Maintenance of roads

Purpose of maintenance  

The Indian Roads Congress defines road maintenance as “routine work performed to upkeep pavement, shoulders and other facilities provided for road users, as nearly as possible in their constructed conditions under normal conditions of traffic and forces of nature”. Maintenance is “essential to get optimum service from the pavement structure during its life period.” 

The basic objective of road maintenance is implicit in the word itself. It is done to ensure that the road that has been constructed, or improved, is to the extent possible kept in its original condition. All roads require maintenance as they are subjected to traffic and the forces of weather. Even with the highest possible quality of construction, maintenance is essential to get optimum service from the road structure during its design life. By applying preventive maintenance, the deterioration of the road and its components can be slowed down, thus postponing the need for costly investments in rehabilitation and securing the planned design life.  

If not maintained, roads rapidly become impassable to motorised traffic until a point when they are no longer trafficable. The pace of deterioration largely depends on the quality of initial construction, pavement and surface materials, drainage measures, levels of traffic and weather conditions. Gravel roads deteriorate more quickly than bitumen surfaced roads and their value can often be assumed to be negligible after five years without maintenance. Bitumen surfaces may have a marginally longer life without maintenance but are more expensive to rebuild. It should also be noted that for rural roads where traffic is more limited, the critical maintenance interventions are often related to maintaining the drainage system. 

Maintenance ensures that the road remains serviceable throughout its design life. Maintenance is important because it:  

1. reduces the rate of deterioration, thereby safeguarding previous investments in construction and rehabilitation, 
2. lowers the cost of operating vehicles on the road by providing a smooth running surface, 
3. improves safety of road users, 
4. improves the reliability of the road allowing it to remain open for traffic on a continuous basis and thus contributes to more reliable transport services, and 
5. sustains social and economic benefits of improved road access.  

The first purpose is primarily in the interest of the responsible government authorities. Road agencies need to protect their investments made in improving the road network, thereby maintaining high service levels for the road users.  The last four are of interest to vehicle operators and the inhabitants of the area serviced by the road.   

Road safety 

Road maintenance also has an impact on the safety of road users.  Regular maintenance heightens the reliability for road users through the simple fact that damages are dealt with at a stage before they become a hazard.  Timely maintenance also includes the upkeep of signage and road markings which contribute to road safety.  Keeping road shoulders clean and free from potholes allows pedestrians and cyclists to travel safely at a distance from vehicles.  Clearing bushes improves sightlines and allows road users to spot each other in time.  Finally, when roads are more closely monitored through regular inspections and by staff providing on-going maintenance, damages such as debris and rock-fall, collapsed culverts, landslides, washouts, etc., posing serious traffic hazards, can be detected in time and the required remedial measures can be provided in a timely fashion

No matter what technical designs are chosen, all roads, from major highways to local roads, require regular and timely maintenance in order to secure a reasonable lifetime on the construction investment.  Attempts to find technical designs that are maintenance-free are disillusions and in the long run only prove that lack of maintenance leads to accelerating rates of deterioration. 

Breaking a vicious circle 

Without an organised approach to preserving the road network, it is often seen that road works agencies are forced into a situation of consistently dealing with the effects of the lack of maintenance, having to repair and reconstruct road sections that have failed since timely and adequate maintenance interventions were not carried out. 

For obvious reasons, the first priority is to keep all roads open throughout the year (accepting that some road sections are not passable during extreme weather conditions).  Without a preventive maintenance system in place, the efforts to keep roads open very much consists of carrying out repairs after serious damage has taken place.  Such interventions are much more costly than preventive maintenance.  Due to the extent of damages each year, the remedial works often consume the entire road works budgets, leaving little resources for preventive measures. 

With the damages taking place during the next rainy season, road agencies are left with no alternative than to use subsequent budgets to once again repair serious damages to its roads.  Although these repairs are necessary, it is obvious that this way of managing the road network is costly and ineffective. The only way of breaking this vicious circle is to introduce the concept of preventive maintenance, thus reducing the extent to which the roads require major repair works. The cost savings in repair works can then be brought forward to the next maintenance season and instead utilised for further preventive activities that may preserve the road assets.

It is important to make a clear distinction between maintenance and repair works. Effective maintenance is clearly time linked and is carried out before major damages take place. This involves activities relating to supervision and monitoring of the road assets even while they are still in good condition. It also requires that road authorities are sufficiently responsive and capable of taking action when required - as opposed to responding with repairs when major damages have taken place or road access has finally been cut off.  

Timely and regular maintenance requires securing sufficient funding before repairs and maintenance become an urgent matter. The most effective maintenance is achieved when an organization is capable and prepared to carry out appropriate interventions at an early stage of deterioration and thus limit the extent of damages. This implies that the responsible authority is furnished with the necessary human and financial resources to effectively manage all facets of the maintenance works.  

Attitude and perception  

Maintenance, in particular for rural roads, has always been the poor relation of the road sector. It is often viewed as important only by its absence, when roads deteriorate to the point that they are no longer serving their intended purpose. Road maintenance and in particular routine works often consists of small inputs dispersed across the road network and therefore goes unseen to the general public.  The importance and effects of such efforts are generally not appreciated unless significant damages start developing in the road surface.  
For this reason, the general public and their elected representatives do not fully appreciate the importance of providing regular and up-front maintenance unless they are properly briefed and made aware of the challenges.  Limited tenure of the elected representatives in office may also sway their interest in the direction of using available budgets for more visible improvements in the form of rehabilitation works where roads are admittedly in a bad shape and thereby showing to their electorate that they are bringing significant new services. Preserving the part of the network already in good shape has no glamour and maintaining the status quo can be perceived as not doing enough.

Officials or Engineers in the technical units (Road agencies) also have a tendency to favour new construction rather than placing importance on maintenance. This may not be their fault. If maintenance policies are not clearly defined and supported by sound asset management principles, available funds tend to be used to repair or rehabilitate roads that have deteriorated and at times reached the stage that they are in effect unmaintainable. When roads fall into serious disrepair, road agencies tend to receive more attention and pressure to take action.

The absence of a sound road management system is not necessarily due to limited budgets, but can also be a result of inadequate institutional capacity.  Often, the capacity to effectively plan and manage maintenance work is limited. In the first place this is manifested through the lack of information on the state of the network. Condition inventories are notable by their absence. In default of this information, it is difficult for those responsible to present reasonable arguments to spend some of the available budgets on preventive maintenance on the core road network instead of allocating most of the funds to reconstruction and major repair works.
Having a reliable monitoring system that provides up to date information on the condition of the network allows road agencies and political bodies to plan maintenance works in a manner which protects the existing assets from further deterioration and thereby increasing the quality of the road network over time.  It is only on this basis that it is possible to argue for (i) sufficient budgets and (ii) obtaining the necessary political support for making the right maintenance priorities.  
Road agency units may also be under pressure to spend available maintenance budgets within defined time frames.  Periodic maintenance and reconstruction works are more comprehensive compared to routine maintenance, involving considerably larger contracts.  Preventive routine maintenance is management intensive as it needs to cover the entire road network on an annual basis.  In terms of ensuring that available maintenance budgets are spent before the end of the financial year, it is easier for technical agencies with staff shortages to let contracts for periodic maintenance and reconstruction works as it involves fewer contracts to supervise.  Such interventions are also more visible than carrying out preventive maintenance on roads still in good condition.
The general public are of course pleased that roads are provided for them. They will generally not complain about the lack of maintenance but rather about the lack of traffic ability. Road users will usually not voice their concerns before the road deteriorates to a stage where it causes excessive wear and tear on vehicles and eventually becomes non trafficable.  They may understand that the road has deteriorated because of lack of maintenance, however the negative impact of accelerated road deterioration due to lack of preventive maintenance is not fully appreciated. Thus, even though they have the possibility of bringing complaints to local authorities, they would not usually point to the lack of regular preventive maintenance.

What can be done about this?

• Dedicated funds: A dependable and adequate flow of funds on continuous basis to enable the road agencies to effectively plan and implement their maintenance programmes. 

• Maintenance backlog: Finding ways and means of phased removal of the backlog of periodic maintenance and bringing the roads to maintainable situation.

 • Linkage to initial construction: Ensuring proper design and quality construction in the first instance as this would reduce the maintenance burden subsequently.

 • Maintenance management system: Improving maintenance planning and accountability through creation of road registers, setting up database and simplified maintenance management systems so as to optimize use of allocated funds and prioritize maintenance interventions, with first charge on the core road network. 

• Institutional reforms: Strengthening institutional arrangements through productivity improvement of gang labour, tightening supervision and monitoring and auditing arrangements, training of personnel to improve local skills.

 • Contract maintenance: Introducing innovative ways of execution of maintenance works such as encouraging creation of microenterprises and labour cooperatives. 

• Panchayati Raj Institutions: Building up the capacity and capability of Panchayati Raj Institutions to undertake the maintenance of rural roads. Providing technical support to these institutions.

 • Modernization: Modernisation of maintenance operations, introducing low cost equipment for pothole repairs, grading and use of modern materials. 

• Experience sharing: Regular awareness programmes of what works and what does not work. Documentation of successful strategies and dissemination through publications, workshops at state, national and international levels.  

Community contributions 

Drawing contributions from local communities for local infrastructure provision is a well-known concept successfully applied in schemes such as water supply, irrigation and public buildings.  It has also been used with some degree of success for the construction of local village roads.  Great caution should however be taken in assuming that what works for water schemes and building works can also be applied for road maintenance.
Significant efforts have been made in rural development programmes to set up systems in which the responsibility for maintenance of village roads, and its financing, is transferred to the communities.  The rationale behind these attempted schemes has been that when there are insufficient funds to maintain local roads the only alternative is to rely on self-help schemes in which the communities are mobilised.
The experience is, however, that roads are much more resource intensive to maintain than other infrastructure such as water supply and buildings, and therefore becomes difficult to sustain through such community contributions.  The lack of success in sustaining these schemes clearly shows the need for significant inputs, both technical and financial, to secure adequate maintenance of any type of road.