Managing the rehabilitation of forest roads using historical daily roughness data collected by the Opti-GradeRTM system

To deal with forest road maintenance issues, the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada (FERIC) has recently implemented an effective, simple, low-cost system called Opti-Grade. This system consists of a hardware component and a software component. The large database of road roughness values being created and stored by Opti-Grade provides a natural basis for a future road rehabilitation management system (RMS). To confirm the reliability of Opti-Grade's data for use in such an RMS, the repeatability of the Opti-Grade system's measurements was tested and it was confirmed that the level of repeatability was adequate. Through a literature search, various currently available pavement management systems suitable for rehabilitation management in the forest industry based on Opti-Grade data were identified and evaluated. It was concluded that no existing system was well suited to the needs of the forest industry and the use of Opti-Grade data. Therefore, a RMS was developed that would identify where and when rehabilitation should be performed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...