Help Your Customers Manage Their Pavement

Property managers are handling more and more aspects of their properties and most don't have the time to learn what they need to know to about pavement maintenance. This is where pavement maintenance contractors can really make an impact. These property managers rely on you as the expert in their pavement, and anything you can do to help them understand how to best maintain their parking lot helps them get more bang for their maintenance buck and reinforces your relationship with them. Along those lines here are two resources to which you can refer prospects to give them a better understanding of what pavement maintenance can -- and can't -- do for their parking lots. Both articles are from FP2's Pavement Preservation Journal, a great resource. In the Spring 2011 issue an article discussing public road budgets and asset management includes a Pavement Preservation Chart that does a nice job of comparing the benefits of general types of maintenance or preservation with the type of specific technology. For example, it makes it clear that a "structural overlay" increases the strength, reduces aging, and restores serviceability of a pavement but does not increase its capacity. "Routine Maintenance" reduces aging and restores serviceability but does not increase pavement strength. In the Winter 2009 issue an article titled "Add Pavement Preservation to Boost Pavement Management" discusses the impact a pavement preservation approach can have on a pavement management system (PMS). While the article is aimed at public agencies the concept is sound and applies to private property pavements as well. Plus there are some great charts that illustrate the optimum time to fix pavements and the serviceability of pavement using different treatment strategies.