Performance indicators for the road sector
Seeing the trend for public accountability of road administrations and noting the many reform efforts undertaken in transport sectors around the world, the OECD established a Scientific Expert Group on Performance Indicators for the Road Sector in 1996 to provide its member countries a framework for assessing road administrations' performance. The results of the Expert Group's work is presented in this paper.Fifteen indispensable, forty primary, and thirty-five secondary indicators are proposed to portray the road sector from different perspectives. They are designed to be changed in response to human needs and technological development and supplemented by country specific indicators. In keeping with this approach and in support of one of the maxims of the Expert Group that 'useful performance indicators are those which are used', an application in the form of a Field Test is now in progress by an OECD task force.The Performance Indicators proposed are grounded in a mental model adopted by the Expert Group. This model is management by results model, and is useful as a theoretical tool in the many highly fluid contexts in which restructuring is moving forward. In the model, the products and services are judged by standards or criteria; outcomes – derivatives of products and services through user interface – are judged relative to objectives and user satisfaction. The achievement of objectives, however, is not proposed as the only or even primary basis of evaluation. The situation is more abstract and complex. Therefore, the various uses of Performance Indicators – including the opportunities to assist road administrations in becoming learning organizations – are given much emphasis in the paper. The views and conclusions in the paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the World Bank or its affiliated organizations.
FRAMEWORK OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR MANAGING ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE AND PAVEMENTS
Performance measures are the basic input to a variety of decision processes and activities in infrastructure management. These include charting progress toward achieving operational, sectoral, and policy objectives; assessing whether users are receiving services that they want at the level of quality that they are willing to pay for; and comparing competing or alternative service producers to determine the most efficient provision arrangement for infrastructure services. A framework is presented for defining consistent measures of infrastructure performance, particularly for roads and pavements. The framework identifies relevant indicators and the linkages between them. Because there are changes over time in information needs and in the types of agencies using performance indicators as well as in their relationships to one another, a framework is needed to maintain consistency in the information bases used and to update the indicators to ensure relevance. Performance is measured at five major levels: (a) service quality and reliability from a user's point of view; (b) network size and condition from a facility's point of view; (c) operational efficiency and productivity from a service provider's perspective; (d) sectoral performance measures such as investment, pricing, and provision arrangements; and (e) institutional performance indicators such as the effectiveness of the expenditure program, enforcement of vehicle weights and dimensions, and so forth. These are applied to the management of pavements with a listing of all the road network and user indicators but defining the measures and data quality only for the pavement component.
Community refinement of glaucoma referrals
AbstractAim To describe a Manchester-based glaucoma referral refinement scheme designed to reduce the number of false-positive referrals to the hospital eye service. To report on the first years results of this scheme and its financial costs to the NHS.Methods Patients with suspected glaucoma, instead of being referred to their GP and then on to the hospital eye service, were referred to a group of specially trained community optometrists working to an agreed set of referral criteria. Those patients who did not meet the referral criteria were returned to the referring optometrist, while those who met the referral criteria were referred directly to Manchester Royal Eye Hospital. The patient's GP was informed in all cases.Results The number of suspect glaucoma cases referred to the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital was reduced by 40%. This figure is close to the percentage of false-positive referrals measured at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital prior to the onset of this study. The information accompanying referral has been improved and the scheme produces a small financial cost saving to the NHS of approximately £17 per patient.Conclusion Community refinement of suspect glaucoma offers some important benefits over the current referral pathway.