Paved roads in tropical and sub tropical climates often deteriorate in different ways tornthose in temperate regions, because of the harsh climatic conditions, lack of properrndesign and quality control, high loads and inadequate assessment for identifyingrncauses of distresses before carrying out maintenance and rehabilitation.rnA pavement distress that occurs at the surface can have a number of different causesrnwhich must be properly identified before corrective action is taken. The visiblernmanifestation of the problem at the surface may be the same; however, the solutionrnfor each cause may be different. Therefore, if the remedial action is to be effective, therncause of the problem must be identified and corrected.rnThe present road condition of Addis Ababa shows rapid deterioration. The severity ofrnpavement distresses is even more critical on the major arterial roads were the trafficrnvolume of busses, heavy trucks, passenger vehicles and taxies is comparativelyrn61rnhigher than other road network. Such severe distresses summed up with inadequaternroad signs and markings are resulting congestion and consequently causing furtherrndeterioration of roads due to maximum static load sustained from the vehicular trafficrnwaiting in a queue on the pavement.rnThis research mainly focuses on making assessment of asphalt pavement condition,rnidentifying causes of pavement distress and proposing maintenance options for thernarterial roads of Addis Ababa. These roads are most widely utilized, and thereforernprone to severe distress and consequently exhibiting repeated maintenance andrnrepair. Visual distress assessment, roughness tests, DCP tests and other necessaryrnlaboratory investigations were carried out on selected test sections in order to havernbetter understanding of the pavement response and come up with identification ofrnprobable causes. Major causes of pavement distress associated with load, drainagernand durability are tried to be identified.rnA statistical analysis is also made to check how each investigation results showingrnpavement response variables and material properties interact with each other tornidentify the cause of distresses. The visual survey analysis indicates that almost allrntest roads have very low PCI value. Raveling, corrugation, Bumps and sags are thernmost dominant type of distresses constituting more than 75% of the distress densitiesrnin the arterial road network. The majority of test sections showing low PCI values arernobserved to have a base material of low bearing value sandwiched between thernasphalt and other pavement layers. The investigation and analysis also showed thatrnmoisture and drainage associated distresses are predominant in the arterial roads andrnmost likely on the whole network as well. Moreover, it is also observed that most of thernexisting pavements lack structural adequacy and hence require reconstruction thanrndoing a routine maintenance and/or rehabilitation.