Investigations to assess the requirement of overlay every 5th year after initial construction on national highway projects: a case study

The maintenance schedule of the concession agreement made for construction of the National Highway projects in India under built operate transfer (BOT) Toll basis says that the pavement need to be overlaid whenever the performance indicators such as Roughness or Benkelman beam deflections (BBDs) exceed the trigger value or when the age of the pavement is more than five years. Due to improved quality in construction and good maintenance practices followed during service life, many roads are performing well even after five years of the construction and their performance indicators are below the trigger value and do not warrant for an overlay. Nevertheless, the concession agreements demand the overlay irrespective of the condition of pavement which is wastage of natural resources. With this background, in the present study, a five years road section from Ambala - Chandigarh of NH-22 was taken as a case study and studied various parameters which affect the pavement performance. Based on the study, it is concluded that the selected pavement for study is performing better ever after five years and overlay is not required immediately.