Sustainable Road Management in Texas: Network-Level Flexible Pavement Structural Condition Analysis Using Data-Mining Techniques

Abstract

The research team recognized the value of network-level falling weight deflectometer (FWD) testing to evaluate the structural condition trends of flexible pavements. However, practical limitations due to the cost of testing, traffic control and safety concerns, and the ability to test a large network may discourage some agencies from conducting the network-level FWD testing. For this reason, the surrogate measure of the structural condition index (SCI) is suggested for use. The main purpose of the research presented in this paper is to investigate data-mining strategies and to develop a prediction method of the structural condition trends for network-level applications, which do not require FWD testing. The research team first evaluated the existing and historical pavement condition, distress, ride, traffic, and other data attributes in the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Pavement Maintenance Information System (PMIS); applied data-mining strategies to the data; discovered useful patterns and knowledge for SCI value prediction; and finally provided a reasonable measure of pavement structural condition which is correlated to the SCI. To evaluate the performance of the developed prediction approach, a case study was conducted using the SCI data calculated from the FWD data collected on flexible pavements over a 5-year period (2005–2009) from 354 PMIS sections representing 37 pavement sections on the Texas highway system. The preliminary study results showed that the proposed approach can be used as a supportive pavement structural index in the event when FWD deflection data is not available and help pavement managers identify the timing and appropriate treatment level of preventive maintenance activities.