ABSTRACT
Challenges with paved Finnish public roads due to declines in budgets has caused an increase in pavement deterioration rates and budget backlog. PEHKO-project was established to solve this problem using innovative road asset management concepts. The idea of the project is to improve maintenance and strengthening practices used on the Finnish paved road network in such a way that productivity increases, road condition stays at its current level or even improves with lowered annual costs. This goal will be achieved by focusing on three targets: 1) Improving daily maintenance, 2) utilizing new non-destructive testing technologies, such as GPR, TSD, lidar and 3D-accelerometers in the diagnostics and 3) changing maintenance policies from reactive to proactive. Annually, PEHKO-project collects high accuracy rutting information with lidar and calculates exact rut growth rates. When this data is combined with GPR data and bearing capacity analysis, it is possible to determine root causes of rut growth and design rehabilitation operations in the most cost-effective manner. Additionally, through the combination of TSD deflection data and GPR pavement thickness data, road sections with critical pavement strain can be located and repaired before they fail and lifetime of the road increases significantly at lesser costs. After 2021, PEHKO-project has been underway for six years and the preliminary results are very promising. Right from the start it was possible to identify the weakest links that were cutting down pavement lifetime and increasing lifecycle costs. These critical sections covered only 10-20% of the overall length, but their impact on annual paving costs was up to 50%. Deficiencies were found in pavement structures and daily maintenance operations. Structural problems are related to too thin pavements and to the effects of heavy trucks on road sections with soft subgrade soils. Maintenance deficiencies were mainly associated with poor drainage and inadequate winter maintenance.
