Road Deterioration from Client and Contractor perspectives

Abstract

Pavement deterioration is a critical issue for roads and highways in Jordan, because of difficulty in determination the causes for defects and cracks. The budgeted cost for construction, replacement and rehabilitation, and maintenance of roads was 484.3 M JD in the implementation programs for the period from 2007 to 2013. The current research aims to describe the highly related causes for road deterioration in Jordan by a questionnaire designed and directed to contractors and clients in road construction and maintenance, and to study the difference between clients and contractors' perspective and ranking for causes of road cracks and deteriorations individually and in groups.

A list of causes was prepared through literature review, consulting and interviewing a group of 30 managers from contractors and experts clients in the field of road construction and maintenance, they advised to study 51 of expected causes for road deterioration. Then a questionnaire was directed to 150 of contractors and 150 of clients in road construction and maintenance. The mission was involving to give a scale (rank) from 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (do not know), 4 (agree), and 5 (strongly agree) to the expected causes. 38 (25.33%) of contractors’ responses and 47 (31.33%) of clients’ responses were received and analyzed. According to the contractors ranking, the criterion (defects caused during construction due to poor construction quality) takes the highest rank of 4.15, while the lowest factor is (inadequate resistance to polishing of surface aggregate) of 2.73. While according to the clients ranking, the criterions poor highway facilities, poor maintenance policy / culture, large axial traffic loading took the highest rank of 4.13, 4.1, and 4.09 respectively. While the lowest rank was for ground water level of 2.964 according to clients rank. The clients and contractors seem to be different individually by 80.4% and 100% in groups of factors by doing the test statistics for difference in means considering confidence interval of 10%. The research is focusing on road deterioration causes and helpful contractors and clients in Jordan in roads and highways design, construction, and maintenance and for effective engineering operation in road and highway sector in Jordan.

Keywords: Deterioration, defects, road construction, road maintenance, highway