Publication Information
This technote provides an overview of the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) Analysis-Ready datasets. The goal of the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program is “to increase pavement life by the investigation of long-term performance. . . .” (FHWA 2015). One of the six objectives identified to support this goal was the establishment of a national pavement performance database. The LTPP program has been assembling a performance database since 1989, when data collection commenced. Today, the LTPP database is the world’s premier source of data and information on pavement performance, but using the database is not necessarily easy. Typically, the data are distributed across multiple tables, making some data elements difficult to mine. Also, multiple values for a given data element make knowing which values to use difficult. Additionally, the data may need further interpretation to present meaningful results.
To address these challenges, the LTPP program undertook a process to generate analysis-ready datasets (ARDs) for all sections in the database so that data users did not have to spend effort wrangling data—i.e., finding, extracting, merging, and interpreting available data to develop an input dataset for analysis. These ARDs provide numerous benefits, such as simpler data handling, easier data analysis and data mining for trends, and descriptive data visualization.
Recommended citation: Federal Highway Administration, LTPP Analysis-Ready Datasets: New Features and Exciting Opportunities (Washington, DC: 2024)
https://doi.org/10.21949/1521579