Texture is a surface characteristic which has a very wide influence on
pavements functional quality. It is currently assessed by a number of test methods. Road
Administrations face the problems of dealing with data acquired by different methods and, in
addition to that, the repeatability and reproducibility of the results. This paper presents an
analysis of test methods used for texture depth evaluation in Portugal: the volumetric patch
method and two methods based on surface profiles. Hence, three roads with low (dense
asphalt), medium (“open texture asphalt”) and high (porous asphalt) texture depths were
selected, where five profilometers made five runs. Two subsections of 150 m length were also
selected to carry out the volumetric patch test. The texture indicators analysed were: the mean
texture depth, the mean profile depth and the sensor measured texture depth. The average and
the standard deviation were the statistical parameters used for the analysis. The results
obtained for each method are significantly different and a good correlation between the mean
profile depth and the sensor measured texture depth was established
