MnROAD Lessons Learned

Abstract

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) began construction on the Minnesota Road Research Project (MnROAD) in 1991 and opened the full-scale pavement research facility to live traffic in 1994. Since the time of its construction, MnROAD, the first major test track since the AASHO Road Test of the 1950s and 1960s, has learned a number of lessons on behalf of the greater pavement community. As part of completing the first phase of MnROAD (its first ten years of operation), researchers at the University of Minnesota reviewed the many products of MnROAD's first phase. The Lessons Learned project involved over fifty interviews, three hundred published and unpublished reports, papers, and briefs, and an online survey of pavement professionals. This report presents an overview of MnROAD products of interest at the local, state, and national levels. Furthermore, the report provides extensive references for these products in hopes of increasing awareness of MnROAD's under-publicized contributions to pavement engineering.