This paper consists of three parts, which are related to a new fatigue characterisation method that was developed at the Road & Railroad Research Laboratory (RRRL) of the Delft University of Technology. The basic idea behind this method is the use of Paris' law to determine the fatigue properties of an asphalt mix. In the first part of the paper the background of this method will be discussed. In this section a theoretical justification of the use of Paris' law to describe fatigue cracking will be presented, as well as experimental data to support that justification. In the second part of the paper this method will be described. An overview of the types of tests as well as the data processing procedure will be presented. For a more elaborate presentation of the complete method, the reader is referred to Jacobs (1995), Erkens et al. (1995) and Sabha et al. (1995). In the third section the modifications that resulted from additional research at the RRRL, intended to modify the procedure for application on another asphalt mix are discussed. From this paper it can be concluded that crack growth covers a major part of the fatigue process. Thus, Paris' crack growth law provides an approximation of the overall fatigue life. Furthermore, it is shown that the parameters in the crack growth law can be determined using simple tests. The fatigue characteristics that were predicted using this approach, agreed well with actual fatigue data.