This report reviews and investigates current threshold levels with the aim of establishing levels for maintenance investigation. These cannot be viewed in isolation from other procedures that each Highway Authority will have in place. Therefore, the report also examines the overall maintenance system. The objectives of footway maintenance are to provide a safe environment, to prevent deterioration, and to provide a satisfactory surface quality to encourage walking. There are benefits in planned and timely preventative maintenance. However with funds for maintenance limited, many Highway Authorities are not able to carry out inspections for maintenance on a systematic basis, let alone undertake maintenance improvement schemes. A staged process of inspection is proposed which provides the basis for prioritising funds and identifying the need for increased funding. The process consists firstly of the selection of schemes based on information to hand, supplemented where necessary by a coarse type of inspection, secondly the further selection based on a detailed inspection, and thirdly the prioritisation and selection of treatment type. Three different threshold levels are proposed: safety, maintenance and serviceability; provisional thresholds are proposed based on a study of current standards and other available literature. (Author/publisher)
Abstract