Performance comparison of waste plastic modified versus conventional bituminous roads in Pune city: A case study

Scarce resources in a developing country like India calls for the optimal use of the road infrastructure using scientific pavement management tools. In the process of finding ways for modifying the traditional methods of making bituminous roads, the use of waste plastic as a substitute to a certain percentage of bitumen is a promising alternative. Gradual deterioration of road infrastructure is a major concern. A vast amount of condition assessment data must be collected to identify the major defects and their causes, to plan for an optimum maintenance alternative. This study evaluates the deterioration rates of waste plastic modified bituminous roads (also called plastic roads) as compared to normal bituminous roads in the metro city of Pune, India. Measurement of deterioration is done with field tests and distress surveys. Ranking of distress parameters was done using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) where the relative importance (on Saaty’s scale) assigned to each parameter in the hierarchy was given by the experts (transportation professionals). AHP was implemented using the MATLAB package. The study reveals that the deterioration rate for plastic roads is slower as compared to conventional bituminous roads.