Local roads: technical aspects of the NAASRA roads study in retrospect

The NAASRA roads study was undertaken to determine the effects of various levels of funding on three main road classes, rural arterial roads, urban arterial roads and local roads. This paper presents a view in the light of experience of some of the more technically interesting aspects of the local roads study. These aspects include the sampling procedure and definition of the area classes (urban, rural and sparse rural) chosen for assessment, the method of building the future road inventory tabulations (ie, length of road by stereotype and aadt range), and some of the issues which could not be qualified. The problem of paucity of data is encountered in every one of these aspects, so a plea is made for a single general routine system of data recording by local government authorities to suit all users. Case studies are suggested to examine particular regional local roads issues and characteristics (a).