Customized pavement consulting helps client make strategic budget decisions

Client

[confidential]

Location

Nationwide

Challenge

It’s hard to know what to ask for when you don’t know exactly what you want. That was a problem one of our clients had when they started talking with us about how to maintain their pavement. Always ready to partner with our clients to find the best solutions, we were up to the challenge.

This client owns over 6,300 sites nationwide, plus Puerto Rico and Canada, each with their own parking lot. That’s a lot of pavement – all in different condition and varying climates – that needs a strategic plan to manage and maintain. To add to the challenge, each site manager had a different idea about what kind of solution they wanted.

To address their concern about “ugly” pavement, the client originally repaved entire parking lots to improve their appearance – a costly solution when smaller areas could have improved the overall condition of the lot.

Solution

The client’s national headquarters decided to work with Terracon on a 10-site pilot. Our pavement team went out to the 10 sites and surveyed the existing pavement condition, taking detailed photos of each lot, often as many as 200 photos per lot. The field data was used to calculate the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) for the parking lot. The PCI objectively assesses the pavement’s current condition and assists with determining the types of maintenance or repair it needs. Rather than drilling, our non-invasive suggestions included performing a limited excavation at the pavement’s edge to measure the approximate thickness of the existing asphalt and/or concrete at the site.

As the dedicated point of contact for the client’s projects nationwide, our project manager worked with them to design customized reports to give detailed accounts of the current PCIs, plus repair and quantities plans. After several iterations, they agreed upon a report template that was easy for client leadership to understand and work with. The client presented the reports to other regional leaders in the organization, and tailored the data required to meet their needs, until the entire organization was working from the same report template.

Results

The data in these reports told the client exactly what specific areas in each lot needed maintenance or repair, and when. The data helped provide evidence so they could make strategic budget decisions, at a significant savings.

The client loved working with a single point of contact at Terracon, and the consistent report template that was developed to meet their unique needs.

The pavement pilot program has grown from the initial 10 sites. Within the first year, we provided data and plans for 195 sites, with plans to continue to grow in scope. The client has also requested us to move on to the next phase to include a geotechnical report of some sites recommended for reconstruction.