Research Reports
Report Details
Final Report Abstract
State highway agencies throughout the United States use smoothness specifications to ensure they are providing the public with quality roads. Some state highway agencies even provide monetary incentives to contractors for building smoother roads. The effectiveness of such incentive policies, though, has not been studied. This report describes a study to determine if the initial roughness of a pavement section has any influence on its long-term performance. Statistical and graphical analysis were performed on asphalt and concrete test sections in Wyoming. The findings of this study indicate that the initial roughness of concrete pavements based on the Profilograph Index do not correlate with the long-term performance of these pavements. However, initial roughness measurements based on the International Roughness Index do correlate with future roughness measurements.