Auburn University’s National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) in the US has joined forces with transportation software company Pavia Systems to use the latter’s project inspection tool in its latest cycle of pavement test track research.

NCAT’s pavement test track aims to address the needs of maintaining the US’ highway infrastructure, by bringing together real-world pavement construction with live, heavy trafficking for rapid testing and analysis of asphalt pavements.

The accelerated pavement-testing facility features 46 test sections that are sponsored on three-year cycles funded and managed as a cooperative project among highway agencies and industry sponsors.

"With our largest group of sponsors ever, we were looking for better ways to give them a window into the construction process."

NCAT will use Pavia’s HeadLight, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) inspection platform to observe, document and share construction data in real-time.

NCAT assistant director and test track manager Dr Buzz Powell said: "This is the 15th year of accelerated pavement testing and the sixth pavement test track cycle.

"With our largest group of sponsors ever, we were looking for better ways to give them a window into the construction process."

Pavia Systems CEO and co-founder George White said: "The work that comes out of the test track helps the industry continue to understand and improve pavements and we are proud to be able to support that mission by providing access to HeadLight during the construction of the new track sections."

Built with real-time, direct input from project inspectors on the job, HeadLight is specifically designed for road-owning government agencies to gain easier, more effective and less-costly ways for their teams to perform project inspections in the field.

NCAT’s 2015 to 2018 test cycle will involve participation from state transportation agencies in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin, as well as the US Federal Highway Administration.