Comparative assessment of the significance of designed pavement properties for road quality conditions

Abstract Pavement is one of the most important elements of road transport infrastructure interacting with travelling vehicles. Its suitability for traffic is defined by required properties of varying significance that remain understudied. Therefore, this study examines three main criteria: pavement resistance, driving conditions and environmental protection (including sustainability). A team of 33 experts assessed the influence of 12 sub-criteria on overall road quality. To ensure an objective solution, the relative weights of these criteria and their sub-criteria were determined using four methods: the Average Rank Transformation into Weight-Linear (ARTIW-L), Average Rank Transformation into Weight-Non-linear (ARTIW-N), Direct Percentage Weight (DPW) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The study utilised the relative weight averages yielded by these four approaches. The AHP method was used to compare the results of the experts’ calculations. No conflicting AHP matrices were found, as the consistency ratio of each matrix was less than 0.1. Furthermore, the coefficient of concordance of 0.654 indicated the consistency of the expert judgements, exceeding the critical threshold of 0.054 by approximately 12 times. The study results revealed the most, intermediate and least important pavement indicators according to the experts. Based on the Inverse Hierarchy for Assessment of Main Criteria Importance (IHAMCI) method, pavement resistance is the most important factor, accounting for approximately 53% of pavement resistance, whereas driving conditions and environmental protection accounted for 31% and 16%, respectively.