In most countries, the road network constitutes one of the largest community assets and is predominately government-owned. Road administrations must maintain, operate, improve, replace and preserve this asset while, at the same time, carefully managing the scarce financial and human resources needed to achieve these objectives.

Maintaining safe, comfortable and durable surfaces on heavily trafficked motorways and major roads has long been a major challenge to road owners and the operational units responsible for managing the construction and maintenance of their roads.

The issue of prolonged service life of road pavements has been a key concern for road professionals for more than a decade, heralded by the appearance of the term “long life pavements” as distinct from the term “durable” pavements, which has carried the notion of satisfactory pavement performance for many years.

“Long life pavements” are seen as particularly desirable on heavily trafficked roads to avoid the costs of road maintenance works, including the delays they inflict on road users, particularly in congested traffic conditions.

Since long life properties are considered achievable for the structural, unexposed layers of pavements, this study has focused on the surface or wearing courses of road pavements. The objective of this second phase of the Economic Evaluation of Long Life Pavements project was to strengthen knowledge about the potential and the limitations of the two prospective candidate materials that had been identified in Phase I for further research as possible innovative long life wearing courses i.e.: epoxy asphalt and high performance cementitious materials.

The Long Life surfaces for Busy Roads report is the result of over two years of work by a group of expert researchers in the field of road pavements from many OECD and ITF countries. The report was prepared under the aegis of the Joint OECD/ITF Transport Research Centre.