Nonlinear Mixed-Effects Model for the Evaluation and Prediction of Pavement Deterioration

Pavement deterioration models are important inputs for pavement management systems (PMS). These models are based on the study of performance data, and they provide the evolution law of pavement deterioration. Performance data consist of observations of pavement section conditions, and are collected through several follow-up campaigns on road networks. To characterize the pavement deterioration process, several statistical methods have been developed at the Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées (LCPC). However, these methods are suboptimal for modeling the evolution of pavement deterioration, as they ignore unit-specific random effects and potential correlation among repeated measurements. This paper presents a nonlinear mixed-effects model enabling accounting for the correlation between observations on the same pavement section. On the basis of this nonlinear mixed-effects modeling, we investigate and identify structural and climatic factors that explain differences in the parameters between pavement sections, and quantify the impact of these factors on pavement evolution. The proposed model provides a good fit for describing the evolution law of different pavement sections. The performance of this model is assessed using simulated and real data.