The National Road Maintenance Condition Survey (NRMCS) is an annual survey of the condition of roads in England and Wales which has now run for over a decade. Detailed results of each survey are published in annual reports produced by the Standing Committee on Highway Maintenance, a committee representing all highway authorities in Great Britain. This paper describes the background and methods of the survey for an audience who may be unfamiliar with the organisation of road maintenance activity in Britian. After a short history of thesurvey, section 3 outlines the division of responsibilities for highway work. This has been a major determinant of the way the survey is organised. Sections 4 to 7 describe the survey in more detail, covering the geographical extent, statistical design, data collection, and analysis. Section 8 presents some of the main results which have been obtained, while section 9 outlines ways in which they have been related to maintenance work and expenditure. A brief description of deflection surveys, which have run in parallel with the main "visual" survey during most of its life, is given in section 10. In conclusion, section 11 reiterates the strengths and shortcomings of the survey, and suggests possible ways to overcome, or at least ameliorate the effects of, some of the latter.
Abstract