Treatment performance capacity – A tool to predict the effectiveness of maintenance strategies

Abstract

The California Department of Transportation (Coltrans) employs a variety of pavement preservation treatments to maintain and preserve their network of paved highways. In this work a model was developed lo relate asphalt treatment life in terms of Treatment Performance Capacity (TPC), pavement condition, traffic level and location temperatures for all asphalt based treatments. This model is able to provide estimates of the performance of 23 treatments, in three climatic zones, three pavement conditions levels and three traffic magnitudes. Using the TPC values for each treatment and the price af’ each treatment, the cost effectiveness for all treatments was developed. The results indicate that there are huge differences in values between treatments currently used in California and that there appears to exist a great opportunity for Coltrans to optimize (i. e. minimize) its annual budget by applying only treatments with highest cost-effectiveness at the correct time.