Integrated Pavement Evaluation Using the SSI Inertial Profiler: A Case Study in Columbia, Missouri

Abstract: Accurate assessment of road conditions is important for maintaining safe and durable transportation networks. Growing traffic, along with the aging infrastructure, creates an urgent need for transportation agencies to find efficient and cost-effective monitoring methods for their pavement networks. In the traditional assessment methods, multiple passes on the lanes would be required to collect key indicators of road performance such as rutting and International Roughness Index (IRI), leading to significant investment of time and resources to collect reliable pavement performance data. The use of inertial profilers could aid simultaneous collection of rutting and IRI data, making it an efficient and cost-effective process.
This case study investigates the use of SSI Inertial Profilers, an advanced profiling technology to measure rutting and IRI of pavements located in Columbia, MO. The system scanning equipment consists of five lasers in total, combining two Gocator 2540 line-laser with three Gocator 1380 point-laser. It also features an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to compensate for vehicle displacement, a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) for location tracking, and a Distance Measurement Instrument (DMI) to measure traveled distance, resulting in better evaluation of pavement condition by automating the data collection. The study included various road types to offer a strong evaluation of the system under diverse traffic and wear conditions. The SSI system was validated with data collected by Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) utilizing Automatic Road Analyzer (ARAN) vehicle. This comparison demonstrated a high level of agreement between the measurements obtained by the SSI system and traditional MoDOT data on a variety of roadways at a network level, thus providing evidence that the system is repeatable and accurate. Based on the results, it is recommended that the SSI inertial profiler could reasonably replace network-level road condition appraisal and routine monitoring of asphalt pavements. The research carried out in this paper will aid the development and validation of dual-functionality road profiling technologies which are ideal for implementation at the network-level and beyond. Future work could investigate the long-term durability and versatility of the system under a wider range of geographical and climatic conditions over extended periods.