Road is defined as infrastructure of land transportation that have important role for economic growth, social culture, development of tourism areas, and defense as well as security to support national development. While pavement is defined as a structure consisting of superimposed layers of processed materials above the natural soil sub-grade, whose primary function is to distribute the applied vehicle loads to the sub-grade. In its development, pavements structure can be broadly classified into two types, flexible and rigid pavement. In Indonesia, rigid pavement most used than flexible pavement. In contrast different with average developed country that mostly using flexible pavement than rigid pavement. From the comparison of flexible pavement that used more than rigid pavement, so performed design of road pavements are between flexible and rigid pavement. the objective of this design is to examine the differences between Flexible and Rigid pavements and to find out why flexible pavement is more used than rigid pavement in countries around the world. the examination includes: The subgrade and base/subbase layer strength; Distribution of traffic loads to subgrade; The design life of the pavement construction; Determination of Traffic Loading; Damage and maintenance of Flexible Pavement and Rigid Pavement; and Skid resistance of the surface layers. This methodology use literature review then followed by design calculation of flexible and rigid pavement. After getting pavement design of both pavement, the study continued with comparize of design life, materials used, initial cost, and subgrade strength. From the calculation, getting a result that the thickness of rigid pavement more than the thickness of flexible pavement are for structure of rigid pavement is 43.18 cm or 17 inches for plate slab concrete, 15.21 cm or 6 inches for base/subbase course layers, and unlimited for subgrade course layer and structure of flexible pavement is 17.50 cm or 7 inches for surface course layer, 12.50 cm or 5 inches for base course layer and 40 cm or 16.50 inches for subbase course layer. Finally, the conclusion from the difference of pavement are based on the literature review, design of both pavement thickness, and from discussion many aspect, conclusions can be drawn as follows: flexible pavement has more positive aspects than rigid pavement; rigid pavement is not safe to be used for vehicle with high speed, since has no skid resistance; repairing damage on rigid pavement is more difficult than on flexible pavement because if there is damage, it must dismantle the hard concrete slab, and the repair or maintenance costs are also expensive. From those conclusions above, are the reason why in many countries around the world, flexible pavements are used more than rigid pavements.

Keywords: Roads, Flexible, Rigid, Pavement, The differences.