Question

Explain system approach to pavement management systems

Answer 1

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) defines pavement management as “…the effective and efficient directing of the various activities involved in providing and sustaining pavements in a condition acceptable to the traveling public at the least life cycle cost (AASHTO, 1985[1]).” This concept of providing pavements and maintaining them in acceptable condition is as old as the first pavement. As pavement networks grew slowly in the first half of the twentieth century and then quickly in the 1950s and 1960s, simple procedures or experience that had worked previously was no longer able to manage these burgeoning networks. Instead, a more holistic systems approach was needed.

Originally described as “a systems approach to pavement design”, the term “pavement management system (PMS)” came into popular use in the late 1960s and early 1970s to describe decision support tools for the entire range of activities involved in providing and maintaining pavements (OECD, 1987 and Peterson, 1987[2]). Hudson et al. (1979[3]) describe a “total pavement management system”