A Framework for Smart Pavements in Canada

Maintaining an acceptable durability and satisfactory in-service condition for pavements is a crucial and relatively complex task, which otherwise can have considerable economic, environmental, and social consequences. Design and management of pavements have traditionally relied mainly on empirical models. However, pavements have been undergoing drastic changes, especially during the new millennium, which can compromise the reliability of the empirical models which were developed based on relatively stagnant historical data. Climate change, traffic loading growth and advancements in pavement materials are some of the main drivers of moving towards more mechanistic-empirical methods which would allow for a better understanding of pavement performance evolution in the future. To this end, this paper discusses the opportunities and challenges of a proposed framework for developing smart pavements in Canada, as well as a summary of the efforts that so far have been made in this regard. The goal of the study is to enable autonomous monitoring and data collection from the instrumented pavement sections in a suitable manner to allow for training Artificial Intelligence models, improving interpretation of the pavement responses and, ultimately, future pavement performance predictions.