Visual scale for evaluating urban pavements: An office validation

Abstract

To restrain the total deterioration of the roads is important to develop procedures to support quality control, with respect to maintenance and rehabilitation of the pavement. Such procedures are performed empirically and incorrectly, leading to an increase in the deterioration rate and, consequently, an increase in costs for users and public management. The aim of this research is to validate in the office a visual scale composed of photographs representing each classification interval adopted to verify pavements condition. Basic information about the evaluation process was showed to both rating panels selected. The visual scale used as reference in this study was also presented to only one of the panels. Both panels rated photographs of various surface conditions of urban roads, classifying them by assigning grades from 0 (zero) to 10 (ten). It was concluded that it is possible to use a visual scale for classification urban pavements due its influence on reducing dispersion in the judgment of the raters.