scholarly journals Cluster-Based Pavement Deterioration Models for Low-Volume Rural Roads

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Sunitha ◽  
A. Veeraragavan ◽  
Karthik K. Srinivasan ◽  
Samson Mathew

The management of low-volume rural roads in developing countries presents a range of challenges to road designers and managers. Rural roads comprise over 85 percent of the road network in India. The present study aims at development of deterioration models for the optimum maintenance management of the rural roads under a rural road programme namely Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in India. Visual condition survey along the selected low-volume rural roads considers parameters like condition of shoulders, drainage features, cross-drainage structures, and camber, and pavement distresses, namely, potholes, crack area, and edge break, are collected for a period of three years. The deterioration models have a significant role in the pavement maintenance management system. However, the performance of a pavement depends on several factors. Cluster analysis can be used to group the pavement sections so that the performance of pavements in different clusters can be studied. Nonhierarchical clustering technique of k-means clustering was considered. Separate deterioration models have been developed for each of the clusters. A comparison of the models developed with and without clustered sections reveals that the clustering of pavement sections are preferred for the efficient rural road maintenance management.

Author(s):  
Maria Lorena Lopez

The main issues that have been addressed in the Costa Rican government’s policy for low-volume rural roads are discussed. As in most developing countries, providing good roads to support the growing demand for agricultural and tourism activities has been a great challenge, especially in times of important budget limitations. The Costa Rican experience is shared in the hope that it can prove useful in other countries, because its impact has not been limited to just providing better roads; it is also helping to motivate widespread citizen participation and to improve technical and organizational capabilities of the local governments. Because the majority of the rural roads are managed by local governments, whose administrative and technical capacity has been limited in the past, the central government, through the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation, has developed a comprehensive policy based on simple technology transfer programs and regulations for these organizations, while at the same time inducing a method of investment planning that requires organized citizen participation. The program, called Participative Road Conservation, has become the center of the government’s policy. Some of the highlights of the program are presented. The strategy of the program has been to give straightforward guidelines in organizational issues of road maintenance at the local government level (including the local road committees), basic technical standards to be followed, and planning methodologies. One of the fundamental principles of the program is the sharing of responsibilities for adequate road maintenance, including financial contributions, among the communities, the local government, and the central government. This policy for sustainable rural roads is making a change in the road maintenance culture of the country. It has required educational programs concerning the importance of roads, the correct way to build and maintain them, adequate control of the work, and so forth. Once the community is involved in planning and rehabilitating a road, it is more likely that the road will not be allowed to deteriorate again. Even children are involved in a program of school patrols. The financial reforms that have been made in Costa Rica to attend to the needs of the national and municipal road systems are also addressed.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Akhilesh Nautiyal ◽  
Sunil Sharma

PurposeA large number of roads have been constructed in the rural areas of India to connect habitations with the nearest major roads. With time, the pavements of these roads have deteriorated and they need some kind of maintenance, although they all do not need maintenance at the same time, as they have all not deteriorated to the same level. Hence, they have to be prioritized for maintenance.Design/methodology/approachIn order to present a scientific methodology for prioritizing pavement maintenance, the factors affecting prioritization and the relative importance of each were identified through an expert survey. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to scientifically establish weight (importance) of each factor based on its relative importance over other factors. The proposed methodology was validated through a case study of 203 low volume rural roads in the state of Himachal Pradesh in India. Ranking of these roads in order of their priority for maintenance was presented as the final result.FindingsThe results show that pavement distresses, traffic volume, type of connectivity and the socioeconomic facilities located along a road are the four major factors to be considered in determining the priority of a road for maintenance.Research limitations/implicationsThe methodology provides a comprehensive, scientific and socially responsible pavement maintenance prioritization method which will automatically select roads for maintenance without any bias.Practical implicationsTimely maintenance of roads will also save budgetary expenditure of restoration/reconstruction, leading to enhancement of road service life. The government will not only save money but also provide timely benefit to the needy population.Social implicationsRoad transportation is the primary mode of inland transportation in rural areas. Timely maintenance of the pavements will be of great help to the socioeconomic development of rural areas.Originality/valueThe proposed methodology lays special emphasis on rural roads which are small in length, but large in number. Instead of random, a scientific method for selection of roads for maintenance will be of great help to the public works department for better management of rural road network.


2015 ◽  
Vol 744-746 ◽  
pp. 1324-1330
Author(s):  
Hai Feng Zhang ◽  
Lian Yu Wei ◽  
Yang Song ◽  
Wei Dong

The Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu expressway is the first highway which is built by using World Bank loan in china. With the influence of service life increasing and traffic growing, the diseases appear such as rut, crack and poor flatness, so the use performance of the highway obviously degrades. Pavement overhaul effectively reduces the appearing of pavement diseases and prolongs the service life of the road. This paper conducts a detailed research on the engineering management and construction quality control of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu expressway overhaul which has strong reference significance on highway overhaul.


2003 ◽  
Vol 1819 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene M. Wilson ◽  
Martin E. Lipinski

Practical tools for improving transportation safety are needed worldwide. It has been estimated that motor vehicle–related crashes account for more than 1 million fatalities each year, and the number of serious injuries far exceeds fatalities. Local and low-volume roads are significantly overrepresented in crash statistics. Globally, the road safety audit (RSA) concept has been recognized as an effective tool in identifying and reducing the crash potential of roadways when used to analyze the safety aspects of project plans and designs before completion. In the local rural road arena, many safety issues are associated with existing roadway networks. Many of these networks have developed over time with little or no planning or design. There is a critical need for a practical tool that focuses on the safety of the existing as-built local road network. The RSA review (RSAR) process has been developed for this purpose, giving specific recognition to the functionality of the road being evaluated for safety issues. Significant numbers of safety improvements are needed, and practical approaches to address these needs are crucial. The RSAR tool has the potential to be particularly beneficial to local governments in systematically addressing safety deficiencies on existing rural road networks. In addition, it is a proactive safety tool that has the potential to protect agencies from tort liability since it establishes a record of the organization’s safety agenda. An RSAR methodology that can be adapted by local agencies is presented. A case study illustrating the application of this process is included. Also highlighted is a local rural training program that has been presented in several states for county applications. The focus is on U.S. county applications, but it is recognized that the process has utility for other agencies and has application in other countries. The necessity for training as a key component in the development of a sustainable safety program is emphasized.


2007 ◽  
Vol 1989-1 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-289
Author(s):  
Tahir Ahmad ◽  
Juraidah Ahmad ◽  
Mustaque Hossain

Author(s):  
M. Yadav ◽  
B. Lohani ◽  
A. K. Singh

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The accurate three-dimensional road surface information is highly useful for health assessment and maintenance of roads. It is basic information for further analysis in several applications including road surface settlement, pavement condition assessment and slope collapse. Mobile LiDAR system (MLS) is frequently used now a days to collect detail road surface and its surrounding information in terms three-dimensional (3D) point cloud. Extraction of road surface from volumetric point cloud data is still in infancy stage because of heavy data processing requirement and the complexity in the road environment. The extraction of roads especially rural road, where road-curb is not present is very tedious job especially in Indian roadway settings. Only a few studies are available, and none for Indian roads, in the literature for rural road detection. The limitations of existing studies are in terms of their lower accuracy, very slow speed of data processing and detection of other objects having similar characteristics as the road surface. A fast and accurate method is proposed for LiDAR data points of road surface detection, keeping in mind the essence of road surface extraction especially for Indian rural roads. The Mobile LiDAR data in <i>XYZI</i> format is used as input in the proposed method. First square gridding is performed and ground points are roughly extracted. Then planar surface detection using mathematical framework of principal component analysis (PCA) is performed and further road surface points are detected using similarity in intensity and height difference of road surface pointe in their neighbourhood.</p><p>A case study was performed on the MLS data points captured along wide-street (two-lane road without curb) of 156<span class="thinspace"></span>m length along rural roadway site in the outskirt of Bengaluru city (South-West of India). The proposed algorithm was implemented on the MLS data of test site and its performance was evaluated it terms of recall, precision and overall accuracy that were 95.27%, 98.85% and 94.23%, respectively. The algorithm was found computationally time efficient. A 7.6 million MLS data points of size 27.1<span class="thinspace"></span>MB from test site were processed in 24 minutes using the available computational resources. The proposed method is found to work even for worst case scenarios, i.e., complex road environments and rural roads, where road boundary is not clear and generally merged with road-side features.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-71
Author(s):  
Hezekiah O. Adeyemi ◽  
Oluwaseun O. Martins O. Martins ◽  
Olanike O. Ade-Ikuesan, O. Ade-Ikuesan ◽  
Olawale O. Olaluwoye O. Olaluwoye

Local Governments (LGs), the third tier of government in Nigeria, are expected to maintain infrastructure facilities at the grass root level but most rural communities in Southwest Nigeria are characterized by poorly maintained roads. This study assessed conditions of Moveable Rural Road Maintenance Equipment (MRRME) under LGs in Southwest Nigeria vis-a-vis the safety levels on the rural roads. The study measured, impacts of roads conditions on commercial drivers/riders (cdr) and, level of usage of MRRME for the roads. Questionnaires were used to measure: accident rates and impacts among 250 cdr on 9 selected rural roads; Maintenance Performance Measures (MPM) of MRRME among 430 Senior Technical Officers (STOs) and Senior Finance Offices (SFOs) in 84 LG secretariats. The conditions of MRRME were carried out using observational method. More than 72% of cdr were involved in one crash or another and 89% of them attributed this to bad roads. Less than 26% of MRRME was functional with weak plans/tools put in place for correct maintenance program leading to a high level of MRRMEs’ failures and total neglect. T-test t (428) = -5.146, p = 0.421) found that the opinions of STOs (poor ratings for MPM policy implementation) were not different from that of the SFO. There is the need for safety attitudinal change among cdr. LGs also need empowerment to ensure proper maintenance of MRRME and enhances their availability. These measures among other will reduce accidents death counts on Nigeria rural roads.


Author(s):  
Andreas Tapani

In many countries the road mileage is dominated by rural highways. For that reason it is important to have access to efficient tools for evaluation of the performance of such roads. For other road types, e.g., freeways and urban street networks, a wealth of microsimulation models is available. However, only a few models dedicated to rural roads have been developed. None of these models handles traffic flows interrupted by intersections or roundabouts, nor are the models capable of describing the traffic flow on rural roads with a cable barrier between oncoming lanes. These are major drawbacks when Swedish roads, on which cable barriers and roundabouts are becoming increasingly important, are modeled. Moreover, as new areas of application for rural road simulation arise, a flexible and detailed model is needed. Such applications include, among other things, simulation of driver assistance systems and estimation of pollutant emissions. This paper introduces a versatile traffic microsimulation model for the rural roads of today and of the future. The model system presented, the Rural Traffic Simulator (RuTSim), is capable of handling all common types of rural roads, including the effects of roundabouts and intersections on the traffic on the main road. The purpose of the paper is to describe the simulation approach and the traffic modeling used in RuTSim. A verification of the RuTSim model is also included. RuTSim is found to produce outputs representative of all common types of rural roads in Sweden.


2011 ◽  
Vol 250-253 ◽  
pp. 3688-3691
Author(s):  
Jr Hung Peng ◽  
Po Hsun Sung ◽  
Jyh Dong Lin ◽  
Kuang Yi Wei

The urban road becoming more perfect, pavement engineering is from new construction to maintenance management. The authorities, from acceptance the new construction turn into survey of the road‘s situation and control of various types of damage and road conditions on time, to maintain a good condition of the road. In this study we use the CCD with the general Global Positioning System to provide GPS coordinates and have a street shooting for each 20m of road, record of the CCD road imaging system, and with GPS coordinates, the street pavement shooting can identify the highest frequency distress type within 100m of the road, and compare with the value of IRI for statistics, considering different distress conditions associated with the International Roughness Index, and to explore the causes. This study has an Urban Road Management System, it divided into road flat index query and pavement condition index query, and user can use this system know the pavement condition every section. The road maintenance unit can be judged by this indicator status of pavement roughness to develop a conservation strategy of each section, reflecting the degree of conservation of each section, making the pavement to maintain a good quality. Urban road maintenance management system is for the each authorities built the road pavement maintenance management system for pavement managers with different levels of management authority, and to assist in the system can provide information for urban roads to do planning, query and management, it is beneficial to the authorities to implementation of urban roads and other road maintenance operations, they can immediately understand the pavement condition.


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