The report describes the effect on vehicle operating costs of a simple labour-intensive method of rehabilitating and maintaining badly deteriorated bitumen surfaced roads in the eastern Caribbean. The techniques developed for the rehabilitation and maintenance of the roads are described, and the equipment, materials and manpower required are listed. The rehabilitation and maintenance system is a simple one restricted to providing adequate drainage, filling the potholes in the road and providing a minimum seal over the whole road surface. The reduction in vehicle operating costs resulting from the improvement in the riding quality of the road surface is shown to be sufficient to recover the rehabilitation costs in a very short time even at flows as low as 100 vehicles per day. The majority of the roads included in this scheme are of low strength, have low geometric standards and have traffic flows ranging from 50 to 1500 vehicles per day. All the roads have been trafficked for at least one year since being rehabilitated and some for two to three years. During this time little or no damage to the surface has taken place. (Author/publisher)
Abstract