-art technologies and the goal of promoting long life asphalt pavements for the 21st century.
Keeping Up with Context Sensitive Design
As more States embrace a context sensitive design (CSD) or context sensitive solutions (CSS) approach to building roads (see October 2002 Focus), the demand for CSD/CSS training and guidance has also increased. The following is a list of CSD/CSS resources currently available. In the works are new CSS training programs being developed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). The National Transit Institute, an arm of the Federal Transit Administration, is also looking at developing a training course for CSS that will focus on transit-oriented issues related to context sensitive approaches to project implementation. These new programs will draw on State experiences in implementing CSS.
Four new publications from the long-term pavement performance (LTPP) program provide readers with information on the latest applications of LTPP data.