SOME ASPECTS OF USE OF ROAD TRANSPORT INVESTMENT MODELS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO KUWAITI CONDITIONS

TRRL Road Transport Investment Model (RTIM) and World Bank Highway Design and Maintenance Standard Model (HDM) are being extensively used to aid investment decisions in some developing countries. The purpose is to calculate the total transport cost of construction, maintenance and vehicle operation for a unit road. These models are based on work carried out mostly in Kenya on the deterioration of unpaved or paved roads with thin surfacing materials and a few studies on factors affecting vehicle operating costs. Although beneficial, the use of these models for Gulf countries environment is limited, due to lack of dependable data bases covering the quantification of the material characteristics, deterioration of road structures under extremely hot arid environment, vehicle operating costs under different highway types and conditions, the value of users' time, the cost of road accidents and the capacity of different types of roads under different conditions. The paper reviews the state of the art of prevailing practices for economic appraisal of the road improvement schemes in developing countries with special reference to current practices in the Gulf countries. The paper also highlights the inherent problems concerning the use of TRRL, RTIM and World Bank HDM models with special reference to a study on road user cost for the state of Kuwait. The latter study makes a contribution towards understanding the relationships amongst road design and construction standards, road maintenance policy, vehicle characteristics, traffic flow and growth rate, environment and road deterioration appropriate to the Gulf environment. (Author/TRRL)

  • Availability:
  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This paper was presented at Seminar G, Developing Countries, held at the PTRC Annual Summer Meeting, University of Warwick, England, 4-7 July, 1983.
  • Corporate Authors:

    PTRC Education and Research Services Limited

    110 Strand
    London WC2,   England 
  • Authors:
    • BINDRA, S P
    • Guirguis, H R
  • Conference:
  • Publication Date: 1983

Media Info

  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: p. 37-43

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00382740
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
  • ISBN: 0-86050-112-4
  • Report/Paper Numbers: Volume P240
  • Files: ITRD, TRIS
  • Created Date: Apr 30 1984 12:00AM