Successful 4-year pavement management plans help provide the traveling public with a safe, comfortable, and reliable roadway network. Each maintenance section plays a role in executing an effective 4-year pavement management plan. To continue to improve the statewide system and get the most value out of fiscally constrained budgets, pavement management plan best practices are needed. Many best practices exist within Texas and are captured as part of this research project. Promoting teamwork and communication at all levels within a district ensures pavement management plans are developed and deployed effectively. Acknowledging that district seal coat projects and seal coat preparations serve as the cornerstone for long term pavement management success is a key ingredient. For overlay and rehabilitation projects, properly scoring and prioritizing projects helps ensure plan success. Project success is required to improve plan success, and building a preliminary project scope during early project rides and connecting that scope with additional testing needs helps districts transition from plan success to project success to pavement management success.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is concerned about the widening gap between preservation needs and available funding. Funding levels are not adequate to meet the preservation needs of the roadway network; therefore projects listed in the 4-Year Pavement Management Plan must be ranked to determine which projects should be funded now and which can be postponed until a later year. Currently, each district uses locally developed methods to rank and prioritize projects. These ranking methods have relied on less formal qualitative assessments based on engineers' subjective judgment. It is important for TxDOT to have a rational 4-Year Pavement Management Plan. The objective of this study is to develop a conceptual framework that describes the development of the 4-Year Pavement Management Plan and a proposed ranking process. It can be largely divided into three steps; (1) Network-Level preliminary project screening process, (2) Project-Level project ranking process, and (3) Economic Analysis. A rational pavement management procedure and a project ranking method that are accepted by districts and the TxDOT administration will maximize efficiency in budget allocations and help improve pavement condition. As a part of this study, based on the data provided by the Austin District Pavement Engineer, the Network-Level Project Screening (NLPS) tool, including the candidate project selection algorithm and the preliminary project screening matrix, is developed. The NLSP tool has been used by the Austin District Pavement Engineer (DPE) to evaluate the PMIS (Pavement Management Information System) data and to prepare a preliminary list of candidate projects for further evaluation. The automated tool will help TxDOT engineers easily incorporate the developed mathematical algorithm into their daily pavement maintenance management.

Comprehensive and practical, Pavement Asset Management provides an essential resource for educators, students and those in public agencies and consultancies who are directly responsible for managing road and airport pavements. The book is comprehensive in the integration of activities that go into having safe and cost-effective pavements using the best technologies and management processes available. This is accomplished in seven major parts, and 42 component chapters, ranging from the evolution of pavement management to date requirements to determining needs and priority programming of rehabilitation and maintenance, followed by structural design and economic analysis, implementation of pavement management systems, basic features of working systems and finally by a part on looking ahead. The most current methodologies and practical applications of managing pavements are described in this one-of-a-kind book. Real world up-to-date examples are provided, as well as an extensive list of references for each part.

Emphasizing sound, cost-effective management rather than emergency repairs, this comprehensive volume offers practical guidelines on evaluating and managing pavements for airports, roads, and parking lots. The author focuses on the implementation and maintenance of successful management strategies for both network and project levels, with repair techniques also described . Detailed chapters: 1) outline step-by-step procedures for project and network level pavement management 2) illustrate effective cost analysis and budget planning for pavement maintenance 3) guide the reader in the selection and use of non-destructive deflection, roughness measurement, and friction measurement equipment 4) present state-of-the-art pavement rehabilitation and condition prediction techniques 5) demonstrates the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) procedure for airfields and surfaced and unsurfaced roads. Extensive appendices serve as a field manual for identifying all types of pavement distress and their causes, and hundred of photographs facilitate accurate pavement evaluation. Civil and pavement engineers will find complete information on pavement inspection, evaluation, and management in this indispensable reference.