from On the Move, Winter (December) Quarter 1998, Volume 11, Number 4
Responding to their customers, the Arizona DOT and the Federal Highway Administration
(FHWA) hosted an Asphalt Pavement Smoothness Seminar and Equipment Expo on December 3,
1998 in Phoenix, Arizona. The purpose of this seminar was to focus attention and efforts
industry-wide on the top concern of the traveling public as determined by the National Quality
Survey--SMOOTH PAVEMENT.
Attendees representing numerous western state DOT's, FHWA, contractors, and equipment
manufacturers shared their experience, practices, and approaches to achieving smooth asphalt
pavements. Keynote speaker, James Waltze, co-chair of NQI and President of Griffith Company,
challenged attendees to always keep a customer focus, to strive for continuous improvement, and
to empower people to do the job well. He further emphasized that people make products and that
it takes well trained and competent workers, quality materials, good equipment, and quality work
to build smooth long lasting asphalt pavements.
William Jackman, Director of Public Relations for AAA cited their 41-million members' demand
for better highways. He reviewed the role AAA played in getting Congress to pass new
transportation legislation (TEA-21) emphasizing that the traveling public will be expecting to see
and use smoother and safer highways as a result of the $217 billion allocated to surface
transportation for the next 6 years. He further echoed Mr. Waltze's challenges to put the
customer first, to over-communicate on efforts, to place performance over price, to adopt a
continuous quality improvement mind set, and to employ innovative construction techniques.
Arizona DOT Assistant State Engineer, Ronald Williams outlined five principles on which the ADOT pavement smoothness specification was developed. He cited the following:
1. Smoothness work must be incidental to the contract and not extra work.
2. Incentive pay must not be large in comparison to the total contract value (i.e. 2-5%).
3. Additional skill, care, or quality control must be used to earn incentive pay.
4. There must be a clear benefit to ADOT that exceeds the value of the incentive.
5. Specification must be clear and known to all bidders at time of bidding.
Since implementing the ADOT smoothness specification on an experimental basis in 1995, Mr.
Williams noted that ADOT had registered significant benefits in satisfied motorists, lower
maintenance costs, lower bids, quality construction and satisfied contractors.
Arizona DOT Pavement Management Engineer James Delton provided a detailed description of
ADOT's smoothness specification along with a summary of the results that have been achieved to
date. He described the specification as being simple, as using a true smoothness measure in the
profilometer, as being based on historical pavement data, as being achievable, as encouraging
further improvement over time, and as being acceptable to the contracting industry. Mr. Delton
stated that the specification is end-product based with both incentive and disincentive provisions.
Overall, he advised that use of the specification had resulted in better, smoother pavements
requiring less maintenance with a net lower life cycle cost.
The asphalt industry perspective on building smoother pavements was presented by Dale Decker
of NAPA. Mr. Decker reminded the attendees of a quote by Thomas MacDonald, "It was not
our wealth that made our highways, but our highways that made our nation wealthy." He
reinforced the customer perspective that ride (smoothness) is their primary concern. He stressed
that smoothness may be specified by the owner but is achieved by the contractor. He further
reminded attendees that not only do rough pavements result in poor ride but are also unsafe, and
frequently result in higher levels of damage to pavements, vehicles and cargo alike.
Three asphalt paving contractors who are well recognized within Arizona for building smooth
pavements presented their perspectives. Matt Gully, Vice President and Operations Manager for
FNF Construction, stated that it is critical to have the owner-agency clearly specify the level of
smoothness quality desired and that incentives are key to achieving smooth pavements. He
further stated that the contractor must train his people on how to do the work, pay them well, and
share the incentive pay with all persons involved.
Rene Rhondo, Branch Manager for Granite Construction, said that the contractor must be able to
predict the outcome of their work and that this is best accomplished through the principles of
"partnering." He further advised that there is a learning curve involved in implementing a
smoothness specification and there must be stamina involved in making sure all persons do their
jobs properly. Vaughn Pack, Vice President of Staker Paving, also cited incentive provisions as
being essential to achieving smooth pavements as well as having well-trained crews. He stated
that a team effort is definitely required to construct smooth pavements. All three contractor
representatives allowed that the cost of the extra effort in building smooth pavements was taken
out of the bid once they were shown they could achieve the specified end result.
The discussion of the state-of-the-art in paving equipment and smoothness measurement/grade
control by representatives of the equipment industry provided an excellent culmination to the
seminar. Each cited the extra steps being taken to design and build equipment that has the
potential to construct smoother, longer-lasting asphalt pavements. Pick-up machines and/or
materials transfer vehicles (MTV) were cited as being used on all projects with performance-based smoothness requirements. In addition, inertial based profilometers meeting ASTM E950
class specifications were considered to be the most accurate method of measuring pavement
smoothness. The new lightweight profilometers are also considered to be the measurement device
of choice.
The Expo of paving and smoothness measurement equipment contributed significantly to the
seminar and gave ample evidence of equipment manufacturers' commitment to building better and
smoother pavements.
The Arizona DOT, the Federal Highway Administration, the contracting and equipment manufacturing industry are commended for their initiative and efforts in conducting this seminar. Special appreciation is expressed to all and especially to Joe Massucco, Pavement Engineer for the Western Resource Center of FHWA and John Cagle, Marketing Advisor of FHWA.