For nearly ten years in France, a "quality image" approach has been implemented for national road assets: road pavements (1993), bridges and tunnels (1994) and retaining walls (June 2000). The "roads" quality image mobilises a hundred people and, after nine campaigns implemented throughout National Road Network since 1993, it is now planned to move towards a system using higher-output equipment that gives more importance to skid resistance. The evaluation of engineering structures began with bridges and tunnels and was extended to retaining walls in June 2000. An inventory has been made of bridge assets on the national road network and their qualitative evaluation has been started. The quality image approach is soon to be extended to drainage and national road facilities. The Directorate of Roads pays particular attention to the satisfaction barometer and the users' forum to better know and satisfy user expectations and requirements. 2002 is a year of change in this scheme. The satisfaction barometer is used to find out road users' opinions on the journey they have just made, in terms of the carriageway, roadside, traffic signs, services, safety, etc. It now has to be improved. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.
Abstract