PAVEMENT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES.

Pavement management is the effective and efficient directing of the activities involved in providing and sustaining pavements in an acceptable condition at the lowest life-cycle cost. A pavement management system (PMS) is an established, documented procedure that treats all of the activities involved in pavement management in a systematic and coordinate manner. A PMS usually includes condition surveys, a data base of pavement-related information, analysis scheme, decision criteria, and implementation procedures. Pavement management can be applied at the network level or at the project level. At the network level, pavement management is concerned with information related to the entire highway network; as such it involves policy and programming decisions. Network-level pavement management is used to establish programs, set policy, and estimate budget needs. At the project level, pavement management is concerned with detailed technical information on specific pavement sections and can be used for activities such as establishing priorites for maintenance and rehabilitation.