The Department of Accelerated Rural Development in Thailand has undergone major structural reforms according to the direction of National Economic and Social Development Plan 9, which decentralizes government authority into subdistrict levels. The goals for subdistrict level management are to improve the quality of life and the living standard through economic and social development in rural areas. By restructuring the maintenance practice and policy to complement the new orientation of the plan and to enable the proper planning of rural road asset maintenance activities, a systematic rural road asset-management system was implemented to achieve the goal of the subdistrict and central management. A web-based technology was used to provide an easy linkage between the central and the remote offices for both network and project-level management. The organizational barriers, development process, tools and technology, data integration, and benefits of the improved data-management system are discussed. The developed system includes data regarding pavement, bridge, drainage system, traffic sign, pavement marking, and vegetation problems. How web-based information technology can be applied to an asset-management system is discussed. The benefits are measured for productivity, profitability, and rural road user effects.
Abstract