[Federal Register Volume 71, Number 229 (Wednesday, November 29, 2006)]
[Notices]
[Pages 69177-69178]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E6-20208]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Highway Administration

[Docket No. FHWA-2006-26431]


Agency Information Collection Activities: Request for Comments 
for New Information Collection

AGENCY: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The FHWA has forwarded the information collection request 
described in this notice to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 
for approval of a new information collection. We published a Federal 
Register Notice with a 60-day public comment period on this information 
collection on September 21, 2006. We are required to publish this 
notice in the Federal Register by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

[[Page 69178]]


DATES: Please submit comments by December 29, 2006.

ADDRESSES: You may send comments within 30 days to the Office of 
Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, 
725 17th Street, NW., Washington, DC 20503, Attention DOT Desk Officer. 
You are asked to comment on any aspect of this information collection, 
including: (1) Whether the proposed collection is necessary for the 
FHWA's performance; (2) the accuracy of the estimated burden; (3) ways 
for the FHWA to enhance the quality, usefulness, and clarity of the 
collected information; and (4) ways that the burden could be minimized, 
including the use of electronic technology, without reducing the 
quality of the collected information. All comments should include the 
Docket number FHWA-2006-26431.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Eric Weaver, (202) 493-3153, Long-
Term Planning Program (HRDI-13), Office of Research Development and 
Technology, Federal Highway Administration, Turner-Fairbank Highway 
Research Center, 6300 Georgetown Pike, McLean, VA 22101. Office hours 
are from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal 
holidays.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Title: Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design National Status 
Survey.
    Background: In June 2004, the National Cooperative Highway Research 
Program (NCHRP) released the Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design 
Guide (MEPDG) for New and Rehabilitated Pavement Structures. FHWA 
organized a Design Guide Implementation Team (DGIT) to immediately 
begin the process of informing, educating, and assisting FHWA field 
offices, State Highway Agencies, Industry, and others about the new 
design guide. FHWA considers implementation of mechanistic-empirical 
pavement design a critical element in improving the National Highway 
System. It ties directly into objectives listed in the Safe, 
Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy 
for Users, (SAFETEA-LU), Section 1503, which supports longer life 
pavements. Consequently, the impacts of long-life pavements include 
congestion mitigation and improved work zone safety.
    The MEPDG represents a significant advancement in pavement design 
and includes the best available engineering theory and mechanistic 
principles to determine both the structural response and to predict 
performance over the lifetime of a pavement structure.
    The mechanistic theory is balanced with over 525 empirical 
observations from the Long Term Pavement Performance database that 
represents a wide range of both material and climatic conditions. The 
use of both the mechanistic theory and a wide range of empirical 
observations make the MEPDG a robust design procedure.
    The MEPDG can be considered a 40-year step forward in pavement 
design. The MEPDG is a more theoretical and mathematical based 
procedure, strongly bolstered by fundamental engineering principles and 
is readily useful to academia, researchers, and practitioners of 
pavement analysis and design.
    The MEPDG provides significant potential benefits over the current 
AASHTO Guide in achieving cost-effective pavement designs and 
rehabilitation strategies. Most importantly, its user-oriented 
computational software implements an integrated analysis approach for 
predicting pavement condition over time. This analysis considers the 
complex interaction between traffic loadings, climatic conditions, 
materials and pavement structure.
    Implementation of the MEPDG will require a significant amount of 
time, resources, and funding. However, the adoption of the guide has 
the potential for providing a substantial long-term savings based on 
the shear magnitude of annual expenditures for highway pavements. In 
2003, over 79 billion dollars was used for highway purposes; based on 
data published in Highway Statistics 2003 from the Office of Highway 
Policy Information. Any improvement in the designs will have a 
significant implication in reducing costs to maintain these pavements 
and more than offset the resources required to implement the new 
pavement design guide.
    The DGIT has put forth a strategic plan of action to aid the 
transportation community in deploying this new technology. The DGIT is 
an integral part of an extensive outreach campaign including 
Enhancement, Education, and Implementation strategies to promote the 
MEPDG. These activities include onsite and web based workshops that 
have already educated more than 1,200 engineers across the USA in 21 
States and around the globe in Canada, Europe, China, India, Mexico, 
and Central and South America.
    FHWA encourages States to evaluate the utility that the MEPDG 
offers and to carefully implement the guidelines and recommendations. 
The long-term goal of the AASHTO Joint Technical Committee on Pavements 
is to adopt the guide as an AASHTOWare product to replace the AASHTO 
1993 design guide.
    Moving towards a mechanistic-empirical design process represents a 
huge paradigm shift for the majority of states and will require a 
significant amount of education, training, new equipment, new testing 
requirements and data collection. Most importantly it will require 
better communication and coordination between the designers, materials 
engineers, traffic engineers, and consultants to collect and maintain 
the data needed to optimize the pavement designs and continue to 
validate and calibrate the models in the Guide. The DGIT is focused on 
being a leader in this effort by providing Education, Enhancement, and 
Implementation activities to the Transportation Community.

Burden Hours for Information Collection

    Frequency: Bi-Annual.
    Respondents: The Pavement Design Engineer in each State DOT, Puerto 
Rico, and the District of Columbia; for a total of 52.
    Estimated Average Burden per response: Assuming 1 respondent per 
State plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia and 1 hr to respond 
to the survey the total will be approximately 52 burden hours. FHWA is 
seeking a 3-year approval and plans on conducting the survey in the 
first and third year of the approval time period. The estimated average 
annual burden is 35 hours.
    Electronic Access: Internet users may access all comments received 
by the U.S. DOT Dockets, Room PL-401, by using the universal resource 
locator (URL): http://dms.dot.gov, 24 hours each day, 365 days each 
year. Please follow the instructions online for more information and 
help.

    Authority: The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995; 44 U.S.C. 
Chapter 35, as amended; and 49 CFR 1.48.

    Issued on: November 22, 2006.
James R. Kabel,
Chief, Management Programs and Analysis Division.
[FR Doc. E6-20208 Filed 11-28-06; 8:45 am]
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