Analysis of Vehicle Vibrations – New Approach to Rating Pavement Condition of Urban Roads

Urban road infrastructure is daily burdened by heavy traffic volume. Pavement structure roughness observations are significantly more difficult in urban agglomerations than on roads in unpopulated areas. Roughness, expressed by IRI (International Roughness Index), directly affects the quality and safety of road traffic. Within the framework of the pavement management in relation to safety and the achievement of the best possible ride comfort, it is very important to foresee when a road should be reconstructed. The method for quality evaluations of safety and ride comfort on urban roads presented in this paper is based on vehicle vibrations measurements. In the article, measuring of vehicle vibrations was performed on the main urban roads in Zagreb (Croatia). Measurements covered roads with different pavement surface roughness. This method can be simply and very easily used in pavement management aimed at achieving road safety and better ride comfort. The results of measurements according to this method could be used by traffic and civil engineering experts as an indication for the roads that require reconstruction or maintenance. KEY WORDS: urban roads, traffic flow, safety, vehicle vibrations, road surface roughness (IRI)