NCAT Pavement Preservation Effectiveness Study Will Help Agencies Make Cost-Effective Maintenance Decisions

—Continued on Pg. 2 The new Preservation Group (PG) experiment will provide answers for cash-strapped state and local agencies that need cost-effective ways to maintain existing asphalt roadways. Budgets are tight, but agencies still have the same task: keeping aging pavements in good condition for the driving public. When applied at the right time, pavement preservation treatments, such as chip seals, micro surfacing and thin asphalt overlays, can restore a smooth, safe driving surface while saving money on future rehabilitation costs. Among the challenges faced by engineers are determining what type of treatment to perform and when to apply it so that life cycle cost is minimized. The results of the PG study will give pavement engineers better tools to meet those challenges. “What’s unique about our approach is that we are not comparing individual pavement preservation techniques. Instead, we are quantifying the lifeextending benefits of each treatment as a function of pretreatment pavement conditions,” says NCAT Assistant Director and Test Track Manager Dr. Buzz Powell. Sponsors of the PG study include seven state DOTs—Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, North NCAT Pavement Preservation Effectiveness Study Will Help Agencies Make Cost-Effective Maintenance Decisions