摘要: |
As of March 2004, Texas' highway network was made up of 79,513 centerline miles, not including city roads, county roads, or toll roads. Of the almost 80,000 centerline miles, 40 percent consists of Interstate, U.S., and state highways, which are the most trafficked routes. These arterial highways transport most of the goods from production to distribution centers. In other words, the highway system is a primary component of the state's strong economy, and therefore must be maintained and kept in optimum condition to secure the well-being of Texas' residents. In 1998, the Center for Transportation Research at The University of Texas at Austin undertook a research project that would maintain and update the existing rigid pavement database (RPDB) in Texas. The RPDB, per se, began in 1974 with the primary objective of creating a database that would simulate the conditions of Texas' concrete pavement network, and since then, multiple research tasks have been conducted to accomplish that goal. During the last 6 years, a number of activities have been pursued to monitor and evaluate the conditions of the rigid pavement sections contained in the RPDB. |