Developing countries are anticipating furthering economic development through road development. On the other hand, accompanying issues triggered bythe explosive increase of automobiles, such as traffic congestion, road safety and environmental issues, have become very serious and attracted growing social concerns. Many countries are making significant efforts in order to respond to these issues. The main theme of PIARC Strategic Theme 1 (ST1) is "Governance and Management of the Road System" which covers major issues concerning road administrations to support sustainable socioeconomic development. Under this strategic theme, four technical committees are conducting studies to improve governance and management. The ST1 Strategic Direction Session at the World Congress is designed to discuss how road administrations should tackle the above issues. Fourteen countries submittednational reports to introduce their country's recent challenges to achieving sustainable development of the road system. According to these 14 reports, the issues and approaches vary from one country to another on how to improve governance and management of the road administrations. This is dueto the differences in regional conditions, economic conditions, and the stages of development of the road networks. For instance, in the growth stage the emphasis is placed on road development, thus financing is a major issue. On the other hand in a maturing stage, the attention focuses on recurring activities such as maintenance and operation. Outsourcing to privateparties and developing new technologies are also important issues to maintain and improve road assets and operate road systems efficiently. Many countries secure funding for road system development through taxation. Thereare two methods. One is that the financial authority will set priority onprojects and the fund will be allocated from the general account budget. The other is the earmarked fund to impose tax on the beneficiaries - road users. Another major pillar for road financing is to introduce a toll roadsystem. This may use external financial resources - private funding - forroad system development to cover the budgetary constraints, or it may introduce user charging for the main purposes of traffic control in the urbanareas. The collected tolls will be appropriated for improving road and other transport systems. Concerning the efficient operation and management, three areas of activities - strategic planning and policymaking, capital investment, and service delivery - are typically executed by the governmentorganizations (if the organization covers all three activities). The responsibility of road administrations can include any combination of these activities and these require different governance structures. In many cases,privatization and outsourcing are used in order to achieve efficiency. Nomatter what form the organisations take, it is vital for them to improve performance efficiency and accountability to stakeholders. For this purpose, many countries have been adopting performance measurement for road administrations in economic, social, and environmental fields. In addition, maximizing the effectiveness of existing systems by applying new technologies such as intelligent transport systems (ITS) has become a new focus. Network operations embraces operation of the road network in the widest sense,including improving safety, ensuring mobility and accessibility, providing reliability, exchanging information with other organizations, managing incidents and disasters for quick recovery, efficient execution of maintenance and upgrading works, and providing traffic information. Many countrieshave significant concerns about the environment, and are introducing public consultation in the process of road planning and policymaking. Also efforts are made to improve environmental quality by promoting the efficient use of energy and environmentally friendly lifestyles. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Abstract