Comparison of Road Pavement Performance Modeling of India and Hungary

Abstract

The pace of growth of road infrastructure in India and Hungary is not commensurate with the traffic. As a result, the highway system is short of its functional/structural capacity. The current maintenance practices are ad-hoc and  subjective in nature. Maintaining the road infrastructure at high level of  serviceability with limited budget is a challenge for many transportation agencies, among others, in India and Hungary. Pavement performance models have an important role in the scientifically based support of road maintenance, rehabilitation and management decisions. The development of these models usually needs the monitoring of selected trial sections, the performance of which can be generalized for the creation of pavement performance models as a function of time (pavement age) or the axle load passed. In both countries, pavement performance models have been developed. The techniques applied and the main results are briefly shown and compared. 60 trial sections of the Hungarian national road network have been systematically (yearly) monitored since 1991. The time series date of several condition parameters obtained from the test sections, made it possible to create highway performance models for several structural, traffic and environmental variants. The performance of Indian
highway pavements are evaluated considering bearing capacity, area of rut depth, cracking, raveling and bleeding. Hungarian performance prediction models were developed for surface defects, unevenness, rut depth, microtexture and macro texture as a function of age or traffic passed.
The Indian deflection progression equation includes initial deflection when the road is opened to traffic, cumulative standard axle load repetitions and pavement age. Crack and raveling initiation and progression models were also developed in India.
The effect of rehabilitation techniques on pavement performance was evaluated in Hungary. Indian methodology is presented for the selection of maintenance  alternatives and their optimum timing for the use of PPP concessionaires.