High Oil prices forces more Pavement Management Planning

It is difficult times for those responsible for our pavements and roads. The sky-high price increases on oil does not just affect the cost of driving vehicles, it also has a very high impact on the price of asphalt, since asphalt is a byproduct of oil.

In recent years, the price of asphalt has risen by 40-60% and often the funding for the Pavement Maintenance has not followed this inflation. At the same time, there has been a large increase in the amount of traffic on the road network, which adds a greater load and thus a greater need for maintenance.

Thus, it can be difficult to get limited funding to keep a reasonable Pavement Maintenance

In desperate times, one often takes desperate actions. But this is not the optimal approach in the long run. Many measurements and reports have shown that even if you want to make patch solutions on your roads, to try to make the asphalt last longer, it is not optimal. It is a proven fact that pavement preservation is the most cost-effective long-term method of managing a pavement network. A thought-out Pavement Management Plan is key for a cost effective pavement maintenance.

As the industry unfortunately anticipates a further increase in prices of asphalts since the price increases of asphalts often impacts 2-3 months after an oil increase, it’s become increasingly important to start the Pavement Maintenance Planning.

A proper pavement survey to inspect and evaluate the functional condition of your road is important to build an effective Pavement Management Plan. Both the IRI, RN and PCI values will be important values to state the overall road condition. Mapping of distresses will be key to evaluate the local actions needed.

The ideal tool for conducting the functional testing of your road is the Multi Functional Vehicle (MFV), with a Road Surface Profiler (RSP), and the Laser Crack Measurement System (LCMS), combined with the post analysis software, Dynatest Explorer, for automatic calculations of IRI, RN and PCI and output into DTMap or Google Earth.

This will support you in building the most effective Pavement Management Plan.

Please feel free to comment on this topic. How does the high oil prices affect you in your work, and what can be done to support you better?