Rehabilitation needs assessment of flexible pavements based on cracking and rutting distress

The present study is an attempt to investigate the flexible pavement condition based on cracking and rutting distress which are modes of structural failures. The objective is to identify the structural condition of the pavement and to verify whether the pavement requires any structural treatments such as repairs or rehabilitation. The study departs from the approach of a single summary indicator of pavement condition, namely the serviceability index, where different types of functional and structural distresses are considered simultaneously in rehabilitation decision-making. The proposed decision-making system is formulated based on the fuzzy logic theory. The system takes into account different severity levels of cracking and rutting to identify the critically distressed pavement sections. The root mean square error (RMSE) and the mean absolute error (MAE) values of 2.242 and 1.541, respectively, show that the results obtained from the present decision-making model are reasonably accurate.