VTTI’s Center for Sustainable & Resilient Infrastructure (CSRI) is saving money through providing recommendations on how to effectively collect data with traffic speed deflectometers (TSDs) for the purposes of network- and project-level pavement management. TSDs help to provide data regarding vehicle bearing capacity and identify weak road sections. CSRI collaborated with 26 state highway agencies and the Federal Highway Administration on this $4.8 million project.
Specific tasks included gathering sample data, documenting various TSD technologies and their characteristics, creating guidelines and case studies, and organizing workshops for the agencies involved. The results of this study will allow these agencies to use TSDs to make more cost-effective maintenance decisions based on improved structural information. The project is ongoing, but early findings indicate that at least four of the TSD tests result in a positive return on investment.
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