DEVELOPMENT OF MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM BY FUNCTIONAL EVALUATION FOR RURAL ROADS IN HIMACHAL PRADESH

In Himachal Pradesh, India, rural roads are crucial to the state's social and economic advancement. In HimachalPradesh, rural roads have contributed around 79% of the total road length. The state transportation officials facea difficult task in maintaining this extensive system of rural roads. Furthermore, the money needed for their regularor periodic maintenance is scarce, thus appropriate maintenance techniques are needed to make the most use ofthe available resources. The current study focuses on creating a maintenance management strategy for HimachalPradesh's rural road network. To assess pavement performance and adjust plans accordingly, periodic pavementevaluations are necessary. The functional evaluation addresses pavement distresses and riding comfort, or thepavement's roughness, while the structural evaluation addresses the pavement's structural characteristics, such aspavement deflection and modulus reactivity. The current study examines functional evaluation and looks at avariety of pavement distresses, the majority of which are seen on Himachal Pradesh's rural roadways. The currentstudy has additionally examined mean texture depth and skid resistance in addition to pavement distresses. Tocarry out the investigation, six sample road sections in the Solan and Shimla districts have been chosen. Data onroughness and distress have been gathered for a total of 2.5 kilometers on the designated portions. Because the2.5 km stretch accurately depicts the entire length of the road in terms of traffic volume and climatic elements, ithas been chosen to conduct tests on each road. The study also intends to create a mathematical model that takesthe greatest depth of the pothole and its mean diameter as input factors to predict the volume of the pothole. Avery excellent correlation between the estimated and observed volumes of potholes has been identified, with anon-linear model predicting a good value of pothole volume with coefficient of determination, or R2 = 0.85.