A recently completed high-tech survey of all Texarkana, Texas, streets will help the city pinpoint and prioritize needed pavement repairs.
The city commissioned Orlando, Fla.-based Data Transfer Solutions to conduct the survey using vans equipped with digital cameras and laser devices that capture images of pavement at 25-foot intervals.
"It takes pictures of all the distress types that you have on all your different pavements. It can detect cracking and also measures depths," city Public Works Director Dusty Henslee recently told a meeting of the Joint Texarkana Community Committee.
DTS software and engineers then rated the images and scored street segments on a 100-point scale called the Pavement Condition Index.
About 57 percent of Texas-side pavement is rated satisfactory-with a PCI of 71 to 85-or good, with a PCI of more than 85, Henslee said.
Another 27.45 percent of city pavement is rated fair, with a PCI of 56 to 70. The remaining 15.51 percent is rated poor, very poor or serious. None was rated failed, which requires a PCI of 10 or less.
"We're not in bad shape, but to maintain what we've got still requires some funding. The average for all the asphalt in the city was about 70.34 and for concrete was 66.8," Henslee said.
Previously, Public Works had conducted less precise "windshield" visual surveys of pavement every three years.
The next step was for DTS to use software to prioritize road projects given various repair methods and budget constraints.
"What they can do is run different optimizations based on different budget scenarios that you have and give you projects for the next five years that give you the best bang for the buck.
"Our intent will be once we get this we'll go back to the council and give them a presentation on what we've got, kind of give them an idea of what projects we're looking to do over the next five years.
"Our plan is to every three or four years have this company come back in and redo an inventory to see where we're at and how our funding is helping or hurting our current PCI," Henslee said.
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