Pavement Type Selection (PTS)

The Best Value for the Taxpayer

In making any decision concerning the type of pavement to use on a roadway, a road agency is obligated to get the best value for the taxpayers. Some promoters would argue that the agency should determine pavement type on the basis of whether a particular industry “needs the work.”

The APA’s response is that the pavement type selection process should be used to select the best possible pavement type for a given road – in other words, it should be a road user-oriented process, not an industry-oriented process.

In order to deliver the best value for taxpayers and road users, the system used to select pavement type should be:

• Objective
• Defensible
• Understandable
• Based on historical records
• Primarily driven by economics
• Periodically reviewed

For the APA’s 2010 position paper on pavement type selection, click here.