Do you keep a centralized record of your pavement maintenance? If not, it’s a good first step to better pavement management. If you go by memory of when you last milled and paved, crack sealed, or microsurfaced a street, congratulations because you are never allowed to retire. Maybe you do have a memory like an elephant, but you can’t leave your brain when you finally do move on.
A street section by street section pavement record is an easy effort if you do it as you go along, and it’s not that tough to go back into the files and recreate one as a base. There is certainly asset management software that can be very helpful, but you can create a record in a simple Excel spreadsheet. The level of detail can be as lean or in-depth as you like. Obviously, the more detail you have, the better your forward planning can become over time.
Because you often maintain and rehabilitate your streets in sections, it is usually helpful to break streets down as segments from intersection to intersection and for longer or rural roads, you may want to establish other segmentation, such as street addresses or mileage markers.
In determining the information you catalog, think about how you might use it for planning in the future. Some examples of information you may wish to include:
- Paving
- Date of each paving (not just the last time)
- Milling depth (if applicable)
- Paving thickness
- Pavement material (e.g., PG 64-22 12.5 mm)
- Contractor
- Cost
- Maintenance and Pavement Preservation
- Crack sealing or filling
- Patching
- Microsurfacing
- Fog sealing
- Other treatments
- Rehabilitation
- Full-depth patching
- Full-depth reclamation
- Cold-in-place recycling
- Hot-in-place recycling
- Sidewalks
- Sidewalk repair
- Sidewalk replacement
- Curb ramp replacement
- Curb
- Curb repair
- Curb replacement
- Drainage repairs or improvements
More extensive systems merit a software program to track maintenance records, but a simple spreadsheet can be used for smaller ones. A partial example of such a spreadsheet is shown below and the Delaware T2/LTAP Center can assist you in developing one that is right for you…for free.
click on picture to download spreadsheet
Regardless of your approach, a maintenance history for your streets, curbs, sidewalks, curb ramps, and drainage systems can give you a much more structured approach to planning for the future and avoid the necessity to remember everything.
The Delaware T2/LTAP Center’s Municipal Engineering Circuit Rider is intended to provide technical assistance and training to local agencies and so if you have pavement management questions or other transportation issues, contact Matt Carter at matheu@udel.edu or (302) 831-7236.
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