Criteria for the technical choice of priority sections to be reinstated on roads with concrete pavements

Concrete pavements have been used to a wide extent in France on the st.rategic motorway network of the Paris area and on development trunk roads such as the Paris- Lyons. Due to the age of such road pavements, some of which are more than 25 years old, and the large amount of heavy traffic using them, the managers have been faced for the past 12 years or so with the probblem of the continuous assessment of such network to derive strategical approaches and reinst.atement priorities, meaning planned maintenance, strengthening or renewal. With' time, procedures became more precise and sophisticated, selections were made of t.he most suitable equipment to the compeomi.se solution of usefulness - information quality and physical possibility of very rapid collection of data without hindrance to road users. A summarised presentation of the "State" practical experience with the diversion motorways of the lIe de France and of the management of a motorway exploited as a concession e.g. A 6, is given. Such experiences emphasize the very large convergence of approach as to the choice of measuring equipments, their frequency of use, the procedure for data reduction and defining synthetic criteria for the quality rati'ng of pavements. In both cases, a strong basis is provided by general synthesis route diagrammes supplemented by subject diagrammes, and the reasoning is strongly focused on the "development" parameter based on an original condition marked by large investment in full pavement monitoring, according to well-defined criteria made once and for all. Evidently, it is logical that such an approach between that is almost common to both types of managers should materialize in the selection of preparedness and action thresholds that are proper to each of them, in terms of its specific features and objectives. This coherent set of findings makes it possible t.odraw up specific recommandations to any French or foreign manager freshly faced with problems of this kind.