City of Columbus

Street Selection for Resurfacing

The City of Columbus, Department of Public Service maintains approximately 6,400 lane-miles of City roadways including portions of State Routes 315, 161, 33, and 104.

The Department of Public Service uses a Pavement Management System as a tool to plan maintenance activities on every City roadway. This tool is used every year to ensure the maximum return on investment.

Pavement preservation is a proactive approach that consists of three components: preventive maintenance; minor rehabilitation (non-structural); and routine maintenance activities. 

• Preventive maintenance is a planned strategy of treatments applied to pavement in good condition that still has significant life (crack sealing, slurry sealing). 
• Minor rehabilitation consists of non-structural restoration enhancements performed to existing pavement by eliminating the portion of the pavement showing aging, and signs of minor top-down surface distresses. Resurfacing (milling and asphalt overlay) of the top 1 to 3 inches with some base repairs is an example of minor rehabilitation.
• Routine Maintenance includes activities such as pothole patching, minor partial or full-depth pavement repairs, and isolated milling and asphalt overlays.

The City’s pavement management system includes an inventory of every roadway segment (block-to-block) that includes: length, width, surface type, pavement condition, traffic volumes, and roadway functional classification. The pavement condition is assessed every 3 years for arterial streets and 5 years for residential streets. The pavement condition surveys are completed using a moving vehicle at speeds between 8 and 60 mph with lasers and automated sensors mounted to the vehicle.  Using the information collected, the pavement management software generates a pavement condition number (PCN) on a scale of 10 to 100. A PCN of 100 represents a pavement with no distresses (new pavement), whereas, a PCN of 10 represents a pavement with “very-severe” distresses. PCN values can then be associated with the pavement rating scale shown below.

Pavement Ratings and Pavement Condition Numbers

Factors Considered When Selecting Streets for the Resurfacing Program

There are many factors considered when recommending and scheduling a roadway for the resurfacing program:

Pavement condition: The pavement condition number (PCN) is only one of the factors when programming streets to be resurfaced.  The PCN is a major component, but it alone does not set the priority. 

Traffic: How much daily traffic the roadway carries factors into the selection of a roadway.  Example: An arterial roadway with an average daily traffic (ADT) of 35,000 may take priority over an arterial in similar condition with an ADT of 12,000.  Likewise, a residential collector with an ADT of 3,500 may take priority over a residential street with an ADT of 250.

Street Maintenance Input: There are times when a roadway’s condition deteriorates faster than anticipated creating a situation where the PCN value may no longer accurately describe its condition. If the amount of routine maintenance or pothole patching on a roadway becomes an issue, the Street Maintenance Investigator assigned to that area will notify the Pavement Management Group.

Public Input/311 Call Center: When a constituent submits a concern or request using the City’s 311 Call Center to have a pothole filled or to have their street resurfacing, a service request is created.  This service request is received and investigated by the Street Maintenance Investigator assigned to that area of the City.  If the service request is for a pothole, a work order is written by the Investigator to have the pothole filled by Street Maintenance.  If the request is to have the street resurfaced, the Investigator will review the condition of the street and verify if it has already been identified for future resurfacing.  If the roadway warrants resurfacing and has not already been identified for resurfacing, the Investigator will notify the Pavement Management Group.

Distributing the resurfacing effort around the City: The Pavement Management Group attempts to make sure that the resurfacing efforts are being fairly distributed around the City while at the same time being cognizant of the entire network pavement condition.

Other projects: Public Service communicates with other City Departments, governmental agencies, and private utilities to perform project conflict detection.  These communications allow the Department - in most cases -  the ability to coordinate our efforts around the efforts of other entities.