Background

PAVER^TM provides pavement management capabilities to: (1) develop and organize the pavement inventory; (2) assess the current condition of pavements; (3) develop models to predict future conditions; (4) report on past and future pavement performance; (5) develop scenarios for M&R based on budget or condition requirements; and (6) plan projects.

The following is a brief overview of the PAVER^TM components and capabilities.

Inventory

PAVER^TM inventory management is based on a hierarchical structure composed of networks, branches, and sections, with the section being the smallest managed unit. This structure allows users to easily organize their inventory while providing numerous fields and levels for storing pavement data.

These are some of the other features included in Inventory:

• User-defined Fields: In addition to the standard inventory information, users can define their own fields to meet their management requirements.
• Virtual Inventory: Allows the user to create virtual copies of the existing inventory and group sections for easy presentation.
• Surface Change: Automatically calculates and updates pavement surface based on work history information.
• Edit Historical Inventory: Easily edit historical inventory values associated with previous inspections.

Field Inspection

To assess pavement condition, PAVER^TM uses the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) as its primary standard. The PCI measures pavement condition on a scale from 0 to 100. ASTM has adopted the PCI as standard practice for roads (D-6433-03) and airfields (D-5340-04). PAVER^TM provides users the ability to customize the PCI condition rating categories, Figure 1. PAVER^TM also allows the user an interface for recording the results of an inspection, as well as for easily importing data from automated vehicle collection sources.

Figure 1: Pavement Condition Index(PCI) ranges may be customized and used for reporting analysis results.

Prediction Modeling

The Prediction Modeling function in PAVER^TM helps identify and group pavements of similar construction that are subjected to similar traffic, weather, and other factors affecting pavement performance. The pavement condition historical data are used to build a model that can accurately predict the future performance of a group of pavements with similar attributes.

Figure 2: Pavement "family" models can be developed to predict future pavement condition.

Condition Analysis

The Condition Analysis feature allows users to view the condition of the entire pavement network or any specified subset of the network. This feature reports past conditions based on prior interpolated values between previous inspections. It reports projected conditions based on prediction models. In PAVER^TM, conditions can be viewed on GIS maps in addition to tables and graphs.

Figure 3: Internal GIS can be used to display condition and analysis results. For example, Condition Analysis and Work Planning ourputs are displayed in GIS.

M&R Work Planning

The PAVER^TM Work Planer is a tool for planning, scheduling, budgeting, and analyzing alternative pavement maintenance and repair (M&R) activities.

A new feature in PAVER^TM 6, is the use of M&R Families. Sections are assigned to M&R Families to establish groups of pavements which would use different pavement cost tables, or receive similar types of M&R work. The Work Planner uses the M&R Families along with inspection data, maintenance policies, maintenance costs, and predictions of future pavement conditions to recommend M&R activities at the section level.

Another new feature is the PCI credit given for performing Localized Preventative Maintenance. This feature is similar to the existing Major and Global surface treatment credit that is included in PAVER^TM 5.0.

The PAVER^TM work plan provides two ways to analyze budgets scenarios. The first way determines the consequence of a selected budget on pavement condition and the resulting backlog of Major M&R (unfunded). In addition to a single budget scenario, PAVER^TM 6.1 now offers a new budget split feature. The budget split feature allows the user to split a budget based on different M&R work types. This can aid a user that has a set budget for Global work and a different set budget for Major work. The second way determines the budget requirements to meet specific management objectives, i.e. backlog elimination or PCI goal. This enables managers to develop a variety of funding scenarios to support their decisions, Figure 4.

Figure 4: Work Planning enables users to determine how much funding is required to meet management objectives such as maintaining current PCI or eliminating backlog in 5 years.

Project Planning

The Project Planning tool is new in PAVER^TM6. This tool, included in the M&R Plan, allows the user to develop projects based on user-specified required work and PAVER^TM recommended work. This tool greately aids the user in planning projects and, upon completion of the projects, automatically update the work history data.

GIS Interface

PAVER^TM includes internal mapping capabilities to view GIS reports directly in PAVER^TM. PAVER^TM also produces shapefiles of reports, such as inventory, inspection, condition analysis, and work plan that can be viewed in commercial GIS software.

Selection Tools

PAVER^TM offers an improved user interface. New tools have been added to assist users in selecting pavement sections. Internal GIS-based selection has been added along with a "Windows Explorer-like" tree selection tool. A pull-down menu selection tool and a tab selection tool have been added, Figure 5.

Figure 5: New GIS and tree based selection tools provide additional methods for selecting inventory items throughout PAVER^TM. For example, inventory and inspection screens will display the selected pavement section for data viewing or editing.

GIS Assignment Tool

The GIS Assignment tool links the PAVER^TM data for individual pavement sections to GIS data. The GIS Assignment tool provides an internal "point-and-click" interface to create, remove, or change the link between pavement sections and GIS map features.

Using the same visual layout as Selectors, Figure 5, the tool dramatically reduces the time required to create or change the link between GIS and pavement data. This tool is designed to work directly with the same ESRI shapefiles that are used in PAVER^TM’s internal GIS capabilities. The GIS assignment tool has been greatly improved in version 6.

Wizards

Several wizards have been developed for PAVER^TM 6.1. These wizards assist the user by providing a step by step process for several common tasks. These wizards are:

• Inspection Setup Wizard: Sets up field inspection forms for future pavement surveys.
• Work Entry Wizard: Enters multiple or single work history items and allows the user
  to create work history reports.
• Calculate Last Construction Date: Tool for estimating the last construction
  dates of pavements without historical construction records.
• Set Properties On Multiple Inventory Items: Tool for populating inventory items,
  including user-defined fields.
• Import/export data for PAVER Field Inspector^TM and PAVER Image Inspector^TM
  (Now Available in PAVER 6.5.2).