FACTORS INFLUENCING THE TRANSFERABILITY OF MAINTENANCE STANDARDS FOR LOW-VOLUME ROADS

Among the many parameters that influence the selection of maintenance strategies for unpaved roads, two factors have been selected in this paper to illustrate that caution needs to be exercised when attempting to transfer policies or standards from one set of conditions to another. These two factors are "factor costs" (not budgets) and "material resources". Broadly speaking, the definition of a maintenance policy for an unpaved network implies that besides routine activities such as vegetation control and ditch and culvert cleaning, consideration should be given to the frequency of grading and also to the timing of graveling operations. Drawing from the experience collected in two widely different environments, one in the equatorial forest region of central Africa--where maintenance costs are high and gravel resources scarce--and the other in northeast Brazil, it is shown that maintenance standards are highly dependent not only on traffic volume but also on the properties of surfacing materials and the unit cost of grading. As shown and explained in this paper, the optimum grading frequency derived from economic analyses for a given volume of traffic may vary by a factor of 5, ranging between 2 and 10 times per year. Similarly, the threshold value of traffic volume at which surfacing an earth road with gravel becomes economically justified can range from below 20 to more that 100 vehicles per day, depending on cost of graveling and physical properties of the subgrade to be graveled. Such wide variations suggest the need for a careful definition of local conditions before an attempt is made to transfer maintenance standards across countries or even across regions within a country.

• Record URL:
  • http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1994/1434/1434-010.pdf
• Record URL:
  • https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=FACTORS+INFLUENCING+THE+TRANSFERABILITY+OF+MAINTENANCE+STANDARDS+FOR+LOW-VOLUME+ROADS&author=G.+Liautaud&author=A.+Faiz&publication_year=1994
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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1434, Subsurface Drainage, Soil-Fluid Interface Phenomena, and Management of Unpaved Surfaces. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
• Authors:
  • Liautaud, Gerard
  • Faiz, Asif
• Publication Date: 1994

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 73-76
• Monograph Title: Subsurface drainage, soil-fluid interface phenomena, and management of unpaved surfaces
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 1434
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Case studies; Costs; Economic analysis; Low volume roads; Maintenance; Materials; Standards; Unpaved roads
• Uncontrolled Terms: Material resources; Transferability
• Geographic Terms: Africa; Brazil
• Old TRIS Terms: Factor costs; Maintenance standards
• Subject Areas: Design; Economics; Finance; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Materials; Pavements; I22: Design of Pavements, Railways and Guideways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00666232
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309055113
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Sep 16 1994 12:00AM