Abstract <p>The utilization of industrial by-products in pavement base layers offers a promising alternative to conventional granular materials. However, very limited field-scale evidences are available regarding their early-stage structural performance under repeated traffic loading. The major highlight of the field evaluation is, the comparison of FWD load – deflection time history data of flexible pavement sections constructed with industrial waste mixes with that of WMM before and after 30,000 cycles of truck passing. This field study validates the application of various industrial byproducts, including steel slag, copper slag, and fly ash (with or without lime), as materials for cemented bases in flexible pavement. Structural assessment using Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) was carried out over a two-year period at four stages: one month after construction, after nine months, after two years (prior to repeated truck loading), and immediately after repeated truck loading. The evaluation was performed on seven trial sections incorporating base layers of copper/steel slag + Class F fly ash + lime (CFL, SFL), copper slag + Class C fly ash (CCF), and conventional Wet Mix Macadam (WMM). Based on critical evaluation criteria such as peak deflection, hysteresis loop from load- deflection time history data, dissipated energy, and back-calculated elastic modulus, SFL, CFL, and CCF bases demonstrated superior field performance compared to WMM bases, achieving a 65% cost efficiency and a service life ratio of 1.4. Negligible influence of truck passing was observed in the dissipated energy for the test sections with SFL, CFL and CFL bases maintaining narrow hysteresis loop when compared to that of WMM.</p> Graphic abstract <p></p>