Pavement Management and Preservation Office

Contact: Andrew Pavey 907-269-6213 andrew.pavey@alaska.gov

Pavement Management is defined as a set of tools or methods that assist decision makers in finding cost-effective strategies for maintaining, upgrading, and operating a network of pavements.

The Pavement Management Engineer employs technical expertise and equipment available from other DOT&PF groups (such as Regional Materials) to accomplish the statewide pavement management function and to develop a systematic approach to maintaining the Department's highway and airport paved networks. This function is located within the Department's Transportation Management and Security Section and is overseen by the Statewide Maintenance Engineer.

The Pavement Management Engineer is the Department's technical expert on pavement management and pavement preservation and is responsible for directly managing the State's paved assets. This role includes the annual assessment and reporting of pavement conditions for the State's roads and airports and maintaining the DOT&PF's pavement management database systems. These systems are utilized to help DOT&PF staff and managers to create project recommendations to preserve and repair the State's paved assets.

Pavement Management for the road system involves automated collection of pavement condition (smoothness and rutting) on approximately 4500 centerline miles per year. The data collection is performed under a contract with Mandli Communications, Inc. using Road Surface Profiling (RSP) equipment consisting of distance measuring lasers and decelerometer and the Laser Crack Measurement System (LCMS) providing high definition 3D profiles and 2D images of road surface. The condition data is uploaded into the Department's Pavement Management System database along with updated traffic data and new construction and repair information. This information is necessary to forecast condition deterioration and cost/benefit analysis to optimize network-level budgets and work scenarios. Summary reports and condition mapping are created and published annually.

Pavement Management for airports includes inspections of pavement surface conditions every third year. The inspections involve visual assessment of representative sample units to quantify the extent and severity of various distresses. The inspection information is entered into a MicroPAVER database along with construction/maintenance histories. The program generates PCI (Pavement Condition Index) and pavement age values for inclusion in annual reports and maps. The MicroPAVER software can also be used to predict condition deterioration and develop project budget and budgeting scenario options. PCI values are used in the process to determine ranking and scheduling of airport paving projects.

 

IRI Conditions Map

 

RUT Conditions Map