The ride quality (i.e. smoothness) is a key factor for evaluating the construction quality of expressway asphalt pavement. Conventionally, three paving devices are widely used to control the surface layer thickness: leveling sensor (i.e. LS), short-range-surfacing-contact-ski (i.e. SSCS) and long-range-surfacing-contact-ski (i.e. LSCS). However, each of these levelling tools presents one major drawback. In the case of LS, if the original sub-layer evenness is poor, the final asphalt pavement surface and its smoothness will be negatively affected. The SSCS cannot assure satisfactory smoothness when relatively long paving section (in the order of 10 km) are paved. While the LSCS would reduce the drawback of the SSCS, its weight on the one hand and its length on the other discourage its use in the paving site especially for curved sections. In this paper, a next generation pavement smoothness leveling equipment, known as non-contact-digital-ski (i.e. NCDS) was implemented, evaluated and compared to the conventional equipment leveling device. The international Roughness Index (IRI m/km) was measured on sections paved with and without NCDS and the results visually and statistically compared. In addition, for the same sections, the modulus of the pavement layers was computed and compared by means of Falling Weight Deflectometer (i.e. FWD). It was observed that when NCDS is used for asphalt pavement overlay of existing concrete pavement, significant improvement in IRI (i.e. IRI<1.0m/km) and consistently uniform elastic modulus could be achieved compared to the conventional levelling and paving method.