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CHOICE AND ORDERING OF PRIORITIES OF ROADWORKS DURING A PERIOD OF FINANCIAL STRINGENCY. SESSION 5

This paper is a critical explanation of how a County Surveyor and his staff sought after the right reasons for doing things, and the right ordering of priorities in a heavily constrained financial climate in Hertfordshire, England. It is not directly concerned with the technicalities of the right action. It is concerned with the issue of allocation of resources between objectives and this requires discussion of the "apples, pears and oranges syndrome". It may be right to choose and consume any or each of these, but how to choose between them, and in what order and quantities they should be consumed, is difficult. It will be wrong to consume more than a measurable but perhaps uncertain, quantity. It would also be wrong to consume a rotten peach. A number of objective management systems, like PPBS, foundered because they assumed that choice between apples, pears and oranges could be systematised and made to operate within objective rules. Because any approach to allocation of resources and setting of priorities requires "breaking into" existing systems, attitudes and practices, this paper has to be read in the context of the systems of an English Shire County, as they have been evolving since 1974. (Author)

  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This paper was presented during the Institute of Transportation Engineers 54th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California, September 23-27, 1984.
  • Corporate Authors:

    Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE)

    Washington, DC  United States 
  • Authors:
    • FELLS, P J
  • Conference:
  • Publication Date: 1984

Media Info

  • Features: Appendices; Tables;
  • Pagination: p. 1-9

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00390584
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Jun 30 1985 12:00AM