National Academies Press: OpenBook

Common Airport Pavement Maintenance Practices (2011)

Chapter: Chapter Nine - Conclusions

« Previous: Chapter Eight - Operation, Sustainability, and Enhancement
Page 38
Suggested Citation:"Chapter Nine - Conclusions." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Common Airport Pavement Maintenance Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14500.
×
Page 38
Page 39
Suggested Citation:"Chapter Nine - Conclusions." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Common Airport Pavement Maintenance Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14500.
×
Page 39

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

39 There is extensive literature on the subject of airport pavement maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) technology, including the technology of pavement preservation treatments. How- ever, the information is dispersed and not always current. Air- port pavement maintenance practices generally follow the objectives, management principles, and methodology of road- way pavement management practices. Airfield and roadway pavements are built and maintained using the same construc- tion technology, materials, and methods. Also, airport and roadway pavement management systems frequently use simi- lar pavement management software. All types of pavement preservation treatments, including maintenance treatments, preventive maintenance treatments, and rehabilitation treatments, are considered together when developing pavement preservation strategies for individual pavement sections and for Capital Improvement Programs. Preventive maintenance has a special standing in the area of pavement preservation. The preventive maintenance program has the potential to improve cost-effectiveness of pavement preservation activities, promote the use of frequent detailed pavement condition surveys, and facilitate the establishment of a dedicated budget for pavement maintenance. The need for preventive pavement maintenance is well-recognized. About 56% of all respondents systematically identify pavements that would benefit most from preventive maintenance and approxi- mately 35% of respondents implement preventive maintenance treatments at the right time. Approximately 33% of airport agencies have a dedicated budget for pavement maintenance. The main challenge facing airport authorities is not the type of M&R treatment, but is to justify that M&R treatments are necessary using a judicious and objective process, and to obtain funding for their implementation. Pavement management technology is mature. More than 80% of all airport authorities surveyed operate an Airport Pavement Management System (APMS) or are in the process of developing one. All airport agencies surveyed that have an APMS use a pavement management software application, pri- marily MicroPAVER. It is expected that the new web-based FAA pavement management software now under develop- ment, called AIRPAVE, will further enhance the technology of the APMS. Based on the survey, the average frequency of Pavement Condition Index surveys was 3.3 years. Annual condition sur- veys of pavement surface distresses on the candidate pavement sections, such as sections with newly constructed and rehabil- itated pavements aids in the selection and timing of preventive pavement maintenance treatments. There is no recognized single pavement roughness standard for in-service airport pavements that could be used to identify M&R needs based on pavement roughness. However, the FAA has recently proposed roughness criteria for runways addressing isolated bump events. Establishing practical rough- ness standards for the scheduling of M&R treatments on in- service airport pavements continues. The performance of specific M&R treatments, particularly treatments that are not routinely used, are typically tracked by pavement managers. This enables the airport authority to expand, modify, or discontinue M&R treatments based on their documented field performance. Pavement management software applications, such as MicroPaver or AIRPAVE, cur- rently do or will include features to facilitate the evaluation of past pavement M&R treatments. About 35% of responding airports have recently (during the past 10 years or so) evaluated the performance of new and innovative M&R treatments. The data on the cost- effectiveness of new and innovative treatments, as well as the treatments that utilize proprietary products, are lacking. Seventy percent of airports surveyed had both asphalt con- crete (AC) and portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements on at least some types of airport facilities, and 30% of airports had both AC and PCC pavements on runways. Consequently, many airports need to have staff that has expertise in the tech- nology of both AC and PCC pavements. To present informa- tion in a concise structured way, 24 common M&R treatments were systematically described in the Catalog of Airport Pave- ment Preservation Treatments in Appendix B. The 50 airport survey sample size did not permit desegre- gation of results by geographical or environmental regions, or by airport size. Multi-year prioritization using incremental cost-effec- tiveness analysis, the most advanced method for optimizing the allocation of available funding used by transportation agencies administering large highway networks, is seldom used for airport pavement networks. The reasons for slower CHAPTER NINE CONCLUSIONS

implementation include smaller airport pavement networks, greater importance of operational issues at airports, and lim- itations of existing airport pavement management software. Life-cycle cost analysis, a systematic assessment of other treatment attributes important to an airport, can aid in the selection of alternative M&R treatments. These attributes may include, for example, agency experience with the per- formance of the alternatives, impact on airport operations, and environmental and sustainability considerations. 40 A comprehensive review of an APMS could use gap analysis that identifies differences between the existing man- agement procedures and those based on the best appropriate practice. The comparison between the results achieved by different APMSs can be assessed through benchmarking. Further research includes making pavement preservation knowledge available to practitioners by organizing and syn- thesizing information and data in an interactive electronic format.

Next: Glossary of Terms »
Common Airport Pavement Maintenance Practices Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 22: Common Airport Pavement Maintenance Practices explores how airports implement a pavement maintenance management program, including inspecting and tracking pavement condition, scheduling maintenance, identifying necessary funds, and treating distresses in asphalt and concrete pavements.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!