City of Independence starts road survey on pavement performance, inventory
The City of Independence’s Municipal Services Department in coordination with Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) LLC, is working on a detailed inventory assessment and condition rating of all roadways maintained by the City. This effort focuses on establishing an updated database of roadway infrastructure, adhering to long-term maintenance objectives and planning.
The data will be collected by a tool known as a LCMS-2 Road Surface Tester (RST). This tool is housed on a Ford van which contains a variety of instruments to gather data for the inventory including HD cameras, global positioning system (GPS), and a rear-mounted high technology laser crack measurement system (LCMS-2) tool. 
Measurements of pavement roughness, rutting, cracking, and additional surface distress information is specifically gathered. Digital images and GPS information will also be gathered and utilized for geographic information systems (GIS) analysis to provide a spatial and visual representation of the data. Each road within the City will be surveyed at least once during the assessment.
After all the data is collected, it will be combined and assessed by the IMS team to develop a series of reports for the City of Independence. The final assessment will provide an overview of recommendations for long-term maintenance of roadways based upon need, priority related to cost benefit, and cost of deferral. The last pavement condition index was completed in 2017.