A study on Visual Assessment of Road Condition using Rating Method

Abstract

Visual assessment of road condition is a rapid technique to estimate condition rating. The major advantages is, it requires very few equipment, takes less time and do not need any advance time consuming laboratory test procedure. The study use a rating technique in scale of 0 to 5. Where 0 level stands for no significant damage and level 5 represents ultimate damage of road element. The scale developed by NRA 2008 condition rating method. The method is very easy and rapid with approximate estimation. Since the rating is interpreted into numerical scale and the values of NRA 2008 rating are easily explainable. We study the road area near Kuril Biswa road in Dhaka city. We collected photographs of the various road features and recorded the features in numerical scale. Later, we use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to implement our analysis on the obtained dataset. Total 13 components were considered while field survey. The PCA study found that 5 major PCs which can explain 79% of variability of the dataset. The most important component is PC1 and PC2. PC1 shows the condition of road surface and PC2 shows the road drainage condition. The study suggests that during repair works, these two issues need to take into account first. Since most of the road maintenance project involve cost and huge budget. There are time constrain and inadequate workers and stuff for road repair work. Therefore, choosing the most important components will help to smooth the road repair works. It also reduce repair cost and lessen repair time. Road repair is a troublesome, since it needs to close lanes and detour traffic. In this context of our road repair technique and PCA implementation to find out the best result will provide good efficacy. The study can be incorporate with existing roads and highway maintenance manual and feasible in context of our country’s engineering practices.