Abstract

Urban pavements for buses need to resist high traffic demands without regular invasive maintenance interventions that affect the pavement clients. Although jointed plain concrete pavements can provide these requirements, sealing the joints and keeping them sealed for 10 years costs up to 45% more than unsealed joints. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the performance of unsealed transverse joints in urban pavements for buses. The field measurements made after 8 years in-service (average) in 270 unsealed joints in Chile, 150 on bus corridors and 120 on their adjacent lanes, show that only ten joints of the bus corridors were affected by very low spalling (30 mm) due to the construction process and not due to the performance of the unsealed joints. The adjacent lanes have zero joints affected by spalling. Furthermore, no pumping or measurable joint faulting was detected even after 5 million accumulated equivalent single-axle loads. These results, the 50 years of Wisconsin's experience in the USA and the deficiencies of joint seals place unsealed joints as a cost-effective alternative to optimise urban pavements for buses, considering the needs of the pavement clients – that is, users and municipal transportation agencies.