FINAL REPORT: Pavement Repairs on Routes Traveled by Amish Buggies -- Phase 2

The State Library of Ohio has published the project's final report here. 

This report summarizes the results of a research project that was conducted to identify and evaluate the cost-effectiveness of alternative repair mixtures and methods and their combination that can be used to improve the performance and service life of partial depth repairs performed on Amish buggy routes in Ohio, and identify all possible changes that could be made to the Amish horseshoes and buggies to mitigate their damage to pavement structures.

This project was divided into two phases. The results of Phase 1 indicated that partial depth repairs performed on routes with heavy Amish buggy traffic were four times more expensive than those of routes without Amish buggy traffic. Based on the outcome of Phase 1 of this project, Phase 2 involved designing several asphalt mixtures with improved rutting resistance. The field evaluation of the test sections constructed in this study indicated that that the designed mixtures had better performance than those typically used for repairing of Amish buggy routes. In addition, Phase 2 also identified several alternative horseshoes to reduce damage to Amish buggy routes.

The results of cost analyses indicated that using the alternative horseshoes with new calk design can result in reducing the annual repair costs of Amish buggy routes by at least 40%. In addition, the results suggested that using alternative horseshoes reduce the annual horse costs encountered by Amish when considering the effects of those shoes on the horse service life.

Note: Description above taken from the report's Abstract.