Development of a Road Roughness Profile Delineation Procedure

There are several approaches to delineation of statistically homogeneous units for pavement response variables in a selected property, and one of them, the cumulative difference approach, is presented in the AASHTO Guide for Design of Pavement Structures (1993). This method is a relatively powerful analytical one, when the nature of the measurements involves delineating homogeneous units with different mean value levels. However, there are other cases when the delineation procedure should be applied for data with different levels of scatter characteristics, such as with standard deviation or range. This modified cumulative difference approach is fully described in this paper with application to delineating statistically homogeneous units along a road profile of roughness measurements. The suggested approach provides an advantage in delineating scattered characteristics and shows a high level of efficiency as evidenced by practical applications. The results presented are expected to serve as a basis for enhancing quality control criteria in the construction, as well as in the maintenance stages. Another goal is to serve any advanced pavement management system (PMS).