An approach to the assessment of the effects of alternative future road funding levels

This paper describes a recently completed study of all Australian roads in which the approach was to estimate the future physical and travel conditions on the road system, and the cost of transportation on it, for different levels of future funding. The paper describes the procedures and techniques used in the study. The first step was to describe the base year situation which involved the collection and analysis of data on specific issues, on road and bridge inventory, on traffic and traffic service measures and on road and bridge work output and expenditure. Alternative future funding levels for analysis were then selected, and future management (expenditure) strategies for each of these levels were developed. The effects of the alternative future funding levels on the road system and on travel on it over a 10 year analysis period were then analysed. The techniques included the use of a computer based planning model for rural arterial roads using data from a series of coordinated data banks, the application of transport planning and road inventory based analyses for urban arterial roads, and sampling procedures for local roads. The study was documented in detail (a).