Introduction

The Transport Scotland Pavement Forum (TSPF) was set up in 2007 to improve communication and share best practice across the road industry. As part of this remit, the TSPF introduced an annual monitoring procedure known as the Scottish Inspection Panel (SIP) in 2008. The year-on-year SIP survey provides an assessment of new materials and maintenance techniques used on the trunk road network. The visual assessment survey considers the quality of materials and their installation, and the collection of data permits the benchmarking of newly introduced materials against previously used surface courses. The SIP also supports the development of corrective action plans through the identification of recurring issues. The survey team consists of experienced road engineers who represent Transport Scotland, the Mineral Products Association (MPA) Scotland and engineering consultants.

The 2023 SIP survey (Figure 1-1) was carried out over the week commencing 4 September 2023. The survey was primarily focused on five-year-old materials that had been installed as part of previous road maintenance schemes. This report provides information on the sites visited and presents results on the condition of the materials assessed. The collected data is discussed and compared to other historical information and a summary of the main findings is provided, including recommendations to improve the performance of future road surfacing.