This synthesis will be of interest to administrators, including contract and specifications administrators; research, construction, materials, specification, and design engineers; agency project managers and staff; and highway construction contractors. It describes the state of the practice with respect to the development and present status of performance-related specifications (PRS) for highway materials and construction. This report of the Transportation Research Board summarizes the historical events that have prompted U.S. interest in PRS development and describes the underlying concepts. In addition, it describes current practice with regard to PRS implementation and refers to the principal PRS literature with emphasis on performance and cost models. It emphasizes the utility of PRS in providing objective/ rational measures that can be used for special contract conditions, such as incentive or disincentive adjustments.

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 704: A Performance-Related Specification for Hot-Mixed Asphalt provides a proposed performance-related specification (PRS) for hot-mix asphalt (HMA) in the form of the Microsoft Windows-based Quality-Related Specification Software (QRSS). The QRSS is a stand-alone program for Microsoft Windows (versions XP and 7) that employs a database of pre-solved solutions of the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide. The program is capable of (1) calculating the predicted rutting, fatigue cracking, and low-temperature (thermal) cracking of an HMA pavement from the mix volumetric and binder and aggregate properties of the as-designed HMA (typically the job mix formula) and (2) comparing them with predictions calculated from the contractor's lot or sub-lot quality assurance data for the same properties.