Development of Network-Level Project Screening Methods Supporting the 4-Year Pavement Management Plan in Texas

The Texas DOT (TXDOT) is concerned about the widening gap between pavement preservation needs and available funding. Thus, the TXDOT Austin district pavement engineer (DPE) has investigated methods to strategically allocate available pavement funding to potential projects that improve the overall performance of the district and Texas highway systems. The primary objective of the study presented in this paper is to develop a network-level project-screening and ranking method that supports the Austin district 4-year pavement-management plan development. The writers developed candidate-project selection and ranking algorithms that evaluated pavement conditions of each project candidate using data contained in the Pavement Management Information System (PMIS) database, incorporated insights from Austin district pavement experts, and implemented the developed method and supporting algorithm. This process previously required weeks to complete, but now requires about 10min, including data preparation and running the analysis algorithm, which enables the Austin DPE to devote more time and resources to conducting field visits, performing project-level evaluations, and testing candidate projects. The case study results show that the proposed method assisted the DPE in evaluating and prioritizing projects and allocating funds to the right projects at the right time. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.