Advancements in Pavement Management Activities of Illinois Department of Transportation

For more than 20 years the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) has been using the results of its Condition Rating Survey (CRS) to make policy decisions regarding pavement rehabilitation activities, assess overall network condition throughout the state, and present funding requests to the state legislature. Before the early 1990s the CRSs were conducted manually by assigning a subjective rating ranging from 1.0 to 9.0 to each pavement section in the network. Since 1994 IDOT has used automated equipment to record roughness, rutting, and faulting information and videotapes at a workstation to identify additional distress. The acquisition of the automated equipment resulted in changes to the CRS procedures. Instead of subjectively assigning a rating to a pavement section, automated sensor data are used in conjunction with the identification of up to five predominant distress types and severity levels to calculate a CRS value. Models were developed to accommodate this change within the department so that CRS ratings determined by the new procedures would be within one-half point of the rating that would have been assigned by manual procedures. In addition, the models were developed to minimize the amount of time spent biennially conducting the CRS for Interstate pavements and primary highways. As a result of the changes in the CRS procedures, the rating of the predominant distress types and severities for each pavement section became more important. For this reason, the department identified the need for additional training that could be used to supplement the annual training class and provide immediate support to the CRS raters as they performed the condition surveys. An interactive, compact-disc (CD)-based training program that features full multimedia capabilities such as video, audio, and photograph was developed. An interactive testing and assessment package is also being developed as part of the training package. A summary of the development of the CRS rating models and the CD-based training program designed to be used at the workstation as surveys are conducted is presented.