Development of Pavement Condition Index for Philippine Asphalt National Roads

The Pavement Condition Index (PCI) is one of the key performance indices used to evaluate pavements. In the Philippines, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is currently using a similar evaluation called the Visual Condition Index (VCI) to assess the condition of national roads. It was adapted from the Road Condition Manual of the Road and Traffic Authority of New South Wales, Australia. However, published literature on how the VCI was localized to Philippine conditions cannot be traced. This study attempts to address this concern by deriving a new condition rating based on the experience and knowledge of the field experts in the country. Asphalt pavement sections are selected from the historical data on the condition of the road networks in the country, and simulated using photographs collected in the field. With the aid of an electronic survey, field experts from different parts of the country subjectively evaluated the overall condition of selected pavement sections. Correlation and multiple regression analysis are employed to develop the PCI for Philippine asphalt national roads using the available data acquired from field experts of several DPWH District Engineering Offices (DEOs). The developed PCI model for asphalt pavements obtained a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.58, implying that the resulting PCI model captures 58% of the variability in the expert-based dataset. Comparisons with the VCI are also conducted to possibly aid future improvements on pavement condition assessments in the country.