Managing SADC Roads Agencies in the New Millennium: The Role of Road Asset Management Systems
The management of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) road network is a complex task which is often influenced by a variety of factors – technical, financial, social and political – which all enter into the decision making process at various levels of their roads agencies. In such an environment, the determination of optimal strategies requires the use of a rational “systems” approach to road asset management. This paper outlines the road management strategy that is being pursued in a number of countries in the SADC region. It then illustrates how these systems are being used at various levels of application to achieve the desired objectives of the road agency.
Review of sub-Saharan African gravel roads management system: Tanzanian case study
The construction of new networks of gravel roads needed by sub-Sahara Africa will eventually come to completion. Furthermore, many of the gravel roads constructed or rehabilitated between 2005 and 2008 have come to the end of their design lives and during their life cycle, difficulties were experienced in getting required funds for maintenance. What is becoming apparent to the governments and road agencies of sub-Sahara Africa is the urge to conserve, as national asset, the gravel roads network, through the use of operational road management systems. Based on the above mentioned desire, the sub-Saharan African countries, including Tanzania, are exploring ways of strengthening the management of roads transport infrastructure. Towards that end Tanzania have two organisations responsible for managing its road networks, namely Tanzania Road Agency (TANROADS) and Local Government Authority (LGA)’s district engineer’s office. TANROADS is responsible for the management of trunk and regional road networks, while LGAs are responsible for the management of districts road networks. Each of these road agencies uses its own road management system. TANROADS uses Road Maintenance Management Systems (RMMS), and LGA uses District Roads Management Systems (DROMAS). Both these systems have been developed with experts and financial assistance from foreign countries, with involvement of local experts at ministerial or top managerial levels. This paper discusses and points out factors affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of these systems in gravel road management in comparison with those in the developed world. It is expected that ironing out those aspects of management
Did the metamorphosis from Export Processing Zones to Special Economic Zones improve the efficiency of trade enclaves in India?
In this paper, the efficiency of seven conventional Special Economic Zones in India is analyzed, by adopting a stochastic production frontier technique, for the period between 1986–1987 and 2007–2008.Results indicate that although the efficiency scores of these enclaves have improved over the years, specifically with the introduction of the SEZ policy (2000–2001), it is far below the threshold level as identified in the literature. Besides, one can also observe a discrepancy emerging between better export earning zones and efficient zones. On the determinants side, policy intervention and large geographical area, accompanied by clustering of units, are found to have impacted the efficiency scores of these enclaves positively.