Pavement

Austroads Project AT1064 Long Term Performance Monitoring to Develop Consistent Performance Models has been running since 1994-95. A review of the analysis of US long term pavement performance (US LTPP) data used to validate the performance relationships in the MEPDG was undertaken to see if these relationships would be applicable to the Austroads Pavement Design Guide (APDG) designed pavements.

The review examined the performance relationships for predicting the flexible pavement distress conditions of rutting, fatigue cracking and roughness. It was found that these relationships were far more complex than initially thought as they required much more field and laboratory data than the Australian LTPP program can supply.

The monitoring of Australian LTPP and LTPPM sites has continued in a more cost effective way in the past few years. Since the natural disasters in Queensland late last year, no official report has advised that any LTPP or LTPPM sites were affected by the flooding. Most data presented in this report was collected before the disasters struck; the upcoming fieldwork later this year may reveal more detail about the condition of these sites. In Victoria it is inevitable that most LTPP sites, if not all, on the Western Ring Road in Melbourne will be affected by the M80 Ring Road upgrade in the near future.

The LTPP data is available on ltpp.info