详情

原文传递 Economics of road maintenance

题名：	Economics of road maintenance
责任者：	E Gould, C Parkman, T Buckland
关键词：	not available
学科分类：	公路工程
摘要：	Inadequate investment in highway maintenance results in deteriorating road conditions, which can increase costs for users and society. For example, vehicles consume more fuel when travelling on poorly maintained roads, and diversions because of failed infrastructure or emergency repair works cause additional travel time costs. There may also be wider costs to society associated with poorer environmental management (e.g. flood damage), safety and security controls (e.g. inadequate lighting provision), and even accessibility if parts of the network have to be permanently closed or restricted for travel. Such impacts affect businesses and economic activity. Delays to maintenance now can also lead to increased costs of maintenance later, when more significant interventions may be required. The current and expected future funding levels for local authorities in England and Wales mean that there will be strong pressures to reduce road maintenance expenditure on local roads in the next few years. In this context, the RAC Foundation and ADEPT saw benefit in moving beyond a summary of the known generic impacts of maintenance, to establish the nature and magnitude of the impacts that might be expected on local roads in England and Wales. Such knowledge would provide a useful contribution to future decision-making by all levels of government. To support the recent National Roads Maintenance Review for Scotland, a more comprehensive assessment of the social, environmental and economic impacts of road maintenance was undertaken. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were undertaken to establish the impacts in that context (Parkman et al, 2012a). The aim of the RAC Foundation and ADEPT study was not to repeat this work but rather to consolidate, explore key areas of difference, and understand the degree to which any results are transferable from the Scotland study to the local road context in England and Wales. Recent literature was explored, and a questionnaire requesting specific items of information was circulated among a number of local authorities to obtain data for use in this study and to assess the data available for a more detailed future study. The qualitative evidence of impacts was summarised based on Department for Transport (DfT) guidance with a focus on those impacts that can potentially be monetised. The evidence shows that there will be economic, environmental, safety, accessibility and integration impacts associated with any reductions in road maintenance. The Economics of Road Maintenance vii It was confirmed that no significant new impacts or approaches to the analysis have emerged since the completion of the Scotland study (Parkman et al., 2012a). However, the relative balance of the impacts will be different in England and Wales based on the differences in the networks (e.g. proportion of roads in urban areas and levels of traffic). It was also noted that the diversity across local authorities in England and Wales is possibly greater than in Scotland and this, in particular, will affect the formulation of any further in-depth study on the topic. The Scotland study suggests that the most significant quantitative economic impact of road maintenance arose because of changes in carriageway maintenance investment and activity and resulting carriageway conditions (Parkman et al., 2012a). The review of quantitative evidence gained from that study indicates that this will also be true for England and Wales. With higher traffic levels in England and Wales, there is no a priori reason why the most significant quantitative impacts should not also be due to projected changes in carriageway maintenance on the English and Welsh local road networks. It was more of a challenge to complete a quantitative analysis for the English and Welsh local road networks compared to the Scottish study, for two reasons: • Scottish local authorities, through their Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland (SCOTS) collaboration, have developed a model that projects road conditions based on budget scenarios using a consistent approach for all local authorities in Scotland. Such a model is not available for the English and Welsh networks • There is a greater proportion of C class and unclassified roads in England and Wales (for which there is less condition data available), which would mean the results of any scaling of results from the analyses on A and B class roads (for which information is more readily available) to provide the results for the whole network would be less reliable An outline methodology has been developed to describe the recommended steps required for a future study to provide more comprehensive results. These are to: • establish a carriageway condition projection model approach – a relatively simple, network-level model is suggested as the first step for an analysis of this type; • summarise the current network condition for carriageways in the format required for the model – assumptions would need to be made for the significant parts of the network (i.e. C class and unclassified roads) for which data is likely to be unavailable; • define funding scenarios and identify the impact of overall road maintenance budget reductions on carriageway maintenance spend; The Economics of Road Maintenance viii • define road-user cost and vehicle operating cost models using standard parameters (e.g. from WebTAG) and other assumptions; • determine future network condition and road-user and vehicle operating costs associated with each funding scenario; and • perform sensitivity analyses to test the range and robustness of results and assumptions. The methodology could be applied at a national level or by individual or groups of local authorities. However, it will be important that the steps are followed consistently to enable genuine comparisons between different analyses outputs. Finally, it should be noted that the methodology is based on the assumption that, while budget variations considered may be significant, their dominant effect will be to drive incremental changes in network condition. If the variations are more extreme and may lead to closure of significant links on the network, a modified approach will be needed. The revised methodology would also need to address the direct and wider economic impacts of revised travel patterns caused by the rerouting of traffic.
出版机构：	Transport Research Laboratory
提交日期：	3 June 2013
总页数：	67
报告类型：	科技报告
资源类型：	科技（咨询、行业）报告
初始创建时间：	3 June 2013