Geomatics techniques for evaluation of road pavement rutting

Rutting is one of the severe pavement distresses. It is defined as longitudinal depression under wheel path, caused by repeated traffic load, and it is an indicator of the structural failure as well as having effect on road user’s safety and riding quality. The objectives of this study are to use geomatics techniques such as terrestrial laser scanner, precise positioning system (RTK) and cellular phone for rutting measurements in minor roads in northern part of Jordan, in addition to develop rutting and lateral displacement models using different parameters such as annual average daily traffic (AADT), truck percent, lane width, pavement age and pavement thickness. Manual measurement of rutting was used as reference method for verifying the results obtained from laser scanning, RTK and cellular phone. The study showed that the used methods produced accurate and reliable results compared with the manual method based on root-mean-square (RMSE) which was 0.557 cm for the RTK measurements, 0.577 cm for cellular phone measurements and 0.592 cm of the laser scanner system, respectively. On the other hand, the consistency of accuracy of measurements was slightly better for the cellular phone measurements with a mean average error (MAE) of 0.415 cm, while it was 0.422 cm for the RTK system and 0.442 cm for the laser scanner measurements. The finding of this research will support the development of using geomatics techniques for the measurement of pavement rutting which facilitate the processes and give reliable surface measurement in short time.