Data Linkage of Road Surface Condition Survey and Daily Inspection Accelerated Pavement Management of Expressway

The length of Japanese expressway operated by NEXCO-West has reached about 3500 km, and half of them have been in service for more than 30 years. In order to provide safe, secure, and comfortable pavement condition, a pavement management cycle, which focuses on extending the service life of pavements, must be implemented. Pavement monitoring is classified as routine inspections by daily patrol and road surface condition surveys every 1–3 years. Maintenance including crack sealing and patching is planed based on the results of daily inspections, and rehabilitation, as cutting overlays, is planned based on the results of road surface condition surveys, each of which is managed independently. Therefore, the information from daily inspections may not be fully utilized in the rehabilitation planning. In this study, we analyzed the deterioration trend of expressway pavements by linking daily inspection data, road surface condition survey data, and as-built pavement information based on location information such as routes, lanes, and kilo-posts. As a result, a concept for repair design that contributes to service life extension was derived from the relationship between IRI value and asphalt pavement thickness. In addition, the relationship between the frequency of defects reported in daily inspections and the progression of IRI value led to the concept of prioritizing repair locations. Based on these concepts, we propose an efficient and effective expressway pavement management.