Despite ever-increasing budget limitations, more effective ways of establishing maintenance and rehabilitation requirements are needed to optimize the use of available highway funds. Like many other state transportation agencies, the Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation (SDHPT) already has inplace, analytical tools for assisting state highway engineers in the management of their roadways. The MICRO-PES package, for example, is a suite of computer programs developed to assist state district engineers with their network level pavement management activities. This analysis package, as the name implies, is implemented on a microcomputer. Because the MICRO-PES system is modular, it can be expanded to include other PMS analysis tools for which the Texas SDHPT may have need. A recent survey has revealed an urgent need by the districts for an automate. ct procedure to generate maps highlighting substandard pavement sections. Currently, the production of these maps is a tedious process, accomplished by manually color-coding maps using pavement condition information from the Pavement Evaluation System (PES) data base. A computerized procedure would assist the engineering districts in the management of their roadways. In this regard, a small-scale study was conducted to evaluate the potential of using geographic information system (GIS) technology within the MICRO-PES environment to satisfy the need of the districts for graphics output capability. A prototype GIS module was developed that provided the capability for graphically displaying the output from the existing MICRO-PES analysis subsystems. The study demonstrated the applicability of GIS as a tool for pavement management.

Many transportation agencies in the United States have operational Pavement Management Systems (PMSs) in one form or another. The past decade has witnessed growth in developing pavement inventories and associated models that assist state departments of transportation (DOT) in prioritizing projects and anticipating future needs. Most agencies are experiencing increasing competition for available state and federal funds. PMSs have become important tools in quantifying overall needs and in evaluating the consequences of budget limitations. FHWA, in recognition of the increasing importance of PMS, has published its pavement initiative, a key element of which is that each state DOT must have in operation an approved PMS no later than February 1993. The federal policy has prompted several states to accelerate their PMS development. Resulting improvements often mean upgrading of existing systems to meet federal guidelines and to provide additional capabilities for system users. The Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation (SDHPT) has recently completed a review of its existing PMS activities (1). One aspect of this study was a questionnaire