This research addresses the issue of designing a street in Nablus, which is Beit Wazan Street, using two methods: the 1993 AASHTO method and the Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Method. The purpose is to propose a solution for the defects that exist in this street which affect the performance of the pavement so that the street offers more serviceability and experiences less accidents.
The methodology that was adopted combined between field investigation and theoretical work. Field investigation included gathering data about traffic volume and geotechnical soil reports. In addition, several photos were taken to document the distresses in the street, then the studied area was divided into three sections, 550m for each one.
Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to present the data for pavement management purposes.
Since the trend today in most of the United States is to use the under-development Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Method(MEPDG) instead of the 1993 AASHTO Method, it is recommended to start implementing the MEPDG in pavement design. This is also because the mechanistic procedures are able to better account for climate, aging, present day materials, and present day vehicle loadings, variation in performance in relation to design life should be reduced. This capability will reduce life cycle costs significantly over an entire highway network.