The Macroscopic Effect of COVID 19 on Flexible Pavement Condition Indicators Based on Analysis of Road Inspection Results

ABSTRACT

In Morocco, as for all countries worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a huge disruption in the daily life of modern society. The transportation services have been one of the most severely affected of the various urban systems, specifically the national roads and highways. In collaboration with the National Center for Road Studies and Research, this study deals with the challenges of maintenance and monitoring to ensure a good level of comfort on the one hand, and the variability of traffic levels and its impact on the variability of surface indicators and the proper functioning of a Moroccan National road number 6, linking the city of Meknes and Khemissat over a length of 50 km composed of a flexible pavement from 2018 to 2020, which represents the national road most solicited by traffic in Morocco in recent years. The road managers were hardly prepared for such an event, and were concerned to give priority to the safety of their employees and customers to avoid any service interruption. In this regard, the analysis of past deterioration and variation of structural and surface indicators becomes a necessity in these pandemic circumstances. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.