Evaluation of Warranty and Nonwarranty Pavement Performance Using Survival Analysis

Abstract

Pavement warranties are an innovative contracting procedure to protect investment in pavement construction and maintenance. The Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) has managed its pavement warranty program since 2000, and there have been questions regarding the effectiveness of the pavement warranty program in Mississippi and in other states as well. Therefore, in this study, the nonparametric survival analysis method was employed to evaluate the performance of the warranty versus nonwarranty pavements. Asphalt pavement distress data retrieved from MDOT’s pavement management system were used to compute the survival probabilities of warranty and nonwarranty pavements with similar ages of service time. The results showed that the survival probabilities of the warranty pavements were significantly higher than those of nonwarranty pavements, indicating the superior performance of the warranty pavements in Mississippi. This study has provided a practical framework to process field-surveyed pavement distress data to evaluate the effectiveness of a pavement warranty program.