Maintenance management approach for highway system

摘要

India has one of the largest road network in the world. The highway system in India consists of Expressways, National Highway (NH'S), State Highway (SH'S). Major District Roads (MDR'S), Other District Roads (ODR'S) and Village Roads (VR'S). The road network has expanded from 4 lakh km in 1951 to 21 lakh km at present with a five fold increase. The vehicle population has increased at a rapid rate from 3 lakhs in 1951 to about 400 lakhs at present. The urban roads constitute about 10 percent of total road length. Hill roads in India constitutes about 20 percent of total road network and exhibit a variety of climatic, geological and ecological characteristics. The network of existing roads is now showing signs of premature failure due to cummulative effect of inadequate maintenance and structural inadequacies of roads to cater the need of increased traffic volume and axle loads. Further, with the reduced availability of funds, the task of preserving and maintaining highway assets is becoming increasingly complex. The losses due to bad condition of the main road network would be around Rs. 12000 croore (4 billion U.S.dollars) per annum (Gupta, 1994). The total economic returns on cost of road improvement and maintenance would be as high 50 to 60 percent in one year alone. The actual allocations for maintenance of roads all over the country have been far below the requirements.