Validation of Pavement Performance Measures Using Long-Term Pavement Performance Data

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Background

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) Act requires performance measures to be established for the Interstate Highway System (IHS).⁽¹⁾ Consequently, in January 2015, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to establish performance measures to assess the condition of the pavements on the National Highway System (NHS) and IHS.⁽²⁾ And, in January 2017, FHWA issued the Final Rule to implement the performance management requirements of MAP-21 and the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act.⁽³⁾ The performance measures established to assess pavement condition are the percentage of pavements on the IHS in good condition, IHS in poor condition, NHS (excluding IHS) in good condition, and NHS (excluding IHS) in poor condition.⁽⁴⁾ The condition of the pavements is to be determined based on the following condition metrics contained in the Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS): the International Roughness Index (IRI), cracking percent, rutting, and faulting.⁽⁴⁾

An important first step toward implementation of the performance measures by highway agencies is to demonstrate the measures are valid and effective. Due to the wealth of data contained in its Pavement Performance Database, the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program was poised to assist in implementation of the performance measures. Accordingly, FHWA undertook a study to validate the pavement performance measures and to demonstrate their use within the pavement decisionmaking process.^(5,6) Accomplishing these objectives required translation of LTPP pavement condition data to condition metrics in accordance with the NPRM. For asphalt concrete (AC) percent cracking, the translation was done based on the NPRM and Final Rule. A database containing the translated data and other supporting information was created; it is available via LTPP InfoPave^™ (https://infopave.fhwa.dot.gov/). This database supported all analyses for the study in question, and highlights from those analyses are presented in this TechBrief.