Flexible pavement and Rigid Pavement
| S.N | Criteria | Flexible Pavement | Rigid Pavement |
| 1 | Design Accuracy | Relatively less because these pavements are mainly designed by an empirical method. | More precise and accurate structure analysis techniques can be used. |
| 2 | Life Span | Well designed pavement has about 10-20 years. | About 40 years |
| 3 | Repair and Maintenance | Frequent repair and maintenance is needed. | Practically little repair and maintenance is needed. |
| 4 | Initial cost | Low | High |
| 5 | Stage Construction | Possible in the flexible pavement in which minimum initial thickness can be provided and later on additional overlays can be provided. | Not possible |
| 6 | Surface characteristics | Relatively poor riding quality. | Good riding quality because free from rutting, patholes. |
| 7 | Penetration of water | Easily penetrate through the layers due to their less imperviousness. | Difficult due to high imperviousness. |
| 8 | Glare and Night visibility | Surface is black in colour so no light reflects, hence more street light are needed for night visibility. | Grey in colour so good glare and needed fewer street lights fortnight visibility. |
| 9 | Traffic dislocation during construction | Road can be opened quickly for traffic operation | Traffic can be only opened after 28 days. |
| 10 | Availability of materials | Bitumen is a scarce material, It has limited deposits in a few countries. | Cement can be manufactured easily by limestone in many countries. |
| 11 | Utility location | Public facilities and services like water supply pipes, sewer liner, telephone cable etc can be buried below. | Difficult because of traffic movement. |
| 12 | Environmental consideration | It degrades none by burning bitumen. | Less degrades. |
| 13 | Overall economics | Costly according to as a life cycle. | Cheaper |
| 14 | Design philosophy | Elastic layered theory. | Plate theory |
Happy Learning – Civil Concept
What is Camber in Road? Types, Advantages Disadvantages of Camber
WBM road construction procedure | Features | Application of WBM
