A well-maintained road provides a good surface to road users. It also lowers the vehicle operating costs besides savings in travel time which is crucial. On the contrary, a badly maintained road provides a rough and uneasy riding surface. It gives high vehicle operating costs and induces damages to vehicles and is environmentally undesirable. But maintenance of this huge national asset is a challenging task, especially in view of complexity arising due to political system, technical requirements and financial constraints. Though the road sector is very important from the point of view of growth of the economy, availability of funds for the sector is quite low in the budget because of competing urgent societal needs. Consequently, funds for maintenance of roads, which is a subset of road sector funds, is also conservative and it is made to the minimum.
Why is the maintenance cost for roads so high?
- A major reason for the deterioration in the condition of roads is weather exposure, either extreme or severe weather events.
- Rain in tropical regions takes a massive toll on roads, while mountain regions are subject to extremes of heat and cold, and rock falls, leading to costly annual maintenance.
- Corruption can also play a part since shortcuts in both construction and maintenance are of poor quality (and divert significant amounts of money into unscrupulous hands). Political interference can also be a factor, it has been pointed out that new highways have greater visibility and political impact than maintenance programs.
Yet another key reason is the pressure on government expenditure. Funds allocated to maintenance can easily be reduced to meet pressing needs elsewhere. This is tempting because, in the first or even second year, the condition of roads does not appear to be affected by neglect, but in fact, the cost of maintenance escalates rapidly after the completion of construction.
Ordinary wear and tear are relatively easy and cheap to repair, but if long term neglect results in damage to the underlying pavement, reconstruction will be very expensive. Interruption of road services is normally caused by weather events such as landslides, floods washing away surfaces or bridges, earthquake damage or the like. Longstanding neglect of maintenance will generally result in a gradual deterioration of the road surfaces, increasing numbers of potholes and crumbling edges. Nevertheless, somehow traffic will continue to function until the road becomes impassable, although the time and therefore cost of passenger travel will grow and vehicle repair costs will increase due to damage.
Capacity building of state highway agencies is normally a feature of major road programs so the technical skills necessary to plan and manage maintenance schedules should at least in part already exist. An audit of maintenance support for previous roads the investment could be made as a condition of new project funding.
As with so many aspects of development, road maintenance is not just about roads. It is also part of the process of creating a culture of preventative measures in such diverse sectors as health care, disaster preparation and infrastructure to enhance the efficiency of the investment. Without financial incentives, highway agencies throughout the developing world will be unable to resist the demands of more pressing demands on their current budgets, despite the even greater pressures this will be on future budgets.
