Road Network Management

Innovative Technologies
for Low-Volume Roads:
English, French

The primary focus of Road Network Management is to foster development of main road networks that are fundamental to national economies. Main roads are defined as roads under the responsibilities of the central and provincial governments. They link the main administrative and economic centers together, provide the backbone of a country's road network and generally support traffic above 20 vehicles per day. Rural roads which are under the responsibility of local governments and communities and link rural communities together or rural communities to agricultural production areas are subject of a separate section on Rural Road Management.

Since a 1993 study by the World Bank found that a significant share of road networks built in the seventies and eighties disappeared because of lack of maintenance, the challenge of the SSATP has been to promote policy reforms aimed at sustaining road networks and preserving road assets. Improved road network management contributes to this objective by ensuring that the best performance and value-for-money are obtained from the road network and the resources invested in it and eventually the best service is offered to the road users.

Road network management consist in five functions:

• Planning : to develop a strategic view of of road network development and maintenance, targeted performance and resources required;
• Programming : to decide, under budget constraints, on multi-year road works and expenditure programs;
• Preparation : to prepare implementation of the first year trench of the program defined at the programming stage;
• Operation : to implement the first year trench of the program defined at the programming stage;
• Monitoring and Evaluation : to monitor the results and the impact of the program and compare to the strategic objectives defined during planning.

The reforms to create the institutional framework conducive to efficient management and sustainable financing of the road sector are presented in other areas of the RMF theme of the SSATP. In this area, we provide an overview of various management tools, and focus on specific road management aspects such as new types of maintenance contracts and development of the local contracting industry.

Road management tools

SSATP has reviewed a range of various tools available for managing road networks. The report can be accessed here. It provides a guide aimed at politicians and high-level decision makers in road authorities, as well as technicians and practitioners to help orient the choice of the tool the most adapted to the local conditions and demand.

SSATP has also helped develop several road management tools. Information on these tools can be accessed through the following links:

• Roads Economic Decision Model (RED) : RED is a consumer surplus model designed to help evaluate investments in low volume roads. The model is implemented in a series of Excel workbooks that: a) collect all user inputs; b) present the results in a user-friendly manner; c) estimate vehicle operating costs and speeds; d) perform an economic comparison of investments and maintenance alternatives; and e) perform sensitivity, switch-off values and stochastic risk analyses. The model computes benefits accruing to normal, generated, and diverted traffic, as a function of a reduction in vehicle operating and time costs. It also computes safety benefits, and model users can add other benefits (or costs) to the analysis, such as those related to non-motorized traffic, social service delivery and environmental impacts. Version 3.1 can be accessed here.
  
  
• Standard Overall Ultra-lite Road Care Estimate (SOURCE): The SOURCE method is based on standardized measurements of traffic and common speeds of light vehicles. The two series of data (traffic/speeds) are aggregated for the entire reference network in the form of a single macro-indicator (a pseudo-speed) that reflects the actual level of service provided by the main roads in each country.
  
  
• Performance Assessment Model (PAM): PAM is used at the planning stage to compare various options for road maintenance funding and to provide the basis for the decision-maker to decide on the level of funding for road maintenance in view of the level of performance achieved by the road network and the economic impact of the options considered. It can also be used at the evaluation stage to measure the actual performance achieved by the road network in comparison to the targeted performance.
  
  
• Tariff and Traffic: Tariff and Traffic is a tool used to train decision-makers and managers of road funds to evaluate various funding strategies for road maintenance based on different levels of road user fees.
  

Low Volume Sealed Roads

The majority of rural roads and a significant proportion of the main roads in Sub-Saharan Africa are currently unsurfaced and are relatively lightly loaded with traffic. These low-volume roads are important in that they significantly impact on the livelihood of the rural population, and are central to sustained socio-economic growth and development. Unfortunately, the poor condition of these roads has acted as a brake on economic development and hindered poverty alleviation efforts.

Gravel road maintenance is also a particularly wasteful practice of a non-renewable resource, which has become costlier to acquire as suitable sources are getting depleted and its extraction and use is fast becoming an environmental nuisance.

There is a need to depart from the old practice of 'fitting the materials to the specifications' which often renders potentially useful locally available materials useless. A new approach of 'fitting the specifications to the materials' will apply a more customized and tailored design corresponding to the local climate, the natural materials available in the area, the volume and load of the traffic, and will make it possible to economically justify investment in the sealing of gravel roads at traffic thresholds of less than 100 vehicles per day as opposed to the conventional approaches that require traffic levels in excess of 200 vehicles per day.

This is the philosophy behind SADC's Guideline for Low Volume Sealed Roads (LVSR Guideline), and appropriate designs are given more attention in many countries today. The SSATP Program has included collection of relevant design examples, and the dissemination of them and the Guideline as important activities in its work program.

Output and Performance Based Road Works Contracts

The World Bank has developed the output and performance based contract as an alternative to the traditional methods of procuring road reconstruction, rehabilitation and maintenance where payments are made to the contractor based on quantities of works measured by unit prices for works inputs. In the new contract, payments are made on the basis of "outputs" reflecting the target conditions of the roads under contract (in other words: "what the roads are supposed to look like"), expressed through "Service Levels". Another major difference is that the Contractor is fully responsible for the design of the works which are necessary to reach the required Service Levels, and the durability and performance of the roads over a longer period. The new World Bank Standard Bidding document for Output and Performance based Road Contracts can be accessed here.

Development of Construction Industry

The operation phase in the road management system is a key phase for the success of the system as its aim is to translate on the ground the strategic and preparatory work done during the previous phases of the road management process. Development of the local construction industry is required to accompany Government divestiture from execution of road maintenance programs. In most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, road maintenance programs are now executed by contract or Government divestiture is underway. Little capacity existed before in the private sector as works were executed by force account and did not leave space for private sector development. Africa Transport Technical Note No.38 (and its French version) addresses the issues of local industry development.

For additional information on road management, visit the World Bank's Highways website: http://www.worldbank.org/highways, which provides information on various tools, including HDM-4, as well as guides to use public-private partnership to develop, operate, and maintain roads and ensure safe, efficient, and high-quality services responsive to user needs. The site also provides guidance on how to include environment in the road management process.