Pavement Management Practices in State Highway Agencies: Newington, Connecticut Peer Exchange Results Peer Exchange Results
Chapter 8 Summary
The FHWA sponsored Pavement Management Peer Exchange Workshop provided an excellent forum for pavement management practitioners from seven states to share ideas and to learn from the experiences of others. This document summarizes the discussions held at the fifth such Peer Exchange held on September 8-9, 2010 in Newington, Connecticut. The peer exchange had representatives from the following agencies:
- Connecticut Department of Transportation (ConnDOT)
- Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT)
- Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT)
- New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT)
- New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT)
- Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT)
- Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans)
- FHWA Division Offices
- FHWA Office of Asset Management
- Maine DOT was able to participate in the PEER Exchange only for the first day.
The report presented a summary of the states' practices in each of the following topics:
- Using pavement management data to support decision making
- Using pavement management data for short-and long-term planning
- Establishing links with pavement preservation and maintenance and operations
- Developing performance models and performance measures using pavement condition information
- Economics of pavement management - cost effectiveness and cost savings
- Comparison of performance measures between states
The discussion indicated that the various states have similar approaches in developing and using their pavement management systems. All of the peer exchange participants are using the Deighton software, dTIMS. They all use the pavement management system in decision making and to communicate their needs to upper management and/or the legislature. Most of the states are using their systems for short- and long-term planning and for answering the "what if" questions asked by their management.
Most of the states (6 of 7) have strong links with pavement preservation and rehabilitation groups, but the links with maintenance are not as good. These links need to be strengthened.
Most of the participating states (6 of 7) have performance models for predicting the future condition of the pavement system. Most of them have not been in existence long enough to have data supported models. Most states have defined performance measures such as ride or condition index and goals for each of these measures. The states are doing a reasonably good job of maintaining their targets, despite the decline in funding. This is, in part, due to the heavy reliance on pavement preservation treatments.
The states do not have as good a handle on the costs of operating their pavement management system nor the benefits derived. More work is needed to document clear benefits and to determine the cost effectiveness of the system.
The states were fairly unanimous in their belief that standardizing data collection and reporting would be a beneficial outcome at the national level. However, there are numerous hurdles to overcome to get to a point where states can compare "apples to apples" from a pavement condition standpoint.
Finally, all of the States had positive comments on the two day Peer Exchange. They felt it was an excellent learning opportunity and they appreciated the opportunity to interact and share information among their peers. They also mentioned that having additional peer exchanges in the future would be welcomed by the States.
States were asked how this peer exchange compares to other opportunities for interaction with their peers. Here are some of their comments:
- Very useful to get the time to think about these things and nice to hear about other states. Also it was nice to be able to speak freely among the states.
- It is good to know what other states are doing - similarities and differences are both informative. The discussion made this state begin to think about performance measures. The discussions on equipment were interesting.
- The peer exchange facilitated a good exchange of information. It was nice to be able to talk within a state and was also useful to have a forthright conversation with peers without the pressure of outside influences. The peer exchange provided the states with new ideas to improve their system.
- It was very beneficial to match faces with expertise and there is a hope to contact others that they met at the peer exchange to gain technical expertise. There was a shared camaraderie and it is nice to know others face the same problems.
- The peer exchange was useful to benchmark one state's progress against another state. This creates the opportunity for leading states to educate other states in their practices.
In summary, most of the participants felt the overall strength of the peer exchange was to facilitate one-to-one interaction instead of just listening to talking heads at a conference.