Pavement Condition Index
Road maintenance is a basic tenant of good governance. That is why the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) has an industry-accepted, award winning system for analyzing the conditions of the pavement for all 5,200 lane miles of roadways within the County. This system is called Pavement Management and is founded by a numeric system referred to as Pavement Condition Index or PCI. A Pavement Condition Index is a numerical expression between 0-100 numerically representing the pavements condition. For example, a PCI of 40 is considered as “poor” whereas a PCI rating of 80 indicates pavement in very good condition.
The pavements’ numerical PCI score is developed through an analysis of nineteen (19) discrete pavement distresses (cracking, pot holes, environmental distress, utility cuts, etc.) and ranges from 1-100 with 1 being an absolute failure and 100 representing perfect conditions. Following that rationale, roads with a lower PCI are candidates for systemic patching or resurfacing with hot mix asphalt. The level of road repairs in any given year is based entirely upon available funding. Given the nature of construction and procurement, the funding for FY16 (our current fiscal year) has been fully allocated based upon the last pavement study.
MCDOT’s Division of Highway Services (DHS) conducts this PCI survey on a biennale basis. This is a state-of-the-art process that uses high resolution cameras coupled with lasers mounted on slow moving vehicles (akin to Google) that accurately measures and records detailed pavement conditions. These conditions are aggregated and converted to PCI values as discussed above. The last such study was completed in the spring of 2013 and the next will be completed by the end of summer 2015.
The results from this 2015 PCI survey will assist MCDOT in the development of future road resurfacing schedules such as the FY17 and FY18 fiscal years. Again, that work is entirely dependent on future funding levels.
Should you wish to “take a spin” in one of the vans used to conduct the biennale PCI survey, please feel free to check out this helpful YouTube link. Highway Services also runs a very active Twitter and Facebook account that works to give residents real time information and updates regarding projects and other noteworthy news. Check us out!
If your community is not currently scheduled for roadway repairs, feel free to make a Service Request for immediate road repairs such as pot holes or other such failures.
For any MCDOT service request or complaint, call 311
When dialing outside of the county, call 240-777-0311 or submit via their website.
For website comments or to report website problems or broken links, please email us.
This email address does not handle service requests or complaints.
Highway Services · Montgomery County Department of Transportation
Questions/Comments · Inside Montgomery County dial 311 · TTY: 240-773-3556
Outside Montgomery County dial 240-777-0311
