TxDOT Research Library - Publication Details

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Title:

Determine Proper Selection of Ride Quality Pay Adjustment Schedule and Re-Evaluation of Current Bonus/Penalty Structure: Technical Report

Report No.:

FHWA/TX-20/0-6986-R1

Authors:

by Charles F. Gurganus [and three others]

Published:

2020

College Station, Texas

Texas A & M Transportation Institute

Type:

Online document

1 PDF (92 pages)

Online Access:

https://tti.tamu.edu/documents/0-6986-R1.pdf

Access Note:

4.3 MB

Summary

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) currently uses a guidance document to help select a ride quality pay schedule for paving projects. This guidance is more than 15 years old and was developed without a robust dataset. This project used more than 300 highway projects to categorize paving projects into eight groups. Following categorization, post-construction ride quality was analyzed from hundreds of sections within each group. Based on post-construction data, a data-driven guidance document was developed, and modifications to the existing TxDOT Item 585 pay structure were proposed. The data-driven approach used post-construction expectations to construct pay structures for each work group that have large bonuses for superior pavements and large penalties for rough pavements. This improved incentive and disincentive structure was developed because the industry currently achieves bonuses on 80 percent of paved sections. While statewide ride quality is currently smooth, particularly for asphalt surfaces, the current structure in the specification will not lead to statewide ride quality improvement. The proposed structure provides expectation-based incentives and disincentives high enough to improve statewide ride quality for each work group. The proposed guidance document should be used for informational purposes to understand expectations for post-construction smoothness and predict post-construction smoothness when preconstruction data are present. However, implementing the guidance document for pay schedule selection should only occur in conjunction with pay structure changes in the specification.

Publ. Place

College Station, Texas

Contents

Introduction -- Conduct a Synthesis of Ride Quality Selection and Enforcement -- Investigate Ride Quality Improvement of Different Types of Paving Projects -- Develop a Decision Framework for Pay Schedule Selection -- Evaluate Bonus/Penalty Modifications -- Investigate How Tighter Specifications Could Impact Statewide Smoothness -- Determine the Appropriateness of a Separate Pay Structure for Ridge versus Flexible Surfaces -- Conclusions, Recommendations, and Implementation -- Appendix A: Guidance Document Discrepancies -- Appendix B: Post-Construction Left and Right Wheel Path IRI Values -- Appendix C: Regression Equation Plots for Post-Construction Prediction -- Appendix D: Proposed Bonus/Penalty Structure Curves

Notes

"Published: October 2020

Study Number

TxDOT Research Project 0-6986

Study Title

Proper Selection of Ride Quality Pay Adjustment Schedule and Re-Evaluation

Study Sponsor

Lead University

TTI