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Caltrans research division outlines tools to extend pavement life, speed incident response and improve safety
Summary
Caltrans Division of Research and Innovation presented an overview of ongoing projects including a mechanistic-empirical pavement design tool (CalME), the Performance Measurement System (PeMS), and ShakeCast, a near-real-time post-earthquake bridge‑inspection triage tool.
Coco Berseno, acting division chief with the Caltrans Division of Research and Innovation, told the Transportation Commission that her office manages “over a hundred research projects at a time” and focuses on producing implementable tools that support Caltrans priorities.
Berseno said the division’s “mission is pretty simple: it’s to develop innovations, perform research, and implement solutions,” and highlighted examples across safety, preservation, maintenance and system expansion.
The report noted Caltrans’ adoption of a mechanistic‑empirical pavement design approach — referred to in the presentation as CalME — intended to extend pavement service life by allowing engineers to model stress and strain more precisely and incorporate modern laboratory and field data. Berseno said the technique has been used on projects on Route 5 in District 2 and is planned for use in District 4.
On system management, Berseno described PeMS (Performance Measurement System) as Caltrans’ primary tool for deriving freeway performance measures. She said PeMS provides cleansed historical traffic data used statewide and supports public tools such as 511 and QuickMap, and that research is under way to expand coverage to arterials and transit.
She also summarized ShakeCast, software that “automatically retrieves earthquake data in pretty near real time, then it analyzes the shaking levels against the Caltrans bridge inventory and then generates the products — a list of bridges that need to be inspected by priority.” Berseno said more than 400 users currently receive ShakeCast notifications.
On system expansion, Berseno described research that led Caltrans to adopt new, context‑sensitive bridge rail designs acceptable to local stakeholders and the California Coastal Commission. She said those guidelines are now in the California Highway Design Manual and the Bridge Design Manual and have been used on projects such as Devil’s Slide and Doyle Drive.
Berseno concluded by reiterating the division’s emphasis on producing applied research that “adds value” through implementation rather than remaining purely academic.
More information about the division’s projects is posted on the Caltrans research website, Berseno said; she offered to provide commissioners additional data on product-approval timelines and measurable savings from implemented research upon request.
