The Pavement Management System (PMS) is a set of tools or methods that assist the decision maker in finding optimum strategies for providing and maintaining pavements in a serviceable condition over a given period of time. Using information available in the Road and Bridge Information Application (RBIA) and decision criteria PMS can produce cost-effective pavement maintenance or asset preservation work programs. For this, PMS evaluates alternative strategies over a specified analysis period on the basis of predicted values of quantifiable pavement attributes subject to predetermined criteria and constraints (i.a. budget levels). All this will help to improve the efficiency of decision making, expand the scope, provide feedback on consequences of decisions, facilitate coordination of activities within the agency, and ensure the consistency of decisions made for the entire national road network.
PMS can be viewed in terms of two basic working levels: network and project. PMS applied to network level is generally concerned with long-term policy and target analysis, development of work programs for rehabilitation, maintenance or new pavement construction works within overall budget constraints. On the other hand project level works comes "on stream" at the appropriate time schedule. PMS as used by the DPWH is basically a network level planning and programming tool.
Reliable data is an essential part of any PMS. Data need to be collected over a certain interval so that the PMS analysis reflects the changing conditions of the road network. Hence, visual road condition data are collected annually and