The city of Johannesburg is nearing the end of the first stage in the implementation of a pavement management system. This work was centered on assisting the road authority in identifying roads that require resealing or overlays. It is based on a model that relates pavement condition to maintenance requirements and to the timing of future Inspections. This system has already been used to good effect in preparing the maintenance program for 1981. This paper describes the nature and scope of the work in order to show what techniques have been found useful and what problems can be expected. An important feature of this system is its basic simplicity. It requires only the minimum amount of information, which is reasonably easy to collect. The favorable reaction by the staff to this Innovation Is discussed and special attention is focused on the threat that the introduction of more-mechanized methods of pavement assessment poses to the job satisfaction of road inspectors.

Over the past decade, considerable attention has been given to the development of pavement management systems. Yet the full-scale implementation of such systems is still in its infancy. In fact, in 1979 Finn<! l reported that no agency in the United States had yet implemented a pavement management system on a complete roadway Qetwork. In South Africa, there is" growing interest shown by both rural and urban authorities in developing a more formal approach to the management of their pavement networks. However, the Johannesburg City Engineer's Department is the only urban authority that has made significant progress in implementing a suitable system.