Researchers at The Center for Technology and Training, which is part of the civil and environmental engineering department, have developed a new system for assessing the conditions of gravel roads. This system and its use by Michigan road agencies was the subject of an article in the winter 2016 Journal of the County Road Association of Michigan.
CTT staff, John Kiefer, Melanie Kueber-Watkins, Pete Torola and Tim Colling all worked to develop and test the new system which will be widely collected in Michigan starting this year with full implementation in 2018. Data collected with the system will be reported on a state-wide basis to the Michigan Legislature on an annual basis.
New Inventory-Based Rating System Pilot Tested in 2016
Unpaved road rating system developed by Michigan Tech brings asset management principles to unpaved Michigan roads
Finally—The Tools to Rate an Unpaved Road
Gravel and unpaved roads make up half of Michigan’s non-federal aid network, and there are 22,000 miles of them in Michigan.
As a result of a project funded by the Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council (TAMC), CTT has pioneered a new rating system for unpaved roads, called the inventory-based ratings (IBR) system.
Read more at The Quarterly Journal of the County Road Association of Michigan.