Rutting Models for the Use in Pavement Maintenance Management

Abstract

With the recent approval of the Portuguese Law No. 110/2009 of 18 May, within the scope of road concession contracts, the concessionaires need to submit to the Portuguese Road Infrastructures Institute (InIR) a Quality Control Plan (QCP) and a Maintenance and Operation Manual (MOM). Therefore a Pavement Management Systems (PMS) must consider one pavement performance prediction model for each pavement state parameter so that it permits the definition of maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) interventions in order that the concessionaire fulfils the values defined in the QCP in each year of the concession period. The QCP presents the admissible values for each pavement state parameters (cracking, rutting, roughness, etc.) that a concessionaire of highways needs to verify. Contractual infractions are penalized with fines, in which the global sum varies, according to its gravity, between €5000 and €100000.
This paper describes briefly the state-of-the-art in terms of rutting models. Some of the models are analysed by comparing rutting evolution prediction for a set of representative Portuguese pavements structures and traffic conditions. HDM-4 deterioration model was considered to be the most promising to implement in a new Portuguese Maintenance Optimisation System (MOS).