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levels of maintenance and compared The asset management
them with the existing Pavement system determined a
Condition Index and what would be budget for the city to keep
needed to maintain an appropriate the PCI constant and
level of service. Barge came to the city’s which roads would need
budget workshops and helped to inform the required maintenance
the Board of Mayor and Aldermen on over five years. City
what the study accomplished and what staff met with the public
different funding amounts would mean and board to discuss
for the overall city PCI. the needs. Having this
information to support
The Pavement Condition Index the needed paving dollars
is an index from 0 to 100 with 100 was crucial to getting the Mobile Asset Collection vehicles combine multiple engineered
being a newly paved road. While adequate funding. Being technologies to collect real-time pavement data, right-of-way data
the study proved the roads in newer able to point at unbiased and images at posted speed limits. This effectively eliminates the
subdivisions were in fairly good shape, data was instrumental need to place pavement inspection technicians in the field in close
those roads still had variances. With in detailing how to best proximity to vehicle traffic.
roads above a PCI of 80, the city has
elected to begin an intensive sealing service the city’s roads and justify where and answer questions about why it
program. This preventive measure the paving maintenance dollars were costs so much to pave and maintain the
requires an approximately 30-year spent. infrastructure. It also provided a much
vision of pavement maintenance. It With over 285 miles of roads, it allows needed database of all the roads and an
can sometimes be hard to explain to staff to prioritize which roads to look unbiased assessment of their condition.
someone why the department is sealing at first, determine the level of required As roads are addressed, their PCI
a road that is less than three years old, maintenance, and budget accordingly increases dramatically. After five years,
but as part of an aggressive management with a level of justification that takes a the city will be able to see the fruits of its
program it can add 15 more years of lot of questions out of where and when a vision as when the roads are reviewed
life to the newer pavements. Thus, road is paved. Is it a perfect system? Not again the data should show how much
the organization is saving the cost of by any means. What it does do is take we have been able to improve – or that
repaving the road an additional time a snapshot of all the roads at about the maybe a little more money needs to be
during that period. same time. This allows staff to prioritize put into the paving fund.
View online at tnpublicworks.com 13
