Including Natural Risk Concepts in Road Maintenance Planning

Several countries spend part of their national budget repairing damages in the road network caused by natural disasters. Typical natural hazards present in Chile are: river flooding due to Invierno Altiplanico, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and flooding due to snowstorms. In addition some countries are highly vulnerable to the effects of El Niño and La Niña global climatic phenomena that cause violent rains in winter and thaw in summer. Natural hazards affect especialy road networks placed in mountainous areas, coastal areas or in basins with dense hidric networks. In these areas road vunerability is higher whether the road network offers no or poor alternative routes. In the risk management context, a relevant step is the risk assessment because it permits one to define target risk and mitigation measurements. These measurements should be considered as part of maintenance investment under a cost-efficient point of view, to minimize the probability of network disruption and loss of efficiency of the transport system. The aim of this paper is to discuss the road risk index developed in Chile. The index is based on the concepts of exposition, vulnerability, strategic relevance of roads, roads hierarchy, accessibility, traffic level and existence of alternative routes. The index was computed for roads wth disruption registers, considering 20 years record of the Chilean Highways Agency distributed in 800 roads. A database was designed and implemented in a Geographic Information System. It was concluded that the risk index developed is a useful tool for road planning and specifically for selecting roads that need immediate attention, more detailed studies or do nothing. Also, the method provides general hints for including risk concepts in road asset management systems.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9789561412309
• Supplemental Notes:
  • The local host for the conference is Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; the international host is the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council, USA.
• Corporate Authors:

  Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

  College of Engineering
  Avenida Vicuna Mackenna 4860, Macul
  Santiago,   Chile 
• Authors:
  • Echaveguren, Tomas
  • Azocar, Gerardo
  • Felez, Jorge
  • Sanhueza, Rodrigo
• Conference:
  • Eighth International Conference on Managing Pavement Assets
  • Location: Santiago , Chile
  • Date: 2011-11-15 to 2011-11-19
• Publication Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: 8th International Conference on Managing Pavement Assets, November 15-19, 2011, Santiago, Chile: "Fulfilling the Social, Economic and Environmental Responsibility for Sustainable, Well Managed, Better Roads"

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Asset management; Disasters; Highway maintenance; Risk analysis; Risk management
• Uncontrolled Terms: Risk index; Road networks
• Geographic Terms: Chile
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Pavements; I60: Maintenance;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01367161
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9789561412309
• Report/Paper Numbers: ICMPA171
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 3 2012 7:58AM