A new model for the systematic maintenance of rural roads in austria is described which has been elaborated in the course of a research work for the austrian ministry of agriculture and forestry. The main part of the work deals with the development of a technical maintenance system consisting of the following individual steps: (a) inventory and documentation of the existing roads and their conditions (data base) as a basis for the exact characterization and assessmentof the individual roads and the assignment of further data. (B) general data collection that primarily aims at the recording of the condition of the network. In this, the main target is not the exact recording of the conditions of the roads with view to individual damagefeatures, but the distinction between roads or sections in good conditions and those for which a further, detailed investigation is demanded. (C) detailed investigation of the sections for which rehabilitation or reconstruction measures are necessary. The detailed investigation aims at the development of the maintenance project, including the selection of the technically appropriate and the economically most efficient variant of the rehabilitation or reconstruction measures which might be applied. (D) priority rating of individual measures within the considered network. The indicators that are necessary for the rating are the condition of the road, number of users, traffic category, traffic load, and the length of the section that needs rehabilitation or reconstruction. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1291, Fifth international conference on low-volume roads, may 19-23, 1991, raleigh, north carolina, volume 1.
Samenvatting