Estimating the Impact of Street Cuts on Pavement Longevity

The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) works to provide safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible movement of people and goods, and to maintain and enhance the transportation infrastructure. Pavement management is a key part of this role. DOT uses techniques such as road resurfacing and reconstruction to keep the City’s roads in good condition. Street cuts are usually rectangular in shape, becoming defective when the street surface is no longer level because a filled-in cut has either sunk or has been mounded too high. To quantify the impact of street cuts on the quality of the pavement, DOT engaged a Capstone team to analyze data on road repair, reconstruction, ratings, defects, and permits issued for street-cuts. The team created the dataset, set up a regression analysis using STATA, and interpreted the results of the analysis. The team’s final report estimated the impact of street cuts on pavement longevity, created deterioration curves to inform future pavement management activities, and made recommendations to improve the objectivity and reliability of DOT’s data collection.