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.
Information systems for road management: draft guidelines on system design and data issues; technical paper
This is a draft portion of guidelines for international use on the development of information systems to serve all road management applications in the highway sector. It provides an objective reference to help agencies make appropriate choices about the information needed for decision making and how to collect and manage it. A generic modular framework is used to make the system flexible, relevant to the diverse needs of different levels of management, appropriate to the size, skills and resources of different agencies, and able to accommodate upgrading in response to future changes in technology or circumstances, Nine groups of information and four levels of information quality (IQL) from basic to comprehensive are defined. For each group and quality level, specific data items are identified in a consistent manner so that higher levels of detail can be condensed and transformed into the summary or basic level. Data collection methods for each information group are synthesized indicating the modes of measurement applicable, the methods and equipment available for each mode, and the approaches to frequency, sampling and coverage for the collection of each data item.
EFFECTS OF VARYING POLICIES AND ASSUMPTIONS ON NATIONAL HIGHWAY REQUIREMENTS
THIS PAPER PRESENTS THE RESULTS OF AN ANALYTICAL POLICY PLANNING STUDY IN WHICH COMPUTERIZED MODELING TECHNIQUES WERE DEVELOPED TO EXAMINE THE EFFECTS OF VARYING POLICIES AND ASSUMPTIONS ON THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY PROGRAM. THE TECHNIQUES ARE AGGREGATE MODELS IN THAT THEY DEAL WITH LARGE GEOGRAPHIC AREAS AS THE UNIT OF ANALYSIS. THEY ARE CAPABLE OF DEALING WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF ALTERNATIVES RANGING FROM BUILDING NO ADDITIONAL HIGHWAYS TO EXTENSIVELY BUILDING HIGHWAYS. IN ADDITION, THE MODELS ARE CAPABLE OF INDICATING THE MIX AMONG HIGHWAY FACILITY TYPES BASED ON TRADE-OFFS BETWEEN INVESTMENTS AND BENEFITS BOTH DIRECT AND EXTERNAL. THE PAPER PRESENTS THE RESULTS OF THIS STUDY IN TERMS OF ANALYSES OF A BASE ECONOMIC OPTIMUM AND MAINTENANCE OF THE CURRENT LEVEL-OF-SERVICE ALTERNATIVES, THE TRANSPORTATION IMPLICATIONS OF ALTERNATIVE NATIONAL POPULATION DISTRIBUTIONS, THE IMPACT OF CHANGES IN HIGHWAY TRAVEL DEMAND AND MODAL SPLIT, THE EFFECTS OF VARYING ECONOMIC ASSUMPTIONS ON HIGHWAY REQUIREMENTS, AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF INCREASED EMPHASIS ON HIGHWAY IMPACTS.