Spatial analysis of urban roadway pavement management

Road pavements are regarded as significant structural elements in all countries, which means that attention must be paid to the management of maintenance work and its timely implementation to maintain paving at a satisfactory service level. Paving distress inspections assist significantly in improving the capabilities of Paving Management Systems (PMS), and the aim of this study was to link the PAVER software database with GIS software to better conduct spatial analysis of pavement condition by creating location-related heat distress maps, based on Pavement Condition Index (PCI) values. A visual survey of the study area was performed to determine the defect types, intensity, and quantity, and the data obtained from the visual survey was analysed utilising PAVER 6.5.7 software to determine the PCI values for each sample unit. The results from the PAVER software were then linked with ArcGIS software to generate heat maps using the Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) spatial analysis tool. This map was then used to select the optimum maintenance pattern for the study area based on the PCI values, where each category of PCI values is given a special colour so that each colour on the map indicates a specific type of maintenance: red denoted pavement requiring reconstruction, yellow denoted that the pavement required rehabilitation, and green denoted that the pavement required only preventive maintenance. The assessment of heat maps created with PAVER and GIS software revealed that the present condition of the selected roads in Karbala city is generally good, with 56% of the selected roads requiring no maintenance, 29% requiring preventative maintenance, 13% requiring rehabilitation, and 2% requiring reconstruction. This heat map was also found to facilitate pavement condition assessment by providing all the information necessary for users, such as the location of the defects, the PCI value of each unit, the street name and direction, and the number of damaged units, in addition to offering the number of defects in each unit.