Development of maintenance standards for rural road networks based on cost-effectiveness analysis

Rural roads play a crucial role in the economic and social development of societies, linking rural communities to education, health services and markets. Rural roads asset value is small compared to national and provincial road networks, fact that may explain why agencies responsible of rural roads management lack of enough budget and resources to assess and maintain the network properly. This is especially critical in developing countries, where the majority of the population lives in rural roads and where limited tools are available for the sustainable management of the network. In the practice, management of rural roads is performed under a short term basis, not considering the life cycle costs and benefits for the economic evaluation and when developing maintenance programs. The main objective of the study is to develop and validate cost-effective maintenance standards for unpaved rural roads. The study is directed at improving the management process of unpaved road networks that serve rural populations. Considering this, the scope is to develop maintenance standards that can be used by agencies in charge of the network management, considering available resources and their technical skills. To reach this goal the study considered a four step methodology which included the evaluation of an unpaved road network during four years, the identification of maintenance treatments effects over roads condition from field data analysis, the definition of maintenance strategies and the final development of optimal maintenance standards. The study is part of a four year project that was conducted at the University of Waterloo which resulted in the development of a sustainable management system for rural road networks in developing countries. The proposed standards were applied and successfully validated demonstrating to be adaptable to different scenarios, in terms of climate, budget, traffic and road structures.